Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. GNWT labour relations recently informed the Union of Northern Workers that Stanton Territorial Hospital’s eight maintenance services workers are likely to face layoffs, possibly as early as June 2015. While Cabinet communications recently softened and confused this announcement, the writing is on the wall.

Stanton’s food services and housekeeping employees have already been privatized. With the public-private partnership approach to the Stanton rebuild project, this government is committing itself to yet more privatization of government jobs and long-term provision of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s unfair to the long-time and loyal maintenance services employees at Stanton to have the uncertainty of the timing of their layoffs and whether they will be laid off at all hanging over their heads. Indeed, they reported a destroyed workplace atmosphere compared to conditions before the critical government pronouncements, and we heard the many equivalencies here today from the Minister.

When is the Minister prepared to provide some certainty to these employees, given that this Minister sets the schedule here, so that they can make appropriate plans based on clear...

There are provisions made, not as a matter of respect, by these organizations, such as land and water boards, for the Government of the Northwest Territories departments to call for environmental review. It’s not a matter of respect; in fact that provision is there. We can use it anytime we want.

Mark Carney, ex-governor of the Bank of Canada and current governor of the Bank of England, recently stated at a seminar at the World Bank that fossil fuel companies cannot burn their existing reserves of oil and gas if the oil is to avoid catastrophic climate change. We know what this means for our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier in follow-up to my Member’s statement today. The Premier is aware of all the ways the residents of the NWT have expressed their grave concerns about fracking, the impacts of fracking and the need for thorough and inclusive review as so many jurisdictions are doing.

This government has devolved authorities to give Northerners more voice, according to the Premier, yet they are clearly being stifled by our own government who refuses to hear them.

Given the failure to penetrate this government’s comprehension to date, what will the Premier do...

Taxpayers pay the Minister’s and Premier’s travels around the world to entice fossil fuel developers, declaring the NWT open for business. Then the Minister returns home, dons his regulator hat and regulates these same corporations. I ask you, are there questions to be raised here? All this for fossil fuels whose combustion is known to be frying the earth and whose pursuit leaves the land and many people devastated in its wake. The people know what is needed, but they are being effectively silenced.

Citizens of the NWT, rest easy, your government is on the job. Meet the new boss, same as the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the public will not hear what our presumption is, the basis for our presumption that we can do everything right. The Premier mentioned best practices that we subscribe to. Let’s just look at what best practices have gotten other jurisdictions. California’s pristine aquifers have recently been done in by produced water that supposedly could never enter their portable aquifers that they relied on. Studies now prove that supposedly cleaner fuels produced by fracking like gas and liquid natural gas, which the Premier is pushing for all our communities, have...

That certainly confirms that Northerners’ voices are not being heard. According to an EKOS poll last week, 70 percent of Canadians, regardless of political affiliation, support a fracking moratorium “until it is scientifically proven to be safe.” Significant numbers of Northerners want the same thing, or at least a comprehensive review. GNWT departments have authority because the MVRMA calls for an environmental review if there “might be public concern.”

What expression from the public is required for the Premier to finally listen to the people and ensure a thorough, transparent and public...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome all the residents of Weledeh that are in the House today, I know there are many. I’d like to mention in particular Ms. Jennifer Young, co-founder of Face2Face, a local organization that helped the House recognize Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, as mentioned earlier, which was yesterday. As a result, all the Members are wearing pins that recognize that day. Ms. Young I know has requested that all MLAs wear the pins for the rest of October. In fact, they are planning an event tonight at the Yellowknife River at seven o’clock and all Members...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The voice of the NWT, the people of the NWT have expressed serious concern about fracturing the earth for oil. They’ve signed petitions by the hundreds, they’ve passed resolutions calling for comprehensive reviews or fracking bans in their areas via resolutions at the Sahtu and Gwich’in assemblies. By the hundreds they’ve written letters to authorities and asked their MLAs to call for a review, and indeed some MLAs have.

The Yukon First Nations banned fracking. Old Crow banned fracking. Our people with a new voice, supposedly devolved from Ottawa, have called for a...

I have before me a finance sheet of agreed upon figures of the Yellowknife Catholic School Board signed off by the Minister’s finance director and the senior finance officer for YCS – and that will be tabled later today – that clearly shows the ECE/YCS agreed upon numbers for board funding projections. There are undeniable deficits that for conservative enrolment predictions accumulate to $1.67 million by year four all in. The impacts of this fall on the backs of our students, and this is true for many school boards.

Why is the Minister not owning up to these budget reductions so we have can a...