Bob Bromley

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up on some of these similar questions for Bill 11, Petroleum Resources Act. I know a number of the public are alarmed at the regulations being proposed and put in force by this act, particularly because it is a fundamental change in public policy that demands public discussion certainly, and one would think in a consensus government that it would at least have demanded committee discussion. The questions were asked at the beginning of this six-week sitting. Commitments were made about briefing committee and that still has not been done. Again, so-called...

Thank you for that information, Mr. Chair. I’ll repeat my question again. Given that these meetings can affect how our public land, water and resources are managed, planned – and resources and water that belong to all of our public – is there any reason why these meetings cannot be public and made so through regulations?

Could I know generally just what sections, if that’s handy? I will just go on with my next question while you’re looking that up.

Sections 27 and 35, although they speak a little bit to financial security, it’s not mandatory. I’m wondering why, when this was an opportunity to make this mandatory. It’s “may require” and so on, so doesn’t offer the certainty that residents of the Northwest Territories are looking for, and in fact, it does make us liable to take on significant liabilities in their absence. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Good to hear that. The previous Greenhouse Gas Strategy massively overestimated the level of industrial development that would take place in the NWT and now, of course, the Minister claims the lack of development is a success in reducing missions. How to preplan success.

Will the next Greenhouse Gas Strategy take a more rigorous approach and list the emissions reductions that we aim to achieve from each action in the strategy?

I do agree that this structure could play a very important role as a perpetual review of our suggestion in terms of legislation and management of our land and resources and water, and especially so if the full public is involved, if it’s transparent and if it’s inclusive of all people and all perspectives. I don’t think that’s too much to ask when the public is, indeed, funding it.

Again, the Premier says it’s been out there. In fact, it’s been very hard to find. For some reason it’s been pulled out of my copy of the Devolution Agreement, and most Members’ copies. It hasn’t been very available...

I think I followed that. So what’s the time frame for that? Is that set anywhere?

Thanks to the Minister. I hope it will be more than that. Both the current Greenhouse Gas Strategy and the relatively new Energy Plan are focused almost entirely on the supply of electricity to our communities and a little bit on heating, yet they all start with graphs showing that our greenhouse gas emissions primarily come from transportation and industry.

How can we claim that our strategy was successful when it did not even address the problem?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is, although a very brief bill, this seems a very large bill in other ways. If I’m right in reading this, this bill is meant to, really, broadly coordinate the management of lands and waters across regions and between public and land claim settlement lands, which we know is a big job. I think there’s a good chance that it could play a very important role for a sober second thought perspective on things for some accountability to be brought by our Aboriginal partners, for example. I think they have a better record, in many ways, than government. I’m somewhat hopeful...

Again, I just think it’s interesting that we’ve supported Inuvialuit keeping their water board and none in the rest of the regional water boards in the Mackenzie Valley. I am wondering why we weren’t successful in getting all of those to remain in place.

We know the price of oil is not going to be coming down. We know that President Obama will soon put a price on carbon emissions and Canada will follow. The only question is when, not if. Many in our business community are responding to these opportunities and so are many home and building owners.

To reduce the cost of living, we need to find ways to support the rapid rollout of these opportunities to everyone in the North. Mahsi.