Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have worked with Mackenzie Valley Pipeline proponents and also the Aboriginal Pipeline Group in the past to determine some of the information requirements that were required for the pipeline. The Joint Review Panel has recently filed the report. Until such time as the responsible Ministers and the various governments respond, we will continue to participate through providing a government response and also continuing to intervene and participate in the different hearings as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I guess if it gives the Member any comfort, the Alaska Pipeline have indicated that their project be pushed back to probably 2020. I guess a large part of the delays there is with, for example in the Chukchi Sea, there have been a lot of court cases with regards to whales and other marine mammals. That is an issue that Americans have to face as well. We will continue to work through the regulatory process and we will be working on filing our government response. We will be participating in the hearings as they go along as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I think there are a couple of pieces of information that I need to emphasize. First of all, Imperial Oil recently announced that the decision to construct would be made in 2013. The earliest if gas would flow would be in 2018 if it was a positive decision. The reasons they gave for the delay was the long delay caused by the regulatory process and also the lack of a fiscal arrangement with the federal government.

In the recent federal throne speech and the recent federal budget, the federal government had indicated that they support the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline as long as it was...

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize Mr. Michael Ganley, the editor for Up Here Business magazine.

Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Question 1-16(5), I wish to table the following document entitled Direct Appointments, April 2008 - March 2009, and April 2009 - February 2010. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would communicate that to our people involved on the training side. I’m sure we can find an opportunity to do so.

The Mine Training Society doesn’t have an unlimited amount of funds; they have a limited amount. So generally we work to provide training in the areas of greatest interest and most of the training has focused around the North Slave region. Although, recently there was a training program in Fort Simpson. Generally where there is identified interest, as the Member knows, as part of the MOU initiative we’ve been working through our career counselling offices at Education, Culture and Employment to make sure that all the communities that are serviced by the career centres have information as to...

Thank you. We are in fact having those discussions between Aurora College and the diamond mine management through our MOU process, and this is an area that we have identified as a barrier and this is something that we’ll be working very hard to resolve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Through the MOU on mining that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and myself have signed with the three diamond mine companies, we’ve been focusing on three areas, one of them has been training. So through that process we are examining ways to train more people, more Northerners to go through programs that are designed specifically for employment in the three mines and other mines as they become open and processing. One of the things that we’re doing is identifying barriers that prevent any sector from being able to access training. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize two hardworking Pages from Yellowknife South: Braden Redshaw and Alyx McLean. I’d also like to thank all of the Pages who have served here in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.