Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, the Public Utilities Board is an arm’s-length board from the Government of the Northwest Territories. As the Minister Responsible for the PUB, I can appoint board members to the board, but I don’t sign off on any decisions the board makes.

Part of the review that is being undertaken…. My expectation is that we would come up with options which would entertain exactly what the Member is putting forward. And that would be one of the options that we would look at.

I think it’s important for the public to understand the role the Public Utilities Board plays. The board reviews all applications for rate increases by a regulated power body. If the Public Utilities Board were not there, there would be no opportunity for review and for input by the public, and by affected sectors, to examine rates that have been put forward by utilities and corporations. Over the years the Public Utilities Board decisions have probably resulted in savings to the average consumer of a significant amount.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of people I would like to recognize. First of all, I’d like to recognize Mr. Ed Jeske, a long-time Yellowknifer and hockey enthusiast; Mrs. Vivian Squires from Avens Centre; Mr. Todd Parsons, the president of the Union of Northern Workers; Lydia Bardak, a Yellowknife city councillor; Paul Reddy; and Dave Matheson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not familiar yet with the legislation she is referring to, but I’m sure that we could address that when we make a presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been working in the past with the Territorial Farmers’ Association on a number of initiatives. We have been successful in working with them to negotiate a framework agreement with the federal government which has resulted in funding for agri-food policy. In order to have an agricultural policy that would be effective, there would be a requirement to identify some access to land, and I know the Member has heard that on many occasions. We have identified ways that it could be done whereby we could work with MACA to identify land and move towards lower taxation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This issue came up in the previous government. A discussion paper was enacted. I believe there were 69 responses to the discussion paper. This is something that we will consider again as this government goes through establishing its priorities for the next four years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member right now is talking about a hypothetical situation. Employees that do find themselves in such a situation are encouraged to contact their senior management or to contact the department. We have invested a lot of time and effort to train investigators. We have a number of positions within the Department of Human Resources that have been trained to specifically deal with workplace conflict situations and also to conduct investigations into these types of situations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had that issue clarified in the past and have discussed it before. We are quite prepared to discuss it in light of the Auditor General’s recommendations. Certainly I’m not looking at renegotiating the land claims agreement, but certainly we’ll clarify the arrangements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to point out that the MOU and contracting wasn’t set up as a requirement of the land claim, but it was set up as a policy decision by this government. Having said that, we are prepared to include those recommendations by the Auditor General and include it in the evaluation.