Brendan Bell

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of Bill 11, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, is to amend various statutes of the Northwest Territories for which minor changes are proposed or errors or inconsistencies have been identified. Each amendment included in the bill had to meet the following criteria:

It must not be controversial;

It must not involve the spending of public funds;

It must not prejudicially affect rights;

It must not create a new offence or subject a new class of persons to an existing office.

Departments responsible for the various statutes being amended have reviewed and approved the...

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure at this point whether ATVs are allowed in any area of the park in any capacity. I will find that out. We will discuss this with the committee. I think we need to ensure that protection is upheld, as the Member has pointed out, and, as we establish these rules, criteria and this plan to protect the park, we will do a communications plan to make sure that everybody in the region and anybody coming in from outside the region knows the rules of being able to enter the park. It is obviously very vast. It is hard for us to police and protect in that manner, but we can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to applaud the Member and the Premier and others who took that opportunity this summer to trek through the Canol Trail. I believe they have one segment left next summer. I am sure we can have a reunion to see that last third completed. Mr. Speaker, we are certainly moving forward to see a territorial park created there. Of course, there are land transfer issues, DIAND. There is a park committee that has been set up to watch over that and handle that administration. There are a number of steps here. I don’t have the latest in terms of the discussion with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. I am pleased to inform the House today that the Government of the Northwest Territories and De Beers Canada have reached agreement regarding the provision of rough diamonds from the proposed Gahcho Kue Diamond Mine, currently in the environmental impact review process.

The agreement will ensure continued support for our secondary diamond industry by making available 10 percent of diamonds by value from the proposed Gahcho Kue Diamond Mine for sale to approved NWT diamond manufacturers.

To ensure the continued integrity of our government...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize another student with the AFS Interculture Program, but also thank Mr. Braden for his volunteer work with this organization, hosted by the Wetmores in my constituency. There is Hiu Ying Lau. I have been getting some coaching from Member Hawkins who tells me that Lai Hoa means hello. So, hello.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t aware that there was a concern with the crush of number of people trying to get in and register their firearms. What I will do and propose to do is, the minute we are finished here in the House, I will call Stockwell Day’s office, the Minister responsible for Public Safety, make the case, let him know that we are having difficulty here and appeal to him to either find some way to extend this or put more resources into accommodating the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we would be prepared to sit down with committee and talk about legislative priorities. It is not something the committee has raised as one of the top priorities of the government from their perspective. So we have a number of legislative initiatives that need to be undertaken. There are a number of things that we need to do and know we can’t get done in this government. As I have indicated, there is some past history here. For cost-saving measures, we have moved away from this. Locksmithing is a trade. It is not a certified trade yet in the NWT. It was pulled together with...

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'd like to add my thoughts and also indicate that I won't be supporting the bill at this time. I think there is some merit to having this debate about the updating or the amending of this provision, and we've had this discussion at Board of Management. My feeling, though, is that the debate would be better held by the 16th Assembly's Remuneration Commission. Every four years we do strike a committee to look at Members' benefits and pay, and while I don't believe this provision was considered by the last committee, it could very easily be considered by the next...

Mr. Speaker, I am able to do that. We can do that. We have a number of discussions, some of them formal with committee, some of them informal at a body like Caucus, where we discuss legislative priorities from time to time. There are many avenues that this could be raised to our attention, but I will take the Member’s suggestion on the floor of this House. We will pass this on to the next government. Thank you.