Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No. More than half of the positions are regional positions. Yes, there are some superintendents, five superintendents. But more than half these positions are in regions to help us deal with the clients in need, both on the environment side and the economic development side. I know the Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development hears this message loud and clear as it travels. I’ve been with them on the road, I’ve been in these communities and we are hearing that we are not meeting the needs of our communities and we’re not able to meet regional needs in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not saying 20 jobs because of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. I’m not saying 28 jobs, as the Member indicated in her statement. It’s 23 additional jobs. We’ve got a heated economy. We had to do something about our mandates in terms of economic development and environmental stewardship. These are critical priorities of this government. They have been well discussed and debated, as our Legislature set out to create the strategic plan. Certainly that’s where I was taking my direction, Mr. Speaker.

I want to also indicate that of those 23 jobs, one additional position is...

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite clear. I did say we would look at proposals to construct mobile homes in the North. The debate over stick-built over mobile homes was one that was taken. The Housing Corporation looked on a cost-recovery basis of what they could do in communities. They determined that stick-built constructed homes would be in the neighbourhood of $200,000, mobile homes at $133,000. It was quite clear that if they wanted a program based on cost recovery, this was what they had determined was the best way to go. So if somebody approaches us and wants to look at construction of mobile...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For local businesses that would be installing mobile homes in communities, there is value added. There is employment created and that money will stay in communities and that is why we insisted that the BIP had to apply for the installation of these mobile homes. Those contracts were awarded, I believe, largely to northern companies, doing work in northern communities.

In terms of the actual phone call to purchase a trailer from a company in Sherwood Park, we know these can’t be currently constructed in the Northwest Territories -- I hope someday they will be -- but we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear; I think it is, quite simply, a fact that the Mackenzie gas project is not stalled. It is well into the regulatory process now; the Joint Review Panel environmental assessment is well underway. There has been so much interest in that process and so many information requests of Imperial, that the JRP has asked that Imperial be given more time in order to submit to those information requests.

I know there has been a lot of discussion in the media, back and forth, about the federal government meeting with the Deh Cho First Nations to resolve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What’s happening here is we haven’t rescinded the previous decision. I think this debate was had in the House. I remember specific questions from the Member at that point about it, and obviously our feeling was, as it related to install in communities, we would leave the BIP in place because there was a chance to have value added, there was a chance there would be northern employment out of this. But our feeling was that if the BIP was simply going to be applied so that northern home distributors could make a phone call to Edmonton and get trailers sent up, that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member makes a very good point. There are companies that can build stick-built homes in the Northwest Territories and we could have chosen that approach, but it would have been very difficult. You wouldn’t get stick-built homes for $130,000 in communities. So if it cost $300,000 to put a stick-built home in a community and you need to, on a cost-recovery basis, get the money back for these 22 homes, you would have been charging a rent…We already know $1,300 is difficult. I can’t imagine the teachers and nurses and professionals in the communities coming up with $2...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it will. I think that is the general consensus. Let me say that we believe that both Alaskan American gas and Canadian gas needs to get to market. We do need to find a continental energy solution. But our project is so much further down the regulatory process, in terms of the Alaska Highway project, I don’t think a route has been determined. This decision about whether the NPA or NEB will prevail, is still one that is largely up in the air. I am sure that there are discussions to come with Akaska and Treaty 8 First Nations in the Yukon. There are many...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think, by and large, obviously, we do practice that principle. On a specific where we think there really will be no value added, no benefit in the North, then the question becomes one of finding a balance. Do you insist that the BIP be in place and allow, as I’ve said, a northern middleman to apply an additional mark-up on the units being purchased, Mr. Speaker? That was the debate that we had. How much value was there in that? So what we decided was more important was affordable housing in communities. We’ve seen that the premise of this program is that they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The same rules will apply for phase two as they did for phase one. At that point when the decision was made to waive the BIP on the procurement of the mobile homes, it was for the life of the program. So there’s no difference between this phase and the prior purchase under phase one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.