Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We believe that Miramar is out of compliance with their water licence because of the delays and, as a member of the working group, we were involved, obviously, when the chairperson of that group wrote a letter to Miramar Con Mine to advise them that they were in fact, in our minds, out of compliance with their water licence by not meeting the deadlines. We are waiting for a response from the company, but obviously we see it as being of paramount importance that we get some progress here, and are waiting for Miramar to respond. Thank you.

Thank you, we are discussing all of those issues and we do, in our minds, have a financial bottom line. I don’t want to disclose that here, obviously. We are negotiating these issues with the federal government, but clearly we see, by and large, a federal responsibility. Obviously, underground is entirely a federal responsibility, they have been the mining regulator of record for the life of that mine. On the surface there is some debate. We want to move this forward quickly. DIAND is proposing to come forward with a project description and an A and R plan. I think they will do that...

This season, Aurora viewing companies are expecting 11,000 visitors, a 10 percent increase over the number that visited last year.

Mr. Speaker, I will co-chair an oversight review committee with my colleague, the Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Jane Groenewegen, to oversee planning for the Northwest Territories participation at Expo 2005.

Currently, work is underway to prepare for our participation in this important event. We intend to highlight all aspects of the Northwest Territories, with specific focus on tourism, diamonds, culture and the arts. We are also very interested in working with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope I got the nature of the question. The PAS is, in fact, grassroots driven. It’s really up to communities to identify areas that they think are culturally sensitive or natural or cultural areas that they feel are special and indeed need protection. So we rely on communities to identify those and then the various partners in the PAS all combine to make sure that those areas are, in fact, protected from future development. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member has indicated, the filing of the EIS is another important milestone for the pipeline project, and we’ve always said that it is important and this is why we support the Protected Areas Strategy currently, financially and in support to the secretariat. But it’s important to have protected areas established and we’re working toward doing that. This is a three-way partnership with some ENGOs and the federal government. We are trying to find the money in our government to fund our portion of the Protected Areas Strategy -- I think it’s $1.5 million over five...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, I want to give the Member every assurance that we have wildlife officers and the department has wildlife officers in all the regions, and we believe they do a very good job of enforcing the regulations under the Wildlife Act. We acknowledge that it is a difficult job. It’s a vast territory and admittedly we don’t have as many wildlife officers as we would like to, but we are constrained by resources. We were both surprised and, I suppose, concerned that barren ground caribou arrived so soon so close to Yellowknife and on the Ingraham Trail; concerned about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member indicates, the A and R plan under the terms of the federal water licence is under review by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board. They have formed a working group to review the draft plan put forward by the mine, by Miramar.

We are sitting on that working group and we also indicated our support for some public process. They have had public meetings and hearings on the draft A and R plan. It is my understanding that Miramar has now taken some of that input and the recommendations from the working group. They have taken that away and are revising...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member indicated, I was able to meet with the Minister of DIAND in Ottawa on September 1st and had a fair bit of discussion around the cleanup at Giant Mine. We discussed the issues in-depth and I was very impressed, he was well briefed on the file. He indicated that it was a priority for the department to see this cleanup move forward. The last time I stood in the House and answered the Member’s questions in this regard, he had some concern about the level of dialogue, I believe, between our officials and DIAND officials. I am getting weekly updates from my...

Mr. Speaker, Heritage Canada has invited the provinces and territories to participate at Expo 2005, to be held from March to September 2005 in Aichi, Japan. Aichi Prefecture is about an hour train ride west of Tokyo, near the city of Nagoya. The theme of Expo 2005 is Nature’s Wisdom.

Organizers anticipate that more than 15 million people will visit Expo 2005 over a six-month period and 1.5 million visitors are anticipated to visit the Canadian pavilion with some 90 percent of these visitors expected to be Japanese.

This exposition provides an excellent opportunity to market the Northwest...

Thank you. The proposal was received from the Fort Smith Metis Council prior to signing, obviously, the contribution agreement. The funding request was to be used to purchase snowmobiles, ATVs, outboard motors, boats and various equipment required to help harvesters. Thank you.