Brendan Bell

Mr. Speaker, thank you. Obviously, we think this is an industry with a lot of promise. It’s come a long way. I think it’s important to remember that this industry in Canada, never mind the Northwest Territories and North America, is truly in its infancy. It’s not many years now since the production began at the Ekati mine. Diavik followed. So we knew that there would be bumps in the road here. We think we have a sustainable industry. We think the factories that are operating now are doing a very good job. We do acknowledge that it is very competitive. We are dealing with labour, and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll certainly report back the next time we sit and I can give the Member a progress update. Unfortunately, we won’t be sitting in a month’s time, but after Christmas I can certainly provide that update. Mr. Speaker, it’s important for us to recognize that when we talk about the uranium transportation route, there are other sites where uranium product was transferred. Those sites are also a concern to us. We’re concerned about the soils near Sawmill Bay, Bennett Landing and Tulita; we’ve mentioned that. Also at Fort Smith. So there are a number of sites that the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can tell the Member that I share his frustration and I think many northerners do as well. It’s obviously a difficult legacy that we have from past industrial use, military use and other uses across the North, and across the entire country in fact, that we have a number of contaminated sites and these sites need to be cleaned up. The Member is right that there has been a lot of discussion between federal departments over the last 10 years. There was an acknowledgement and recognition in the early '90s that contaminated soil had to be dealt with in the Tulita area...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 16, Northwest Territories Business Development and Investment Corporation Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll certainly find out what information and materials we have available to us and what materials we use in the regions. I haven’t seen the videos. I’ll take it that they exist and the Member has seen them. I assume that they aren’t available in some of the aboriginal languages and we can look at that too, especially regionally. Obviously it’s not relevant for all regions, but we can talk about where it is relevant. I think there’s also some merit in looking at other materials and making sure that people in communities understand these. Obviously that’s the idea behind...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we’ve determined that it would be cost-prohibitive to set up what we’re going to set up in the regions, these processing centres in every community across the North. I think what we’ve decided to do is establish community depots that will feed into the regional processing centres. It’s our intention that all communities will have community depots; whether they’ll all be up and running by the time this program is rolled out on April 1st, I’m not sure. A lot will depend on the proposals we get back as we go out now with an expression for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, October 20, 2004, I will move that Bill 16, Northwest Territories Business Development and Investment Corporation Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we can do that. One of the things I’ve been very impressed with is our regional operations right across the territory. I know our regional staff are working very diligently with trappers. They make sure that they take in furs, they advance monies to trappers, we have a grubstake program to get trappers started at the beginning of the year, so we already have a lot of contact with trappers. Certainly, we can sit down and discuss the potential implications of not resolving these issues. They are very important to us. I would like to hear from trappers how they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I last met with committee we discussed this and I think it was quite a concern to the committee, certainly for my department, and I know also a concern for federal Minister Ethel Blondin-Andrew, that the agreement on humane trapping standards that we have with the European Union and Russia was at risk without the research being done at this Vegreville facility. We met with federal Minister Dion to express our concerns and we were able to get the resolution of that issue for this year. There will be continued funding for that Vegreville facility to keep us in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m still awaiting some of the input from the committee to determine what makes the most sense in the application of these fees. My sense is there will be an amount paid by consumers as they pick up these beverage containers which they will get back if they recycle. So I think the incentive is there for people to recycle in order to keep costs down. It also made sense, I believe, to have industry involved in the development of this program. The last thing we wanted to see was people finding a way to circumvent our fees by getting beverage containers from other...