Cory Vanthuyne

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment is pleased to provide its report on Bill 34, Mineral Resources Act. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that Committee Report 33-18(3) be deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories assess, develop, and adopt a set of principles, tools, and indicators to drive performance and ensure greater transparency and accountability, such as those contained in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), or the 'Towards Sustainable Mining' (TSM) commitment of the Mining Association of Canada. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk today about P3 contracts. Public-private partnerships have been used to achieve some of our large infrastructure projects here in the North, like the new Stanton Territorial Hospital, and will be the method used for the Whati road.

The benefit of P3s is that projects that would otherwise not have funding can be completed using long-term payments that don't require an increase in taxes. That way, government funds can be used elsewhere for other priorities, but, Mr. Speaker, our government has policies to support northern businesses. To be consistent...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories appoint an independent panel to undertake a review of the system for charging royalties to mining, petroleum, and natural gas companies operating in the Northwest Territories, and further, this review should include a comparison of the Northwest Territories system with that used in other jurisdictions and should make recommendations on system improvement while providing opportunities for public input. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories work with the NWT Association of Communities and municipal governments in the Northwest Territories to develop solutions to resolve the challenges of rights issuance that overlaps with municipal boundaries, in order to better protect municipal infrastructure and ensure public interest is protected; and further, efforts should also be directed at protection of lands and waters where critical municipal infrastructure is located or planned. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories develop the curriculum for prospector training, working with Aurora College, the Mine Training Society, and in consultation with industry experts who can offer expertise in the applied content subject matter. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While I appreciate that some other Members are going to speak this evening, possibly with regard to, "Maybe we could have negotiated a better deal," my position all along has been that I do not support a carbon tax, whether it is coming from this government or whether it is coming from the federal government.

I believe that we are already penalized severely for where we live. This is a dark, cold territory for eight months of the year. We are already penalized for being in this region. We are also further penalized by the cost of living. It is 20 to 30 percent more...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee would like to review Committee Report 33-18(3), Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on Review of Bill 34, Mineral Resources Act; and Bill 34, Mineral Resources Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. If there were such a charter or devolution of responsibilities that were to come to the city, what would it begin to look like? Are there some kind of amendments that we would have to do to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act? Is there some special type of devolution agreement similar to the process that we had to go through when we dealt with the feds devolving responsibility to us? Just so people can get a little understanding of what this might look like, does the Minister have something he can share with us in terms of what the next steps would look...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am actually going to be in support. I have been seeing both sides of how some of these land uses have taken part in the past. I don't think that the mover of this motion has any intention to limit anyone's ability in terms of, let's say for example, leaseholders who are going to have recreational properties or cabins or the like; that's not the intention of the mover to want to put any kind of mandatory security on those types of leaseholds.

While the Member has mentioned the Giant Mine project and the now remediation that we have to deal with, and the lack of...