David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 63, An Act to Amend the Victims of Crime Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 59, Estate Administration Law Amendment Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I hosted the first ever Mining Industry Advisory Board meeting here in Yellowknife. This was a key recommendation from our Mineral Development Strategy and it certainly is an honour here today to welcome four of the six members of that board with us today, so I wanted to recognize them: Mr. Don Bubar of Avalon Rare Metals; Mr. John Kearney, Canadian Zinc; Ms. Leni Keogh of Olivut Resources; Mr. Rod Brown of Discovery Mining Services. Not able to be with us today and I should mention the chair of the advisory board is Mr. Brendan Bell from Dominion Diamond...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 64, An Act to Amend the Co-operative Associations Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand the Member’s concern. Again, if the leadership in those communities and the Member feel strongly that they would like to see us in those communities, whether we can get to all three or not, we will try our best. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned last week, we are going to take more time with the process that we have underway.

Again, every application is scrutinized by arm’s-length regulatory boards that hear directly from the public and make decisions and set requirements for every single project based on the specifics of each proposal, recognized best practices, current science and public views. Ruling out one particular technique is like telling a doctor they can only ever use general anesthetic for a procedure, when local anesthetic or even an aspirin might be more appropriate. It is more...

We hadn’t contemplated doing any polling. We are going to move forward with the plan that we have. If we need to make adjustments to that plan, we will do that. Thank you.

You just have to look around the Northwest Territories and a lot of the infrastructure that we have in place here today is a direct result of resource development, whether it’s mining or hydro, in the case of the Taltson, or mining.

We are looking at an opportunity in the central Mackenzie Valley. One of the knocks against the Territories is lack of infrastructure. Members are talking about environmental concerns, and the Member is asking about wastewater. It would make much, much more sense if we had an all-weather road down the Mackenzie Valley. That’s something that’s been a priority of the...

Again, the process is playing itself out. We still have some communities that we need to get in and have our meetings. But at the end of that process, we are going to look at other opportunities to work with communities and educate people. I know that Member Yakeleya and I talked about a possible elders summit on hydraulic fracturing in the Sahtu. That is something that I think we could take a look at potentially having sometime. If there are opportunities to get into communities to help educate the public on hydraulic fracturing, we need to take that opportunity. We have some time here. Again...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every application that is received is scrutinized by arm’s-length regulatory boards here in the Northwest Territories that hear directly from the public and make decisions and set regulations for every single project based on the specifics of each proposal.

Through ENR there has been work done on water and there are other efforts in place. Of course, the proponents in the Sahtu have done a lot of work on baseline information gathering themselves. So when an application comes forward, that information is in it so the public can understand what the application is and the...