Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, we are invited to be a part of that group that goes down there. Right now I believe it is only the western Premiers from southern Canada that are going down there. I’m not aware of the northern Premiers attending. For myself, I’ve had to look at the dates that would conflict with that. At this point the calendar hasn’t changed, so I would not be attending that, though the option was there for me to be there.

Mr. Speaker, the Western Premiers’ Conference, as I was saying earlier, is one that I felt went very well for the Northwest Territories. To have our issues part of the communications package that went out from that meeting across Canada does a number of things. It raises our level of interest. It sends a message to the federal government. The next steps for us from the Western Premiers’ Conference would be on issues that we feel would be encouraged by further bringing them to the Council of the Federation — that is, all the Premiers across the country — and then coming up with a specific plan...

Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware of — maybe I don’t understand the question — a rule or practice that stops Ministers in Committee of the Whole from having a discussion on issues that may affect their constituencies. In the formal House, as we are now, we’re unable to, for example, question government direction or where it’s going. But in Committee of the Whole we have from time to time had Ministers and Members as well question what is occurring at that time, whether it’s a motion in the House or an item under debate.

Mr. Speaker, as we conduct ourselves in this Assembly, we would review any particular incidents that occur. We know, for example, there’s a process of being ready and available for Members during question period as well as Committee of the Whole, and overall conduct of Ministers. Yes, if there were an issue that came up, we would sit down and have a discussion and see where we could correct things, if that were the case.

We are looking at the process of how it happens. We know, for example, that there are some staff that work for departments that fall out of the UNW side, and they’re excluded. But within departments they’re treated differently than deputy minister levels, so we’re having a look at trying to come up with a process that would make sense. It would look at performance for work done.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we’re going to get our message out to the people who need to hear it. We’ve also worked with a lot of groups. Whether or not they are the ones that specialize in environmental concerns or issues across the country, they’re still welcome to help and work with us in partnership. The message here is the fact that we in the Northwest Territories need to be making decisions about what impacts our lives, the economy and our environment. They need to be made here, not through some office someplace else, advising another government to make those decisions for us.

When you look at what we do as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we’re committed to a number of things: World Wildlife Fund, other groups from outside the territory. They may do some work in the territory, but they originate outside the territory.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On May 28, 29 and 30 I attended the 2008 Western Premiers’ Conference in Prince Albert Saskatchewan. As I stated in my Budget Address, I intended to focus my attention on delivering the message of our territory and our people to those that need to hear it. The Northwest Territories had the full attention of western Premiers and succeeded in getting their support for issues important to us.

The Premiers from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut and the NWT, along with the Deputy Premier from the Yukon, talked about the strength of the western economy...

We are a part of that. The Premier of British Columbia, Mr. Campbell, has initiated that work. It started off in January with the conference on climate change. Again, other jurisdictions are working with their leaders and coming up with initiatives and sharing some of the work that’s been done. For ourselves, from a territorial point of view working with other northern Premiers, coming up with our piece of that work, we are plugged into that process.

There was much discussion amongst Premiers about the initiatives of other jurisdictions. Of course, the media was very interested in what was happening in B.C. as well as in Quebec and Alberta. I was asked as well about our stance on it, and I did inform them that we were preparing to go out to the public on a tax initiative process for review and then see what initiatives would come back to this House.