Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Jackson Lafferty will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the Council of Ministers of Education meeting in Toronto.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document titled NWT Power Corporation Report of the NTPC Review Panel, January 2010. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The thinking on this is thinking about building capacity with our aboriginal partners across the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, the Member doesn’t put more weight and bearing on that piece of it. We do, as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We will continue to do that.

We have looked at this project and this project has been built on a pure case of a business model. If we want to establish more to it, then we can do that.

Members of this Assembly have the Hydro Strategy. If we want to take particular pieces of that and put the emphasis on that, then let’s sit down and work that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT Hydro Strategy, we’ve put that in front of this House. It’s a public document. We know we’ve got to continue to do some work. There are future plans for having the interconnectivity as the Member discussed.

Specifically on this project, as the Member is aware from his own past work in a government department, it takes a lot of preparation that goes into getting to a point where you have a project that you can bring to the environmental phase and that process. Before you can sign agreements, you need to know what that final environmental piece would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to update Members on the work being undertaken to advance the 16th Legislative Assembly’s priority of working toward a common vision for the political development of the NWT.

As Members are aware, the newly established Northern Leaders’ Forum is made up of a representative from each of the regional aboriginal governments, the Northwest Territories Association of Communities, MLAs Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Krutko and myself. We initially met in July 2009 to hold preliminary discussions about working on the development of a common vision for...

To get the key pieces in place and make the final connections, we need to have a client to sell this to. This project is about building the economy of the Northwest Territories. It is about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions across the Northwest Territories. This potential project, if it were to go ahead and be completed, we’re talking 700 direct jobs during this phase, 230 indirect jobs, building a shareholder base and building capacity within our aboriginal corporations in the Northwest Territories. That’s the forward thinking. That is building the economy and spreading it out across the...

There are a number of emergency funds that are out there; again, depending on the department, the initiative or the emergency itself. For a community, Municipal and Community Affairs, again, holds that area and the commitment, as I was stating, is a commitment on behalf of Municipal and Community Affairs to sit down with the City of Yellowknife to look at alternative funding areas that might be looked at.

As to the area of the Condominium Act, if this was to be in any community in the Northwest Territories, they would be faced with the same situation and having to have a reserve fund...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northland scenario or issue has been looked at for quite a number of years by a number of Assemblies. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has tried to work with the city at the time, and I believe there is a commitment to sit down with them again and explore alternative funding sources for this scenario. The Northland Trailer Park is a part of Yellowknife, and Yellowknife does get block funding for O and M to help them deal with the issues here in the city.

The formula situation that’s been set up for communities has been designed for the level of support and the ability for a municipality to be able to raise revenue for its own repairs. But the City of Yellowknife does get O and M funding as well as capital funding, as well as they’re eligible for some of federal initiatives that are out there that could help assist and offset this type of work.

For that detail, I’ll defer that question to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.