Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend promotional events related to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s unfortunate that we do, from time to time, rise on such issues in this House. It seems to be the nature of the beast, in that sense. As the particular area of privilege has been raised by Mr. Krutko, he mentioned that there were a number of us walking out, including myself, and there was the exchange of words.

For the record, as I was walking out of the Assembly itself, the House, Mr. Krutko made some comments on his way out and gestured in a way that may itself not been received as appropriate for what had happened. Mr. McLeod had just tried to advance...

Mr. Speaker, the process, as the Member is well aware, the Wildlife Act, as I stated earlier, has outlived a number of Assemblies. I believe it was the 14th Assembly that we started the initial work, as some of us have been around that long, to try to update the Wildlife Act; the 15th.Assembly. We are now in the 16th Assembly and if we waited for that process, there’s no guarantee that there will be a satisfactory response. Maybe this Assembly might send it back for some other work. Meanwhile, as the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, on the counts and the estimated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area the Member goes into, he’s well aware, he’s negotiated for claims processes through the Sahtu and the Gwich’in as well, and he’s familiar with the legislation that we operate under. He’s been a Member of this Legislative Assembly for as long as I have, since 1995, and we know we both sit in this forum because of the NWT Act. I recall when my father was given the right to vote as well.

The issue that we have here is that we haven’t gone and dug out some piece of legislation that sat there. It is a part of the NWT Act. It is a part of an amendment the...

Mr. Speaker, on a regular basis, as we go through our process of approving contracts, there are guidelines that are used, whether they are low-level amounts that the authority has within a department’s authority spending levels or if it a director or even to the deputy minister and also to the Cabinet table. We do look at that, as right now ITI pulls all of our contracting information. We look at that information at times and look at what we’re doing and question department’s on some of the initiatives and why it was needed to go in that area. So we do do that review, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of sole-sourced contracts, that is one of the tools that the government has available through our Contracts Policy, whether it is negotiated contracts, sole-sourced contracts, public tenders, requests for proposals, requests for qualifications. In the area of the Executive itself, this has been a practice that’s been in place for many years of sole-sourced contracts when we feel that it is necessary to hire an individual who we feel can get the work we need done. Whether it is in Ottawa or another provincial jurisdiction or whether it is in fact working with...

Mr. Speaker, the process of the Wildlife Act is in gear. We are working with the aboriginal governments in the Northwest Territories to update that piece of legislation. In fact, at one of our first regional leaders’ tables, we started to work on a bit of process to move these initiatives forward. The Species at Risk Act is an example of that: working together. We will continue to work on that initiative. In the meantime, we have a very serious problem facing us here in the Northwest Territories. Conservation measures have been taken. We continue to work with the groups that are involved. We...

Mr. Speaker, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with the Wildlife Act. In fact, this government is committed to bring it back to this Assembly before the end of the life of the 16th Assembly so we can bring more clarity to the way we work together for the benefit of the people across the Northwest Territories. The Member is very familiar, as I am and other Members who have been around a long time, that we’ve tried to work through that process of the Wildlife Act through a number of Legislatures and where our goal is to have a new Wildlife Act put on the table for this Legislative Assembly...

Speaker, there is no preferential treatment given to anyone in the Northwest Territories. They have to bring their qualities and qualifications to the table. Now, as the Member has pointed out, there has been a history, whether it’s this government, previous governments, that use either past senior managers, and again, departments, Ministers have that authority to enter into some contracts. Being a small jurisdiction, at times if the Minister or a department is comfortable with the work that has been provided, at times you need to use those people and those resources to continue on some work...

The Member talks about a contract with a firm. I’m not aware of this specific issue that the Member has or the company and will appropriately not address it at this forum. I will be prepared if he wants to sit down with me over this issue and provide him information on that. Right now, without knowing the specifics, I don’t have it at my hands here to make any proper response to.