Statements in Debates
Mr. Speaker, I would say that, number one, through our socio-economic agreements with the industry, we have secured a supply of rough diamonds potentially for our own secondary industry and that’s why it’s been going on for as long as it has. Secondly, the commitment to sit down at the regional leaders table, I did make that. We are going to be sitting down with them later on this month and re-engagement of devolution and resource revenue sharing will be one of the items that we will have discussion on so we can incorporate just to what level we’d like to see that re-engagement happen on...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process that’s been engaged by previous governments and the process we picked up on was one that included a package combination of devolution and resource revenue sharing. It engaged the aboriginal leadership across the Territories. We started off on that footing, as well, and looked for an additional infrastructure commitment from the federal government attached to that. That’s the process we would go. If we want to change the approach, then we would have to relook at that file to see if, in fact, we wanted to take it down, as we have in the past. For example, when...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the group undertaking the review asked for an extension on the work they’re doing on data collection granted that. We expect a copy of the draft very shortly. I don’t have an actual yet, but I am expecting it soon and we can then get it into the hopper and system here. Thank you.
As our process is laid out, I would take the report to the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee, then to standing committee for further review of it and go from there. Thank you.
The reports and the rollout of the reports in coming back were all looked at in timing for exactly that reason; they are linked together. We are not going to make a decision without having all the pieces lined up, so that’s the intention, is to look at this all in a comprehensive approach. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the economic analysis of a Mackenzie Valley Highway is something that the Department of Transportation has undertaken and I believe they are prepared to set some time aside with Members to go over that work. Thank you.
We have kept the discussion going at the political level with engagement from the Prime Minister’s office, a commitment to have further discussions around an infrastructure discussion. There has been no formal proposal put in place, but we continue to engage, for example, with the Minister of Transportation and other Ministers around this idea and looking at how we can work with the federal government through the different pots of funding to even come up with, for example, what they have announced up in the Inuvik-Tuk portion of highway work that can be done. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m optimistic that we can, working together as leaders across the Northwest Territories. Not just the Government of the Northwest Territories but the aboriginal leadership across this Territory, the community leadership across this Territory can work together to develop a plan to bring that plan forward together as one group of people in the Northwest Territories. Not a difference between who we are and who we represent, but one people of the Northwest Territories representing a diverse group, of course. But I believe if we decide to work at this and put some effort and energy...
Mr. Speaker, I think there’s a lot Regular Members can do in helping us get the message out there, whether it’s to our northern leadership, aboriginal leadership, how we work together, the information, if there’s a request for more information. If you’re hearing back that there needs to be a certain type of information put out, let’s get together and develop a package we can put out there. The message we send to Ottawa is an important one. They pay attention to what we say and do in this Assembly. So I think there’s much we can do together in getting the message out about the North and the...
Mr. Speaker, the Member is entitled to his own opinion no matter where it goes or comes from.
As the Government of the Northwest Territories, the appropriate departments have been involved. We were the best organized, I think many would say, when it came to the hearings. We are involved in the negotiations of the socio-economic agreement. There are a number of fronts we are involved with from Municipal and Community Affairs, ITI and ENR.
Again, the Member is entitled to his own opinion on that. We will coordinate, we will respond and we will engage in Members through that response as we go...