Floyd Roland

There’s a number of initiatives that we’ve undertaken during the 16th Assembly when it comes to looking at program delivery or the way we deliver our programs in our communities across the North. Looking at that scenario and having to come back to Members to see if we will change the way we do our delivery could have an impact on the level of delivery and the level of services in our community. So that work is ongoing now, as a Legislative Assembly, along with the cost of living scenario where we’re looking at a number of fronts, looking at what we need to do differently as a government as...

Mr. Speaker, number one, there has not been an initiative specifically on minerals, oil and gas. The devolution and resource revenue sharing has been a package put together, and at some point we’ll have to discuss if we even keep those two packages together. But this will take a discussion at the regional leaders table, because as has been shown in the past, without the support of regional leaders, the federal government isn’t too keen on moving forward, either without ourselves as the GNWT at the table or without regional leaders at the table. So the partnership approach is the best one and...

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.

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.

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...

Mr. Speaker, we have stated earlier a number of departments involved in this. There will be a government position. We will coordinate that and we will be working with Members as to what gets done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Jackson Lafferty will be absent from the House for the remainder of this week to attend the federal/provincial/territorial Justice Ministers meeting in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There has been quite a number of Assemblies that have shown their support for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, this Assembly being one of them. There have been a number of reports that include infrastructure, highways. I think there are a number of reports out there that have been put forward to the federal government around connections, highways, transportation, airports, ferries, that type of scenario. What we’ve been engaged in was to look at how we can keep a devolution/revenue sharing deal on the table tied to future investments in key infrastructure in the Northwest Territories like the...