Jane Groenewegen

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee today? Ms. Bisaro.

Again, not so many years ago we did have a business in Alberta that is very informed with respect to the development of energy and hydro, and we could never seem to advance that discussion as far as we wanted to. We had an unsolicited proposal from ATCO, out of Alberta, to partner with us to expand the Taltson. They’ve got money; they’ve got experience. One of the concerns at the time was that we didn’t have the capacity on our side of the table to negotiate something that people thought would be fair for the Northwest Territories.

Do we have that capacity now and could we still be looking at...

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement was a little all over the map today, I just had so much to talk about, I’m trying to get it all out there in the first day, but I’m going to try to cut back a little bit and just be a little more methodical about this now.

I’d like to ask the Premier – he’s talked about devolution, we’ve talked a lot about devolution. We’ve talked a lot about devolution in terms of jobs and the resource revenue proceeds from the resources that leave the Northwest Territories. The bigger picture has got to come to play in the fact that we will have more control, but...

Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very honoured today to second this motion. This is history in the making in the Northwest Territories.

If I could go back to my campaign material for the last five elections, I’m sure I’d see devolution at the top of every platform, and that is also a part of a platform that I believe everyone in this House ran on. It is an amazing feat, indeed, to see the agreement that has come into place that is before us today.

I see that the newspaper, the Yellowknifer, says that MLAs have no say on devolution. I would like to know about those hours and hours of briefings that I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to follow up on something that was alluded to in my colleague from Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard’s, Member’s statement when he was talking about the renewal of health care cards and the length of time it’s taking. I’m going to talk a little bit more about something he referred to at the end of his statement, and that is a satellite health insurance office for Hay River.

The division of heath care services located in Inuvik is called health services administration and has 22 positions that deal with health care card registrations, renewals, vital statistics...

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have two items before us today: Bill 11 and Bill 20. What is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize, in the visitors gallery today, a resident of Hay River South, Mr. Jack Rowe, a businessman in Hay River and the president of the Rowe’s Group of Companies, who employs not only in Hay River where they are based but also a large number of people in the South Slave. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank Minister Beaulieu for his visit to Hay River, for taking time out of his busy schedule, for going there and seeing the facility these folks were in, for listening to them, for hearing what their challenges were and what they were offering the community, and he did express great support. I have to say that and I want to thank him for that.

How can we translate that, as Mr. Beaulieu heads up the Department of Health and Social Services, how can that commitment and support for an NGO translate down to the people who actually deliver that support within the public service? How...