Jane Groenewegen

Okay, well, that’s good news. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to continue on with the detailed consideration of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and perhaps, since we’re getting an earlier start today, maybe even make it into the opening comments and general comments on the NWT Housing Corporation.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe that those discussions will be concluded before the time tomorrow, at some time tomorrow when the Minister has already committed to issue a press release. Even if the Minister can’t provide the specific details, I think there are some substantive pieces of information that could be made known to the public. I would like to ask the Minister again, would he release that, in as much detail as he is able to release it, before the House sits tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. Mr. Speaker, there already is rumour and speculation out in the public about the status of the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Tuesday night MLAs received an update on the project. This is Thursday. The update that we received was substantial news, shall we say. This is Thursday and I believe the public needs to be aware of what is happening with this project, because, as I said in my Member’s statement, it could have very far-reaching effects for the operations of this government.

Mr. Speaker, this is a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have often felt kind of conflicted on this whole issue of NTPC, because I am very interested about, and concerned about, the well-being and the valuable contribution of the folks at head office, being as most of them are either my constituents or Mr. Speaker’s constituents. At the same time, I am listening to the people who represent communities where people are literally burdened under the weight of the cost of this service. We have heard from the NTPC Review Panel. There isn’t a whole lot we can do to change the way things are operated at headquarters that would...

Mr. Speaker, when you look at Crown corporations that are owned by government, there is always some good reasons why that activity is carried on at arm’s length from the government. In the example of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, it had to do with that corporation’s ability to receive money from federal programming and so on. There were good reasons that you could articulate why it needed to be arm’s length from the government. Is there any such reasons why NTPC needs to be a Crown corporation at arm’s length from the control and supervision of this government? Thank you.

We are considering the rate review report. I’m sure people out there are wondering about what will be the outcome of that deliberation. I’d just like to, for the record today, have the Premier tell us if any of those recommendations would indicate increased power rates in any community in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, this may be a slightly technical question, but I’ll ask the Premier in a general way, has some analysis been undertaken that would indicate the cost-savings if the Power Corporation were not operated as an arm’s length Crown corporation but as an entity providing power not on a for-profit basis but just as an essential service on a cost basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to my colleague from Nahendeh for leaving me a few minutes on the clock here. My questions today for the Premier relate to the Member’s statement that I made. We say that we are interested in lowering the cost of living for people in the Northwest Territories. Some 22 years ago the Government of the Northwest Territories repatriated the power company from the Northern Canada Power Commission and established the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. As creating that Crown corporation, we necessarily, as a government, owned it, we were the shareholder. Then...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this discussion on this motion is turning into something that the motion to delete is not. I think we are talking about two different things here. The government is saying yes, support the $400,000. Why then can it not clearly be described to us what the $400,000 is for? Because if it is for a steering committee, I don’t support it. You can buy a lot of food for $400,000 and if we thought it was a milk subsidy or a food breakfast program for children and we keep talking about the communities, this would be, I assume, unless we want to specifically target to...