Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For as long as I’ve been in Hay River, and I’m sure for many years before I got there, there have been very strong ties between what was called the Hay River Reserve, the K’atlodeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River. These two communities are located on the east and west sides of the Hay River. Mr. Speaker, there has never been a permanent link between these two communities and when there is no ice road in the wintertime, it requires the residents to travel many miles, clock many miles to travel back and forth between these communities. People from across, as we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really torn about supporting this motion. I haven’t had a chance to talk to people in Hay River about it yet. I think I’ve only ever had one concern ever brought to my constituency office about the issue of distracted driving and that person doesn’t live in Hay River anymore, they moved away.

Mr. Speaker, driving in Yellowknife is very different than even driving in Hay River, which is the second largest community. I think Hay River has two sets of traffic lights now, but for many, many years we had none and I think we have one four-way stop, unlike Yellowknife where...

I would think that even through our education system and throughout schools, there would be a ready avenue to affect the thinking and the knowledge of young people on this very important topic. I know in the schools, too, there has been a campaign to get away from junk food and unhealthy beverages. Would the Minister see collaborating with the Department of Education on such a campaign to be an easy and perhaps cost-effective way to get the message out to our younger citizens about the unnecessary consumption of bottled water? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Environment and Natural resources. We all know that we have an extraordinary high cost of living in the Northwest Territories. Yet, even though we are sitting on some of the best fresh water in the world here, we continue to import, in little clear bottles, tons of water. I don’t know how many millions of bottles or hundreds of thousands of bottles. I don’t have those statistics with me today. But as the Minister responsible for the stewardship of our environment, what is this department doing to discourage people from...

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The wish of the committee is to deal with the committee reports in the order they appear on the Order Paper and proceed as far as we can before having to recognize the clock. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess to some extent even speaking about this in the Chamber is some way of creating some public awareness. Mr. Speaker, it’s my impression that with the Beverage Recycling Program, it’s a bit of a conflicted message. People say if I buy this lovely case of 36 bottles of water in plastic bottles, I am recycling those so I am doing something really good for the environment. But it’s a bit of a double standard, a bit of a mixed message. A lot of the beverage containers that we bring in here we probably shouldn’t have them in the first place. Is there any opportunity...

The department, I don’t know what department launched this campaign, but there was a Drop the Pop campaign because of the high sugar content in pop and soft drinks and the harm that that is bringing to people’s health. Has the Minister ever contemplated some type of similar campaign to drop the bottled water?

As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, we here in the Legislative Assembly do not use bottled water anymore, but I don’t think people are aware. I really don’t think the awareness is there, because why would people spend the kind of money that it costs to ship bottled water into the...

It is my pleasure again today to recognize in the visitor’s gallery Mr. Rocky Simpson who is here for meetings. I hope he had a very successful visit again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the issue of the resources that we have on our doorstep and yet seem to import from the South at great cost and harm to our environment.

Mr. Speaker, so far in this session I’ve talked about the abundance of our fish, our wildlife, agricultural opportunities; all renewable resources, Mr. Speaker, right on our doorstep.

Today I would like to talk about how blessed we are to have the water supply that we have in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, Great Slave Lake is the fourth largest lake in Canada, the ninth largest lake in the world and the deepest lake in North...