Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, this is still on the radar screen. It’s still something we want to consider. But we need to determine what our fiscal situation will be as a government first through the financing formula and also through resource revenue sharing. Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions, and we have looked across North America, in fact, I have, what other jurisdictions are doing to reduce the cost of living. Some Members have mentioned to me that in Alaska, for example, there is no Alaska income tax. There’s federal income tax, but no Alaska income tax, and that’s true in some other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize two constituents, James and Sheila Anderson from Weledeh, who are hosting…

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one of the AFS exchange students, Ms. Phee Sunantarod. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker, I am meeting on at least three occasions with the other Premiers across Canada over the next three months or so. During that time I will raise this one again, but I must say that we have talked about it and we do want to move aggressively in getting the federal government to respond to the expert panel reports that have been out and ask them to deal with that quickly. We are looking at trying to resolve that one by this fall and hopefully then have a better idea of what kind of breaks we can afford to give to our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The answer is yes, I have discussed this with my northern counterparts and with some of the provincial Premiers, and the Member is correct that this is a national program. It would mean having to make changes not just in the northern zone, but in what we call the intermediate zone, as well. Mr. Speaker, in looking at this with the Premiers from the Yukon and Nunavut, it was our decision to put this one on the back burner until we had made more progress through the expert panel on our territorial financing formula and also on resource revenue sharing. Mr. Speaker, the...

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; the $40 million was a down payment. The government-of-the-day agreed to provide $40 million to each territory to be able to deal with issues that were of greatest urgency in each territory. That is why we allocated to the community governments to allow them to determine their first priorities.

It has always been felt that resource revenue sharing and fixing the formula were a key piece of any northern vision. That is the piece that we have been focussed on recently with the two expert panel reports, the most recent of which was released today. Fixing the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Members know, the Northern Strategy was an initiative that was undertaken jointly by the three northern Premiers and the Prime Minister of the day. There was an agreed need to take a long-term vision on northern issues as well as to deal with immediate issues. That strategy has resulted in the $40 million that was made available to our territory. Thirty-five million dollars has gone to the communities in community initiatives.

Mr. Speaker, with the new federal government, Minister Prentice has indicated that, yes, he wants us to work with him on what he referred...

Mr. Speaker, yes, we have a number of aboriginal governments and aboriginal organizations across the Territories. Some have settled claims and they would like to get on with and join the economic benefits that come from their claim and from economic activity. We have others who are in the process of negotiating claims. They would like to settle those negotiations first.

Mr. Speaker, let me say, when Minister Prentice was in Norman Wells in April for the Circle of Northern Leaders, he was quite clear there that he was ready to proceed in what he called the best interest of the majority of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to recognize my former constituent who lived in Weledeh and is now living in Winnipeg, continues to be my constituent-at-large and was in town for the graduation of one of her children. Thank you. It’s Ms. Major Karen Hoeft. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to highlight a number of important initiatives undertaken by this government over the past year. I also want to bring Members up to date on an important national initiative that will be a large focus of our work over the remaining seventeen months of our mandate.

First, I would ask all Members of this Legislative Assembly to join me in recognizing and thanking the people and community of Inuvik, along with all the volunteers, emergency personnel, GNWT staff and others who assisted the people of Aklavik during the recent flood in that community...

Mr. Speaker, I assure all the Members in this House that we are going to continue to work in cooperation with all of the Premiers. We met last week in Gimli. We did talk generally about this. This is the expert panel report. The Premiers all assured myself and the other northern Premiers that they are 100 percent on side with us. We are meeting again on Thursday. We will be talking about the territorial report as well as the provincial report dealing with equalization. We have full agreement that they are 100 percent behind us, that our situation is unique, that we shouldn’t be drawn...