Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Mackenzie gas project is critical to the long-term strategic interests of the Northwest Territories and to the social and economic future of our people and our communities. This project will provide significant opportunity for residents of the Northwest Territories to take control of their economic future.

On February 14th, the Joint Review Panel on the Mackenzie gas project will begin its public hearings to evaluate the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts of the project in the project area.

The Joint Review Panel is one of two hearing...

Mr. Speaker, I must say that, going right back to our strategic plan in the government, we talked about a strong economy and having a good fiscal environment. I hope the Member refers back to some of those documents. In terms of consensus government, that has been talked about for the last I don’t know how many years; certainly the life of this government and the government before.

Mr. Speaker, we are working with industry, and, as I say, with all industry, not just the pipeline, but everybody to create that certainty. We’ve talked about it I don’t know how many different occasions with all the...

Mr. Speaker, what we agreed to with Imperial is an agreement that said we are going to be fair. We are a responsible government that we’re taking over through devolution responsibilities, and we’re going to be fair with you in the same way we’re fair with every other little business in the community. We’re not going to hold you hostage or use you for a pawn to achieve some other objective we might have. We’re responsible; we’re fair; we’re good government. We’re not some banana republic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We, as a government, have to be able to balance a number of issues at one time. We can’t deal with one issue at a time. So there are a number of things in play, and I don’t know if the Member can keep up with all the things that are happening here or not.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will make available to all of the Members a copy of the letter that we’re sending to the Prime Minister. Certainly Members are free to share that with their constituents, so it will very quickly become a public letter.

Mr. Speaker, I did give the Members a quick briefing on what I thought were the main priorities, and asked for input, if anyone has other ideas. If I can, very quickly, Mr. Speaker, they are financing and resource development, devolution included. Both our financing formula and devolution and resource revenue sharing are priorities. Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on January 23rd, Canadians elected a new Parliament with the Conservative Party of Canada posed to form the new government. On behalf of the people and Government of the Northwest Territories, I would like to extend our sincere congratulations to Mr. Stephen Harper on his election as Prime Minister of Canada.

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We were very pleased and encouraged by the commitment made by Prime Minister-designate Harper on election night to work with the northern territories to help achieve our dreams and to develop the potential of this great region. Once the new...

Mr. Speaker, when Imperial and its partners invest $7.5 billion, that’s a lot of money. It’s enough money to run our whole government for seven years. When they invest that much money in one project, they want to get as much comfort as possible on a bunch of fronts. One of them includes the federal government and they’ve been negotiating with the federal government on that and they had a letter of comfort with the federal government for some outstanding issues. They also realized that we are negotiating devolution and resource revenue sharing. We will become more province-like within the life...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, we don’t set the royalties and, no, we don’t have authority over the Crown lands. But what the company wanted before they invested $7 or $8 billion was to know what was going to happen post devolution. Were we going to be ambushing them with some weird and expensive royalty regime? They wanted some certainty. What were we going to do post devolution? That is the context in which we answered the question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of the principles in the letter, those are long understood and agreed to. Mr. Speaker, I have to again remind the Member to check back in his notes. He will find that the Minister of Finance met with the committee before the letter went out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope Mr. Braden gets those running shoes, because he’ll need them to keep up with us.