Joe Handley
Statements in Debates
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m not sure what the Member is referring to when he’s talking about foot dragging. We have negotiations that are going on between the federal government, territorial government and the aboriginal governments on devolution and resource revenue sharing. There are some differences of positions between each of the three parties. We don’t refer to the aboriginal government or federal government as foot dragging. I think those are the characteristics of good negotiations that each party will put offers on the table, each party will be willing to compromise and think...
Madam Speaker, I don’t understand the question of why TTC was singled out. I am not sure what the Member means. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just listed a number of criteria that is normally considered in making this kind of decision. There is certainly good discussion in Cabinet about all the factors that we would have to consider in relocating TTC and, as I have assured you, Madam Speaker, the Minister responsible will share the information with the Member before the end of the day tomorrow. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Cabinet has looked at a number of factors in considering this change. The Minister responsible has assured me that he will have that information by the end of the day tomorrow. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am pleased to recognize my constituent, Major Karen Hoeft, who is clearly very fascinated with what goes on in this House. Thank you.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would welcome the opportunity to get together with Members in a committee, possibly in AOC, to go through the negotiations that we have ongoing with Ottawa. The most immediate one in my mind is the pipeline. That’s the most immediate. The most important one in terms of our long-term solution is devolution and resource revenue sharing. But, Mr. Chairman, there are at least 14 different sets of negotiations between our government and Ottawa, some of them less significant, but there are a lot of negotiations happening all the time. Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to...
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sure that Imperial and its partners are still confident the pipeline is going to go ahead. They’ve spent $350 million or so, so far. They’re continuing to spend on it. It’s not a matter of confidence and we’re still confident it will go ahead. We’re going to work on that assumption. I believe the federal government will want to see it happen, too. So there’s a fair bit of confidence there. But what Imperial has done is slowed down their spending on it because they have to get over the hurdles on access and benefit agreements and on socioeconomic impacts, the...
Mr. Chairman, just for clarification, Minister Roland, Minister Bell and I met in Ottawa with the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of DIAND and Minister of Northern Development. At that meeting, we did not talk about specific amounts of money. We talked about the fact that socioeconomic impacts are primarily government’s responsibility, primarily our responsibility because those programs are within our mandate. But because we don’t have resource revenue sharing, there is an obligation of the federal government to provide us with money to be able to achieve our needs...
Mr. Chairman, an AIP is still possible this spring, and I am still pushing the federal government and the Aboriginal Summit to work with us on achieving that agreement-in-principle this spring. I can tell you though that as the days go by, I’m getting increasingly uneasy that we’re not going to be able to achieve it. We have to keep in mind this is a tripartite agreement. There’s the Aboriginal Summit, ourselves and the federal government who have to come to agreement. At the negotiating table there’s been less progress than what I would have liked to have seen, and I can’t blame any one...
Madam Speaker, it is a territorial facility. It is the only one, to my knowledge, that we have of that kind. There were a number of factors that caused us to have a look at it, including the fact that it is a territorial facility and there is a large potential capital investment that is necessary to replace the current facility to look at how our government is meeting the economic, social and other interests of people across the Territories. So, Madam Speaker, there are a number of factors we looked at in reviewing the TTC. Thank you.