Joe Handley

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and we have been working hard to achieve our strategy that we collectively set out. I also must say that I’m satisfied with the progress we’ve made in a number of areas. I agree that housing continues to probably be the single biggest and most widespread problem. There are very few communities without issues around housing.

I just want to make a few comments and then I’d like to, Madam Chair, ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to provide more detail on what we may be doing. We have, as you know, as we’ve said in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to respond to some of the comments that have been made. First of all, I would like to say that I really appreciate the advice and the recommendations, the criticisms and so on, that Members raise in this forum. I know a lot of what we have, for example, in a sessional statement may seem like a report card or may seem like old news. We have to keep in mind, at least from my perspective, that we know because we sit in committees and we talk about many of these things, but often the public is not included and may not be familiar. So when we put together a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Devolution discussions have certainly been a major topic of discussion among all aboriginal leaders. Most of the leaders, I must say, Mr. Speaker, are on side, but there are some situations where the grand chiefs, the leaders in the regions are still negotiating their land claim or other aboriginal processes, and they have said slow down devolution until we get our processes out of the way first at the regional level. I continue to promote moving ahead speedily with devolution, but on the condition that we also have a resource revenue sharing arrangement that is...

As I noted earlier, we have established a Joint Cabinet/Accountability and Oversight Pipeline Planning Committee to ensure our preparations and planning are as inclusive as possible. This committee will provide guidance and advice as we move forward in planning for the pipeline and negotiating a comprehensive socioeconomic agreement with the proponents of the Mackenzie gas project.

Mr. Speaker, our goal of a diversified economy goes hand in hand with our goal of caring and protecting the environment. We have a keen commitment to environmental stewardship. We have taken a proactive approach to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to welcome you and all Members back to the Assembly after a busy and productive summer.

This summer, Members of Cabinet were able to travel to many communities at the invitation of Members to meet with local councils, organizations and residents, or to attend summer assemblies. I had the good fortune to attend many of the summer assemblies, including the Deh Cho Assembly in Kakisa, the Northwest Territories Metis Nation Assembly in Fort Smith, the Akaitcho Assembly in Ndilo, the Tlicho Assembly in Gameti, and the Dene National Assembly at Yellowknife River...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly don’t want to get into discussing what’s in the business plan, but I can say that the standing committee has asked for a briefing on it before we release any information and we have, I think the Ministers responsible, Mr. Dent and Mr. Bell, have asked for some time. So we will work with the standing committee first. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with Mrs. Groenewegen that this is of paramount importance. I can assure you that it is the number one thing that I wake up thinking about in the morning and that I go to bed thinking about when I go to sleep. It is very critical for us that we have the pipeline. First of all, we have got to have the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. If we diddle around and the Alaska pipeline goes first, we will all have nothing in terms of resource revenue from that.

So we need to negotiate with the federal government an arrangement that doesn’t see the roughly $23.7 billion of government...

Mr. Speaker, while it’s true that the federal government can probably just go ahead and permit the building of the Mackenzie pipeline in spite of concerns, objectives or issues that are raised in the North, they can expropriate land and do what they feel is in the national interest. That is not the way the federal government wants to do this. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I understand that Minister Anne McLellan has been given the lead on this one. She is to work out a way to have the pipeline move ahead with the support of northerners. So what does the federal government want? They want our...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the information and what the expected results would be, what the dollars are before I commit. I certainly encourage Members who have information on the second phase to get that information to us and I will look at it with my department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think there is hardly a week that goes by that we are not asked as a government to sponsor something outside of the Territories. I am sure that there is hardly a day that goes by that we are not asked to help out with an event in the Northwest Territories. We certainly give priority to events in the Northwest Territories. When it comes to events outside of the Territories, we look very carefully at them. Mr. Speaker, I only received a couple of weeks ago just a very brief letter from the people organizing this event, which I have no doubt is very important to...