Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our officials have insisted we be there. This one happened, we didn’t know and, as I say, that is of great concern to us. Assuming we have devolution and resource revenue sharing at some point, this is a concern to the people of the North.

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the question, yes, either I will or the Minister of Finance will again say to Ottawa that you can’t just give us lip service on this, you have to follow through and let us know these meetings are there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss this at any great extent yet with the president, but I will. I would certainly encourage the company involved to talk to the president and see if there is another creative way of doing this. It may be that there are enough units, for example, in a community that we could look at a different way of doing it where a local established business would be able to put in a reasonable price. Mr. Speaker, I would commit to speaking with the president and ask the company concerned to also do the same. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if I will have a chance to do it today…

---Laughter

…but, Mr. Speaker, I will and we have committed to consulting with the Akaitcho and letting them know what we are doing in terms of the enforcement procedures. Hopefully we will have cooperation there.

Mr. Speaker, I also hope that DIAND will also follow a similar process as we are on their land because, Members know, we can only develop procedures and apply our legislation on Commissioner’s land. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was referring to trying to work with the Akaitcho negotiators, Akaitcho people, at the negotiation table. We tried that in 2004. It didn’t go anywhere. So, Mr. Speaker, I am certainly open to having our negotiator consider raising this again when there is next a meeting at the table.

Mr. Speaker, beyond that, what we are prepared to do right now is put out enforcement procedures that we have worked out, give people warnings and give people notice that they have to show us that they have the right to be occupying the land they have. If they don’t, then they are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been discussions. The Metis have told us they are meeting on the 24th, which is a week from today. They will give us that assurance.

Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to avoid is a situation we see in some communities where we have a seniors complex, it’s only for seniors, and then we have empty units and then people looking for housing and they can’t move into it because it’s a seniors complex. We want to say let’s be sensible about this, let’s build it as a seniors unit, but if there are other people, make sure they can move in there too with priority given...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This project has not been put on the back burner. Mr. Speaker, it changed from some singles housing and some housing for families to a six-plex for seniors at the request of the seniors.

What that does, Mr. Speaker, because of the limited amount of housing, is it does limit the options for single people and for families and has housing dedicated for seniors. We asked the seniors whether in the event there weren’t enough seniors to occupy all of the new six-plex units at some point in the future, would they make the units then available to other singles or couples based...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be very brief.

---Applause

First of all, let me say that Cabinet will not be voting on this motion because it is a recommendation to us. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a couple of points. Due diligence and transparency, those are things we live by. Due diligence is here and that is why we have the financial situation we enjoy right now that enables us to do this kind of project, is because we have done due diligence over the life of our government.

Mr. Speaker, transparency, yes, we have already committed and we will commit to giving the committee the best...

Mr. Speaker, if we had a nice big fat bank account, we might consider that as being a good investment. Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, we don’t have the resources to be able to buy into this multi-billion dollar project. Mr. Speaker, our position has been to support the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and others in the North to get an ownership. I hope the federal government, if they are considering an equity position, that they consider doing that on behalf of people in the North. The Aboriginal Pipeline Group, to me, would be the logical choice at this point. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me say we have gone, again, a long way to saying to the federal government and the proponent that we want to be in the room when there are discussions going on, the results of which we may inherit at some point. Mr. Speaker, we were not aware that this meeting was happening, although we knew generally that these kind of discussions would be taking place at some time in the future. But in reference to the meeting that took place, we did not know of that specific meeting, Mr. Speaker. That is of concern to us.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Alcohol abuse is probably one of the most devastating and most expensive, costly expenditures in our government's programs. If we were ever able to get control on this, then I think we'd be amazed at the amount of money that could be saved and the amount of devastation and disruption to lives.

Mr. Speaker, part of the challenge is to help people to control their own lives, not have alcohol controlling it for them. Part of it is having laws that are appropriate. Part of it is having policing and, certainly, treatment is part of it. But more than anything else, in my...