Joe Handley

Mr. Speaker, the direction given to Cabinet Ministers is what is in the current policies, that we follow the policies. Where there are exceptions made, then those have to come to Cabinet for Cabinet approval. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to provide the Members with a list or a description of the mandate of the Mackenzie Valley planning group in RWED, in terms of the mandate that they have. There may be other areas that we would want to consider as a government for providing further assistance. There are certainly other parts of our government that provide assistance, through Education, MACA and other areas. So there are a lot of services that we provide to those who are interested in economic opportunities, including the pipeline but not limited to the pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, I think the best...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for further clarification, the three things that I mentioned weren't meant as a comprehensive list of everything we were going to do. I think there are a lot of areas where we assist communities, whether it's in economic development or training, contracting, value-added benefits. There are a whole bunch. I didn't list them all. I was answering the question which was asked specifically with regard to impact benefit agreements and access agreements. Those are things that would flow out of the claims and so on. So those are issues that we have not historically...

Mr. Speaker, that is certainly one consideration I think when we talked about setting joint special committees, the pipeline was one topic that was mentioned earlier on, in the early days of our government. Certainly, I will consider that. I like the idea of a joint committee, and if that's the wish of the Members of this House, then definitely we would give it favourable consideration. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize visitors from Weledeh and particularly Chief Darrell Beaulieu with the Yellowknives First Nation. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker, no, I can't show the cost of BIP or the amount of money that was saved by not using BIP in past situations. It's very difficult to pin those numbers down. The issue that we face though as a government and in this particular one that Mr. Delorey is referring to, is the need to have affordable housing. We need low-cost housing that people can afford to buy or afford to rent in the communities. That's our primary concern. How do we get there? One way of getting there is to allow people to obtain housing from wherever they can get it. That achieves our objective on housing. It...

Mr. Speaker, we have policies on a number of areas that we follow. If a Minister wants to make an exception to a policy, then he would have to bring that to Cabinet for approval for the exception. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think the only limitation we would have on the terms of reference for the proposed committee would be the mandate of this government. If it's within our mandate, then we deal with it. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear a question so I can’t answer when there is no question. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll refer that question to the Minister responsible for official languages. Thank you.