Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I will never criticize those who choose to take a different path. That’s their choice and if they go along that path and find that they get a better deal, then, as I say, you know, good luck to them; I hope they can do it. Mr. Speaker, on the other hand, the arrangements, the agreement-in-principle we’ve signed with the three land claim groups and the Metis is one that is open and, at times, if people want to join on, they can join on and sign up too, if they choose to go that path.

Mr. Speaker, I’m going to continue working with those who have signed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m assuming the Member is referring to negotiations on an agreement-in-principle about the bigger issues or on land use and so on. But, Mr. Speaker, no, I don’t have anything specific to report. There was a briefing provided to the Akaitcho people last week, the Akaitcho leaders. The chiefs there, again, the same as with Dehcho, have taken a position that they would like to negotiate their own deal; they feel they can do better on their own. Certainly there is nothing that our government is doing to try to frustrate that. If they feel they can do better on their...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For sure, I cannot speak for Grand Chief Herb Norwegian. I mean, I’m not 100 percent clear what the deal would be that he would find acceptable. Mr. Speaker, I can say that whenever we come to an agreement like this, there will always be people who feel that a better deal could have been gotten if we had done something differently. That’s always the case. My view is that this is a good deal. If it goes through from current agreement-in-principle status to final agreement, then I think this is a deal that gives us a lot more than what we’d get today, for sure. Is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I will answer the question with regard to the survey. The survey is being done because we have been working to reduce violence and so on. We don’t have any baseline data, so we need to have a baseline data that we could work from to know the areas where we need to put more effort on public education, prevention strategies and so on. The survey would involve a sample size of 750 respondents and would be distributed amongst various strata within the different communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say that those of us in Cabinet certainly agree with the sentiment that’s expressed here today, that this is not the kind of issue where we have to have…(inaudible)…debate and disagreement, but one that we all have to stand together on.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that our government already does conduct criminal record checks on people who are in positions of trust and also for those who are in highly sensitive positions. Protection of those that are most vulnerable has to be our highest priority, and our government will look very carefully at this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll answer briefly. These questions are more appropriate for the Minister of Transportation. The toll is not likely going to be $10. My estimate, I believe, is it would roughly be $6.50 if we apply the inflation factor to the numbers we had when they were first worked out at $6. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bridge, Deh Cho Bridge, is being built as a P3 project, private-public partnership. So in that arrangement, the Bridge Corporation made up of the combined community alliance will be the owner of the bridge initially. They are the ones who will borrow the money to build the bridge and it’ll be financed over 35 or so years. So the GNWT will not be using capital money for this project. The $25 million the Member refers to is money that is identified in the federal budget. It’s $25 million a year for seven years for trades-related infrastructure. We don’t have exact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are going to go ahead with the short-term repairs to deal with the interim problems. Those are things ranging from water under the crawlspace, there was a sewage spill, there’s mould in some units, the roof leaking, the deterioration on some of the plumbing lines. Those are things that we’re going to repair in the short term. But right now, the consultant’s recommendation is to replace the facility, and our people in the Housing Corporation agree with that recommendation. So I fully expect that when the final report comes out, that will be the direction. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Housing Corporation has been working on this issue for some time. We have a consultant who did a report. The Housing Corporation received a copy of that report on April 27th and are now taking a look at it. As I had said to the Member before, we plan to have the final report available by June. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.