Kevin A. Menicoche

Did the Minister say up to a maximum of $180,000 dollars?

Thank you, Madam Chair. This obviously urges the next question. How many more employees out there are grandfathered? How many more houses would we have to buy back? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report progress.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on the motion and I believe it’s doable and I believe it’s time.

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As the honourable Member for Great Slave had indicated yesterday, an act governing the NWT was created in 1870 in Ottawa, and I believe that the territorial aspirations for wanting their own revenues and their share of royalties began one day after that act was created. So that’s 134 years ago, Mr. Speaker, yet we’re still on the same path and Ottawa certainly still has the old colonial mentality when it comes to our treatment for ourselves here in the...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if the GNWT did gain our intervener status when it comes to deliberation in the public hearings or the federal government in the deliberations of the joint review panel? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the honourable Minister of Resources Wildlife and Economic Development. The machine has begun in terms of the proponents filing their documents to build the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline project. I would like to ask the Minister where is the department at in terms of our role in developing our socioeconomic development agreement. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, 28 years ago, when the first plan was being made to build the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, Judge Thomas Berger was asked to review the socioeconomic impacts the project would have on the people of the North. After hearing all the facts, Justice Berger recommended that the project be postponed and that a 10-year moratorium on all pipeline construction be put into place. He recommended the moratorium because he recognized the fact that northern aboriginal peoples were not ready to engage the pipeline project. They were not in a position to derive any meaningful...

Madam Chair, I wish to report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just looking for assurance from the Minister that our role as interveners is not going to be merely a rubber-stamper, but we’ll have some meaningful input into the hearings and demand some of the things that our people are saying that they definitely want benefits and just not roll over. Will the Minister direct his department to play more of a participatory role in the joint review panel hearings? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker. That’s very important that we do sit with them. As well, I believe it’s very important that we sit with our public and our constituents as they want a say and they want to be heard as our socioeconomic development agreement progresses. Does the Minister have plans to provide community consultations with regard to a GNWT socioeconomic development agreement?