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Statements in Debates

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Merci, Monsieur le President. Last week, I made a Member's statement about the great post-devolution resource giveaway, where the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment issued 10 significant discovery licences that tie up petroleum resources forever without any benefits to NWT residents. The original exploration rights were issued by the federal government. Can the Minister tell us whether the federal government made any provision for fees or work requirements in the issuance of those original rights? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have just a few brief comments that I would like to make. I want to thank the committee for letting me sit in on a lot of the meetings that they had regarding the report. I am quite pleased with the recommendations that came out of the report.

911 is something that was being worked on when I was on city council back in 1997 to 2006. This was not in our mandate, and I do appreciate the work of a couple of Ministers to bring this forward. I want to commend them for their hard work in getting this bill to us and that this is finally going to happen in the life of this...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Merci, Monsieur le President. On the occasion of International Women's Day, I would like to speak about what we are doing to promote women in leadership. I attended the lively public hearing in Yellowknife on January 17th by the Special Committee on Increasing the Representation of Women. There were about 30 participants, including media, and I would like to commend everyone for the respectful dialogue and the ideas that were put forward.

There were three main themes presented. One idea was to run elections for a woman and a man in each riding in the NWT to ensure that half of the MLAs are...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I noticed here that the budgets for a couple of the statutory officers have actually decreased. For the Information and Privacy Commissioner, there is $28,000 less for 2019-2020, and for the Languages Commissioner, I am not going to attempt to do the math in my head; $38,000, my friend tells me. Can someone explain to me why these reductions are being made? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that, over at the archives, there are actually copies of the minutes for the Northwest Territories Council going back to 1921, and they are the only record of those minutes anywhere in the world, as I understand it. Do you know if that sort of information is part of this project? There are research requests, and I have had reason to go back to the 1950s recently on this, but is that going to be part of this project? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Nice try. Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I am not going to be nearly as long on this one. I am not going to oppose this bill. It does serve a number of public purposes, including allowing for pension credits to be earned by residents and so on, so and it is simply enabling legislation in terms of allowing for a cost of living credit to be used. I don't really have anything to oppose on this bill. I wish that there were some stronger public reporting provisions tied back to how this is going to be used to report on rebates that are tied to the carbon tax, but I don't have any difficulty with this bill...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that commitment again. Can the Minister commit also that, when he puts this information out, he is prepared to accept public comments on it? Because he has already made up his mind perhaps about this without any public input, but I would like to know whether he is prepared to accept public comment when he puts this information out. This is about having an open and transparent government and not just consulting with industry in setting these kinds of rates.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. Is the Minister prepared to make that information public?

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for confirming that for me. For a government that says it is open and transparent, consulting only the industry and perhaps Indigenous governments, only consulting industry, I don't think that is a great idea, and I think that is a clear definition of regulatory capture. Can the Minister make public the work requirements and rental rates for future significant discovery licences and the rationale that he used in setting them? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 67)

Well, it is my understanding that, when the federal government issued those original rights, they made provision for fees to be charged as a rental rate. Perhaps the rental rate wasn't specified, but at least it was in there, so why did the Minister not include any fees or work requirements in the 10 significant discovery licences that he issued?