Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it was demonstrated that the need was an emergency, we would certainly consider it. In this instance, there may be other options. There may be treatment options. The municipality has also indicated that they may have to look at settling ponds. So we would really have to be convinced that this is an emergency. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d gladly meet with the chief. In fact, I had a discussion with him this morning. I guess it would be providing that we can match our schedules over the next while and I’d be glad to work with the Member to try to set that up, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we’d be glad to sit down with the community of Behchoko to review the options to do more work on this piece of infrastructure. However, I’d like to remind the Member that the community capacity fund was indicated to be one-time funding only and with no ongoing support. There is some other programs that we may be able to target or maybe allow for some of the shifting of their infrastructure funding or lever some federal funding. I would have to sit down with the community and see what’s available and what the plans are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to announce the successful launch of three new programs that are helping consumers all over the territory to be more energy efficient, save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Energy Efficiency Incentive Program was launched July 6th as part of a three-program initiative. It is a $750,000 program that provides rebates to residents and businesses that purchase energy efficient models of the products and appliances we use every day. These include snowmobiles, outboard motors, woodstoves, pellet stoves, furnaces and other appliances, as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we talked about our concerns with addictions across the Northwest Territories. We have studies on addictions across the Northwest Territories. We have people, Mr. Speaker, who work the front lines. They not only talk about all of these concerns, but they want to do something about it. They are hard working and caring people who do their job 24/7, Mr. Speaker, because they care about the clients they serve. They do this, for the most part, very cheaply. We have board members who are volunteers who do it for nothing.

It came to my attention, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to lend my support to this bill as I think it’s a very well written piece of work. I spoke with a resident of Inuvik who follows this type of stuff very closely and they mentioned that this was very well written and the fact that it was written in the NWT by the NWT and for the NWT is something that I’m quite proud of. It’s not something that we’ve borrowed from somewhere. We put the bill in committee’s hands and took the bill out, people spoke to us for the most part, well, I think everyone spoke in favour of the new Liquor Act. There were a couple concerns...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the people that work for the NGOs are a resilient bunch, but you can only bend something so far and eventually it is going to break. We are just fortunate that we have these people in the front line. I would like to ask the Minister if there are any steps that we can take to ensure that these folks get their funding in a timely manner so all they have to do is concentrate on working with the clients that they serve? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister if it would be an option to have all NGOs apply directly to the Finance Minister’s office and have it show up as a line item in the budget? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are action plans that we’re working jointly in the Beaufort-Delta and the Sahtu. There is still some concern in this area where we’ve made recommendations to the Wekeezhii board and we don’t anticipate that we’ll hear back from that board until the end of September, Mr. Speaker. Then certainly if our legal division has a review, we can provide what we can make public at that time, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we don’t have the results of the surveys that have been conducted. Some of them are still ongoing. The ones that have been done haven’t been compiled and been provided to me. So I don’t have that information and we don’t expect we’ll have all the information compiled until sometime later this fall. Thank you.