Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents, entitled “Interim Financial Statements of the Government of the Northwest Territories for the Year Ended March 31, 2015;” and “Inter-Activity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the Period April 1 to June 30, 2015.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for raising this issue yet again here in a very clear way. As I indicated in the House, we are revising our Greenhouse Gas Strategy and we’re going to convert it to a climate change strategy. That document will be out in the next couple weeks as a discussion document. I can assure the Member that regardless of who’s in this House, in these chairs, the issue of climate change is going to continue to play a major role.

I would, as well, point out that in the last eight years, if you added the money we’ve spent on low water, not even counting...

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to advise Members of this Assembly that our government will be signing a transboundary water management agreement with British Columbia for the shared waters of the Liard and Petitot basins.

This agreement, the second one to be signed with an upstream jurisdiction this year, is another step in ensuring the waters of the Northwest Territories remain clean, abundant and productive for all time.

Similar to the one signed with Alberta in March, this bilateral agreement with British Columbia was shaped by the input of Aboriginal governments in...

With this big, pressing issue there are two things we need to do, of course. The mitigation that we’ve talked about in terms of reducing our greenhouse gases, our carbon footprint, switching to alternative energies, will have some immediate impact in terms of costs and effect of costs of living, but the longer term goal would be do our share, as global citizens, to reduce our carbon emissions and help mitigate the increasing temperatures. In the meantime, we also have to adapt, and as the Member has pointed out, we have had some structural failures. We’ve had pile replacements. This Highway No...

We tend to travel on the honour system but there is an implicit understanding that MLAs would be reporting back, because they’re usually there representing a committee that they would be reporting back to the events that they attended, the meetings they attended, and the important affairs that they dealt with and discussed while on those travels. At this point, that’s basically the extent in terms of compliance or reporting back as to exactly what events were attended. The Ministers, of course, have more accountability and are prepared and will disclose all the meetings they’ve had and all the...

Our specific involvement comes when MLAs travel with Ministers on trips, usually abroad, and there have been a number of those and there are outstanding claims that we’re still waiting for from an MLA that we hope will get cleared off so that we can end this session and the mandate of the 17th Assembly on a clear note.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave Lake, that Bill 72, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2015-2016, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to take a few moments of the House time to acknowledge, recognize and pay tribute to the award recently bestowed on Sonny McDonald, Order of the NWT.

Sonny McDonald was a long-term employee of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. For 17 years he held the fort on the Mackenzie River Basin Board, as we slowly got our thinking clear, and left just before we finally negotiated an agreement with Alberta, an issue that he always brought up to me as something that was undone and needed to get busy on.

He’s also very well-known internationally as...

Thank you. We continue to work with communities in terms of controlling the alcohol and the alcohol abuse. In some of the larger communities it becomes a very consuming part of the occupation of policing, but we do not have any people that police airports on a regular basis that have that authority to search and seize other than the RCMP if they’re there and are doing it through part of their regular business. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, we’re always prepared to revisit decisions. This is not an issue where there is one clear answer and it’s right or wrong. It’s the best way to do things. So we’re always interested in having that discussion.