Michael Miltenberger

This is a consensus government that we operate in. There are mandate letters given to each Minister by the Premier. We work closely with committees. We have reviews of business plans. Of course, we are, in effect, a minority government and we serve at the pleasure of the Legislative Assembly. We have numerous checks and balances in terms of making sure that ministerial accountability is upheld.

This is an issue that has been raised as one of concern as well. For example, the chiefs in the Tlicho region where we were visiting and having our regular meetings with the chiefs about the need to gather around the table and take a broader look, hunting is not the only issue. There are things that we have to better understand as a government, a territory and a Legislature. We’ve made significant investment to try to reduce our carbon footprint to switch off of fossil fuels, to get more involved in provision of renewable energies all in an attempt to mitigate what is now known to be a clear...

What we have learned as part of the decline in 1986, 460,000 animals, down to today about 15,000 for the Bathurst, during the prime hunting times a number of years ago, about 15,000 animals, mainly cows, were taken out of the herd. What we have learned since then – as the Member has indicated, no hunting for the last probably four or five years now – is that there are other contributing factors. They all combine together. There are access roads, cumulative impact, rising temperatures and things like in the last two years we’ve burnt four million hectares of forest.

With the pressures on the...

Mr. Speaker, it isn’t very often we can say that weather forecasters were spot-on with their projections; however, this fire season it seems they got it right.

The fire season started very early. In fact, it may be one of the earliest on record. It seemed like the 2014 fire season just spilled over into 2015. There were several hold-over fires from the 2014 season, fires that burned deep over the winter. By early June the numbers and frequency of fire occurrences were record setting. The effect of extended drought was really evident through the South Slave, Deh Cho and North Slave regions. Fire...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to the red flag lists, what has happened, the amount of money in the capital plan is varied and we went, most recently, from one hundred and twenty-five back down to seventy-five, which meant that things on the list had to be re-prioritized. You can only do a certain number with $75 million, which is a very small amount of money when you have an overall budget of $1.8 billion and we do have input throughout this process with Regular Members and one of the things where we could point to is the ratio over the money for the Build Canada Plan was switched to put a...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll respond to some. On the Tsiigehtchic Health Centre, we’ll take note of the Member’s concern suggesting that it be replaced as opposed to repaired.

The issue of housing and building more units, of course, is one that we’re going to struggle with as we put more money in, but a lot of that is going to be eaten up by the cutbacks of CMHC. That’s on the list. We hear that from every community.

I’m going to ask, Mr. Chairman, if Mr. Guy can talk to the Moose Kerr School, and I’ll ask Mr. Neudorf if he could touch on the transportation issues tied to the Tsiigehtchic...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents, entitled “Northwest Territories Capital Estimates, 2016-2017” and “GNWT Response to CR 16-17(5): Report on the Review of the 2013-2014 Public Accounts.”

We, as the government, are looking at how we make sure that our revenues and expenditures, on a going forward basis, stay the same, that our expenditures do not exceed our revenues and that we don’t start borrowing money for programs that we anticipate and plan for what has been determined and demonstrated to be a flat economy with revenues going down. So, we have an obligation as we look to making sure that the 18th Assembly is provided with the best information possible, to pull together all that information for the consideration of the 18th Assembly.

I want to point out that it’s anticipated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is getting way ahead of himself on this particular issue. There is going to be no budget that’s done by this government. The only budget we’re dealing with is the capital plan budget before the House, and what we will be providing is a transitional document that encompasses a whole range of activities that Members are aware of, and the incoming government and Assembly then will make their own determination once they get their briefings. The fiscal forecasts, the issues and challenges before them and opportunities and decisions will be made to exactly what...

The operative word at this point is it “could.” There are court proceedings that are underway; there’s discussion between the governments as well as following through the process as it’s laid out for this type of proceedings. That is part of the discussion that has to be resolved.