Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 28, Supplementary Appropriation (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2013-2014, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ENR does have a spill line. It’s operational 24 hours a day. Plus, as well, we rely, as the Member well knows in his constituency, on reports from folks that are on the land. They have been very, very helpful in spotting leaks, especially on the pipeline. There is that opportunity there. The National Energy Board has responsibility for responding to leaks at production sites and exploration sites, but clearly, when you look at the map across Canada where spills occur, I mean, it’s very clear that when there’s oil and gas, this type of situation is going to occur, given...

Not at all, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we sit in this House, we are legislators who pass bills and make laws of general application and the Liquor Act is one of those bills. The other thing we do in this Legislature, as one of our guiding principles, is we’ve worked hard over the years to make sure that communities, at their request, have the maximum amount of authority as possible. This particular Liquor Act, which was put in place in 2008 after years of work, reflects where the main concern at the time, which we heard and responded to, was the request for the communities to have the ability to control...

I seek unanimous consent to return to item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills.

---Unanimous consent denied

Thank you, Madam Chair. Over the last few weeks, Members of the Legislative Assembly have been working hard on reviewing the departmental capital budgets for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

As part of their review, Members of this House have recommended amendments and other commitments to the Department of Transportation’s 2014-15 Capital Estimates.

I have considered these recommendations with my Cabinet colleagues and offer the following commitments:

Recommendation for chipsealing Highway No. 1

Highway No. 1 from kilometre 187 to 206 is currently a priority to be resurfaced in 2014-15. The department...

I do appreciate the opportunity to discuss these important matters in the House with the Member. It’s always an interesting discussion. I have laid out in my previous answer a significant amount of work that we’re doing on the issue of energy and providing a lower cost of affordable energy, not only to residents but to businesses. One of the things we are focusing on, of course, is conservation. We have any number of rebate programs to assist people to convert to energy-efficient appliances, biomass, all the things that will help them save money as they go forward and cut their use of power so...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Once again it’s the issue of putting any restrictions on a right. There is an interest of the Aboriginal governments to work out, through regulations, the mandatory reporting, because we all agree, you can’t manage what you can’t count. So the intent is to do that.

In terms of consequences, there can be penalties, which will be sorted out in regulation, but we can’t deny a licence. Thank you.

We are different than the Bakken in many ways. The intensity of development, the speed and pace of development are different; we have a different regulatory regime that requires environmental work to be done prior to any project proceeding. We have a lot of monitoring done in the area of groundwater monitoring and mapping in the area of where they plan to work, wildlife baseline information needs to be taken. We are going to make sure, through the best practices, that we allow and account for what the topography and geography is going to look like, including permafrost. The big issue for us is...

We have been working on this bill for years. We’ve had agreement with committee. Now we have this one motion. I have been in this business long enough to know one word can be important. While we appreciate the intent and will live with the will of the House, our concern is that the issue of the public meetings versus the ability of the groups to have a meeting that may require in camera sessions, others sessions that are tying their hands, we have committed to a public process, transparent process, but getting down to the level of telling them that you are required to have…you are going to...