Michael Miltenberger

In regard to the initial question that the Member asked me to repeat, there are basically two tracks when it comes to the regulatory reform. What’s happened in the Yukon is they just accepted delegated authority from the federal government, keeping the federal legislation in place and they just administer that legislation which, of course, makes any type of amendments very difficult.

The other track is one where there’s mirrored legislation where there’s an agreement to develop northern legislation that would mirror the current federal legislation, a similar process that was used when division...

The numbers agreed to for the A-based funding, which the Member is referring to, which is to compensate and offset the cost of taking over all the positions and programs, is in the neighbourhood of I think $63 million. That is the figure that is enshrined in the agreement-in-principle and that is the figure that we are negotiating for that is part of that, as is the other part of that financial equation, which is the resource royalty sharing, which will be about $60,000 this year, which was up to 5 percent of our gross expenditure base, up to 5 percent of their gross expenditure base. Those...

I’ll commit to have the ENR officials contact the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to get a full update on that particular issue which I will share with the Member.

There have been discussions with DFO with the community. There have been quotas put on. Especially during this time of year when the fish are running. There have been the renewable resources officers on the water more often and if they’re taken away by other fire duties, for example, we’ve in the past as well had local fish monitors making sure to check the fishing that’s going on. We’ve been making sure that all the folks that are fishing have the proper licences and making sure that the catches are within the established limits. Once again, I’ll look forward to having a more detailed...

I’ll ask the officials in ENR to take a look to see what other studies have said. Clearly the numbers don’t bear out the type of investment the Member would seem to want and the risk to public safety, I would once again submit, is greater if you’re driving the highways in the North, especially towards the southern part where there’s moose, of hitting a moose where there has clearly been fatalities that I’m aware of both in the North and in the South. Once again, the ultimate responsibility of the vehicle is under the control of the driver and the driver has every responsibility to exercise due...

The officials are listening as we speak and we’ll make sure that this information that I have before me is there for the public as well.

My understanding is if there’s an agreement for mirror legislation, that once we take it over it becomes territorial legislation. If we, in fact, end up with a process where the federal legislation stays in place and we accept the role of delegated authority from the federal legislation, then clearly the federal government would have the final say since it’s their legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we laid out in the budget, we are in fact going to be focusing a lot of our attention on replenishing our depleted cash reserves to put money aside so that in year three or four we will be able to add additional resources and revenues into increasing our commitment to infrastructure in a lot of the key areas. This is going to be done in a number of ways. We’re going to limit the forced growth; we’re going to continue to work on being efficient and effective; we’re going to continue with the attention to how we spend the money within government to avoid unnecessary...

I agree with the Member about the Heritage Fund and its role. We’ve committed to when we do devolution and when we get into year three and four, we’ll be looking at trying to finally put some seed money into that very important fund.

It was also raised in the House today about trying to increase the money for investment in businesses to the Minister of ITI. We had to, in fact as part of our financial restructuring, turn back the Opportunities Fund where we had about $120 million sitting in a bank for investment, but it wasn’t covered by our borrowing limit; it would have gone against our...

Mr. Speaker, there are things that have happened in the past that have their own character and complexity and annex. The reality is, and I will say it again, the Government of the Northwest Territories is involved and will continue to be involved with the community of Norman Wells in looking at its long-term energy needs as we deal with the direction and indication from Imperial Oil that their access to gas is going to be cut off. That work is already underway.

The good news is, as I have indicated, we have assurances that NTPC will not be impacted in the near term and the work is underway with...