Michael Miltenberger

I mean, this is an issue for every Member. It’s been on the table for the 16 years that I’ve been here. It is a challenge. It will continue to be on the table of the legislators of the 17th Assembly, and whoever’s standing in this position a number of weeks hence will be having to discuss and indicate to the people how we intend to move forward on this. It will be based on the direction, of course, of the Legislature and the priorities set and the business planning process that’s going to follow. It’s an issue that’s on the list and it will have to be dealt with. We know there are things that...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 10, Northwest Territories Heritage Fund Act, be read for the third time.

I think there’s a general recognition that this area has been somewhat untended. The Minister responsible for homelessness doesn’t have the actual budget. There’s a need to work closely with other departments and there’s a need to look at that type of ongoing coordination. At this late juncture with one more sitting day left in the life of this Assembly, I would suggest it will be one of the challenges for the 17th Assembly and the incoming MLAs to decide on this issue, among many others.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 25, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2011-2012, be read for the first time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes operations appropriations for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Thank you.

This is a longitudinal look at trends across the land in different areas. If you take this five-year increment and put the other three reports before them, you’d see, as the Member has indicated and as the report demonstrates clearly, a lot of our statistics continue to go in the wrong direction. We have some more current statistics on different areas that we could look at if the Member has a specific request, but in terms of gathering this kind of broad data that’s going to give us those trends and available for planning purposes, it’s those five-year increments that give us that kind of...

Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 25, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2011-2012, be read for the first time. Thank you.

The over $300 million that we do spend provides a very high level of service to the people. The Member’s point is a good one. We’ll never have enough hospitals, enough facilities to put people back together, to get them healthy once they’re sick, and the challenge is an unmet challenge, is the one that the Member lays out.

Will this be used? We’re going into an election here in a couple weeks. There will be in the next few months an Assembly elected and a Cabinet picked. Through the business planning process and the priorities of the next Assembly, they will be targeting where they think the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents entitled Interactivity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the Period April 1, 2010, to March 31, 2011, and Northwest Territories Liquor Commission and Liquor Licensing Board 2010-2011 Annual Report.

I’m sure the Member’s not calling me fat, so I won’t take offence to that comment.

I would suggest this Assembly and, of course, more importantly, the 17th Assembly is going to have to deal with a number of significant issues like this as we move forward with devolution and as we move forward with the deficit reduction impacts that we’re going to feel over the next three or four years coming out of the federal government. There’s going to be some difficult circumstances and money is going to be a priority issue both to us and as we negotiate arrangements with the federal government to honour...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had opportunity to talk to Minister Kent when he was here a number of weeks ago. These cuts are going to be felt across the land. They’re going to be felt in the Northwest Territories.

Specifically, I sent information out, for example, on the closing of water monitoring sites where we have 23 and they’re closing 21; all 10 in Nunavut, two on the boundaries between Nunavut and Northwest Territories that are important. They’re going to discontinue monitoring through national parks. There’s no monitoring on the Mackenzie River. There’s a whole list of implications for us...