Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just two quick responses. Yes, all the money, the $17 million or so, when the project is complete and starts generating revenue, that money will be reimbursed to us. It’s not just a Crown corporation but it’s our Crown corporation of which we are the one and only shareholder. We are also, for the most part, their banker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of finance; Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the Financial Management Board.

The Premier has made a great effort to nurture that relationship. He’s put out common documents, pan-territorial documents. We’ve dealt with issues, health issues, on a pan-territorial basis. In fact, as we stand here today, the three territorial leaders, along with the Minister Aglukkaq, representing the Canadian government, is in Nuuk, Greenland, to talk about issues of great importance in the circumpolar world. So it’s a relationship that there is common, there’s strength in common effort that we are small in population, large in geography, but we have huge political ties and a vested...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You can only consider this any type of speedy process if you accept the fact that it’s okay to wait 45 years, from 1967 until today, for the basic rights that other Canadians enjoy. If the Member is suggesting that we should be prepared to wait another 45 years, to still in that time period, we stay here as second-class Canadians because we don’t have those rights, I would highly disagree and say it’s high time that we move on this.

The federal government is currently taking in the royalties. The federal government is currently taking all those royalties. We do not get...

I am here to present Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2011-2012. This document outlines an increase of $11.002 million in operations expenditures for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The major items in the supplementary estimates include:

$4.2 million for the Department of Finance for the costs associated with development phase activities on the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project incurred by the NWT Hydro Corporation.

A total of $2.9 million for the departments of Executive and Justice for funding to support negotiations on the Devolution Agreement.

$763,000 for the costs...

Thank you. Yes, the letters are basically there. We’re just waiting for the appropriate individual’s name to be able to put in there, find out if there’s any change in key staff that we have to contact, but there will be basically a full court press on all those issues that we’ve talked about, and others, to move forward with all time constraints that we now face as a government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve signed an agreement with Canada to start a process, a non-legally binding process that will allow us to negotiate the elements that were assigned in the AIP, and resolve those issues to come to a final agreement for all Northerners. Thank you.

They meet on an ongoing basis. They’ve fed their work into the business planning process. It includes departments like Health, MACA, Housing, to name some that have a role to play, and we look at funding for the City of Yellowknife, the shelters that are out there and homelessness in the smaller communities where there is no other capacity, and we try to deal with things on a one-by-one case basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand the spill is about 70 kilometres outside of Wrigley. If the chief has specific health concerns, then I would encourage him to contact the Deh Cho Health Authority through his community if he has those symptoms that the Member’s talking about. If there are broader issues, as well, once again, we’ll make note of those and I will ensure that the chair as well as the CEO of the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority is prepared to respond, if necessary. Thank you.

Firstly, I’d point out to the Member for Tu Nedhe it’s not they, it’s us that sit around this table. Every Member in this House, including the Member for Tu Nedhe and myself as the Member for Thebacha, that we are representing the people of the Northwest Territories at this public government table. The Member is suggesting that we have decades of problems that could be tied to the fact that we don’t control a lot of our own decisions. We didn’t take over health, forestry and those types of things until the mid-‘80s, but that it may be better to stick with the devil we know than to be able to...