Michael Miltenberger

If we walk outside the confines of this building we will also find that we need thousands of housing units, that we need babies to be born healthy, that we need parents that are actively engaged in the upbringing of their children, that we need employment. There are lots of issues.

This particular issue will be brought forward. There will be options laid out there and recommendations. It will be the job of the incoming 17th Assembly in the budget process for 2012-13 to decide how they want to move forward, what their priorities are, and what we can afford. Thank you.

Once again, I appreciate the Member’s comments and ongoing concern about the public purse and protecting the taxpayer, and that’s the final analysis of the job of this Assembly, of this government and as myself, as the current Finance Minister. Overall, when you factor in all the things we’ve dealt with and the size of the budget and all the issues we’ve dealt with, I think collectively we’ve managed our way through some very difficult times, things that maybe in hindsight we would not do the same way going forward. We’ve adjusted some of our policies to reflect that. But I share the Member’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will ensure that we work closely with the Social Programs committee and keep them apprised of events as they progress, and work as it’s done, and any milestone issues that would be in the interests of the committee to know about. Thank you.

It’s my opinion that the majority of Northerners are represented at the table for the AIP and that we are fully committed to working with the other Aboriginal governments to hopefully get them to come on board. The time is far past where Northerners should have their fate in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians that live thousands of kilometres away and we will accept a second-class status as Canadians when 99.9 percent of this population of this country has the authority to control their destiny when it comes to land, water, and resource development. Yet we sit here mired down decade...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This area has seen a considerable evolution over the last five or six years or so. There was initially a report done, called the State of Emergency, that decried the state of alcohol and drug services in the Northwest Territories, and there was tens of millions of dollars, and dozens of positions added, and significant restructuring done to improve the level of service. There was a subsequent follow-up report a number of years later called Staying the Course, which said that the path chosen was the right one, that they had to make some adjustments, but we have to keep...

I wouldn’t describe this project as a dead horse. There is tremendous value here. There’s power going over the existing dam, there is a capacity to expand. We chose a path and a way forward that focused on unregulated one business partner process that did not come to realization. We know very clearly that there are other things in the long term that we want to consider that we’ve talked about, the grid, looking at putting other buildings on electricity, looking at other potential opportunities, Tamerlane, Avalon. We also know that when we did the work and they looked at the demand, it was...

I’ve always, as well, been an advocate of multi-year funding and I will be working with the Department of Health and Social Services to review the list to make sure that we can do multi-year funding in all the cases where it makes good sense.

The Member raises the enduring relationships we have with some of these ongoing programs, and that is one of the critical factors, in my mind. Thank you.

I would point out that there is $155,000 earmarked for communication activities, the kind of communication and connection we want to have with people to update them through mail-outs, newspaper ads, radio advertising and a social media strategy that will allow us to keep people informed as to what is happening as this process starts and makes its way forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent was to provide the information requested. There was a motion passed; a need to have a better understanding of what took place during the particular incident. The use of the Evidence Act is a way to allow people to come forward to be able to disclose with some certainty that they can speak frankly. That’s why that process was chosen. We want to do this expeditiously. We want to do it. This initiative has been dragged on for some considerable time. We have a very qualified individual to do it and the intent is to do it in a timely way to make sure that all the...

What I can indicate to the Member is that over the last number of months we have been working diligently on a P3 policy for the government. That policy has been to committee. We’ve had extensive feedback. We’ve put more work into it. Now we have what we think is a workable P3 policy which we will be bringing forward that will provide clarity and a clear way forward if we’re going to engage in any type of P3 consideration, how we do it, and who we do it with, and the steps and checks and balances that must be there. Once again based in large part by the feedback from the committees and from the...