Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Truly, the Member’s glass is half empty as it pertains to this issue. If I could just very briefly touch on the fact that, in the life of this government, we put $60 million into alternative energy, into biomass, hydro, solar strategy, Water Strategy, wind, geothermal. I think we have done very good work in recycling. We have redone building standards. We have projects all over the place on the ground in our own buildings in communities. We have worked with all of the communities to look at energy plans. We as well committed to redoing the Greenhouse Gas Strategy. That...

While I appreciate the Member’s concern, with the benefit of hindsight we know now that the numbers were not as low as where contemplated at the time that these actions were taken, so I don’t see a way to look back and rewrite history. I take the Member’s concern. I guess the only other offer I could make to the Member is if he has specific instances that he wants to share, not in this forum, but if he wants to, we can have a discussion further about any individuals where there may be extenuating circumstances. But as a general rule and practice, I mean, that was then, this is now, now that we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s just the grants and contribution portion. I’ll ask Ms. Magrum to give us where the rest of it is.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for making this clear on the record. We are very sensitive to the concern about how we work with the animals, how we do it. I point out that traditional knowledge and western science in this case I believe have to be compatible and we want the best all-around knowledge that we can get. We’ll make note of the fact that the Member has raised concerns on behalf of his constituents. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the land use framework is a critical initiative of the Government of the Northwest Territories. It is critical as we look going forward with the agreement-in-principle. It is a frame within which would fit things like the Water Strategy and a lot of our individual land use plans and our approaches of government to doing that. That particular initiative is driven and managed out of the Executive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intent is to have an inspection and folks go in, in the next few weeks to sit down with the community to see what options are available. The current arrangement is having its trials and tribulations and we want to make sure that we have a suitable location. We also have a full sea can that is almost full that is going to be hauled out over the winter road. So we appreciate the Member raising this issue with us and we hopefully will have it resolved in the next few weeks. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that strikes me as what I would call a hypothetical question of the highest category. Can I anticipate when we would not ask for security or some type of bond I believe the Member has asked? I am here to say it would be very expected of me to say whether I could or not. I would anticipate that we are going to be making sure for every development that we protect the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories. We have all the protections that the system allows us to do that. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, The Government of the Northwest Territories has a Traditional Knowledge Policy that applies across the government. It is reflected very clearly as well as in our GNWT’s research agenda. As we look at the areas of study that we think are important areas of research that are important, there is clear recognition of the role for traditional knowledge working in conjunction with and in collaboration is alongside of the western science. This traditional knowledge across government is reflected in course education in a lot of our curriculum development. It is reflected in some of the...

We deliberately called the Water Strategy Northern Voices for Northern Waters because we know it’s of interest and of great concern to all Northerners. We know that there’s a strong natural alliance with the territorial government and the Aboriginal governments as we work collectively together to protect our interests and ensure that we have these agreements, these legally binding transboundary agreements.

The Mackenzie River Basin Act has given us a vehicle to move forward on that. All the other jurisdictions have indicated willingness. We intend to continue on a going forward basis the strong...

Mr. Chairman, as we negotiate the devolution agreement, there is going to be an identification of sites and there is going to be milestone times. There are going to be ones that we will be responsible for. There are going to be older ones existing, ones on Crown land that the federal government will continue to have responsibility for. There will be a going forward date from which time that once the agreement is signed that we will be responsible for new ones. Thank you.