Michael Miltenberger

Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance; Paul Guy, acting deputy minister of Public Works and Services.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 2, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2009-2010, be read for the first time. Thank you.

You already see evidence of it. For example, if I can point to our science agenda where there is a clear recognition, the Water Strategy that we are going to be tabling. We will have a very clear central role for traditional knowledge. Environment and Natural Resources already has it in play. The work that we are doing with all the communities and all the co-management boards on caribou, for example. There is an extensive curriculum in the schools already that exists, and other departments that don’t have a major role in this are also doing that as a normal course of their business are going...

The Member has raised the issue in this House and, as a suggestion, I believe there is opportunity for us to collaborate on this. The issue is going to be just to arrange the time. If there is an interest signified to us that the Social Programs committee wants to have a thorough discussion on this, then we would be happy to comply with that request and just work on the scheduling, which is a challenge in the normal course of events. But I think if there’s an interest, we have about 18 months, by my estimation, of time left where we could actually do substantive work. So we don’t have a lot of...

Yes, there will be collaboration. I appreciate the good advice from the Member. There will be collaboration amongst the departments to make sure we have a coordinated approach as we deal with the needs of the communities as well as trying to factor in the effect on specific communities of climate change issues such as shoreline erosion. Thank you.

We, as a 16th Assembly, laid out some very fundamental, basic and laudable principles to address some of those issues. If there is an interest and need to look at that and how do we reconfigure some of our program areas, and if we have to coordinate differently, then I think there would be an opportunity and need for some further discussion with the Members, maybe the Social Programs committee, to get a better sense of how we could collectively look at how we’re going to possibly readjust. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the Member’s comments. We are committed, as a government, to working with the communities, through the arrangements. We do have a huge commitment to empowerment and making sure the money flows directly to the communities, recognizing there’s going to be, from time to time, extraordinary or catastrophic situations that require the territorial government to be there, to backstop and to work in collaboration with the communities to sort those issues out, and the commitment is that we’re going to continue to play that role. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as Minister McLeod indicated, communities will not be abandoned. There are opportunities for support under other pots of money, emergency measures money. If there are extraordinary circumstances, then, as the Minister has committed to, the communities will not be left on their own trying to deal with these unplanned extraordinary events. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Over the long term we all agree we want to get in the same place. We recognize that we’re in a time of transition. The Nordic countries, to be sure, have advanced their case much faster over the generations than we have. But as we look at the significant $60 million investment to alternative energy that we are putting out there with a plan with biomass and all these other areas for alternative energy, we must recognize that we still have to maintain the current infrastructure as we transition to a different type of energy generation and, hopefully, distribution. Thank...