Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been four years since I’ve wanted to see a Minister’s statement on dredging the port at Hay River. Amen. Hallelujah. We’ve finally got a statement that made that point.

We know the federal government is still not there and now at least the territorial government is listening. The crack of the door is open. Now we need to kick that door open and get this project going.

Last week I was talking about the fact that we are building roads, which used to be a federal responsibility, 75 federal, 25 for the territorial. If our federal partners aren’t going to kick in the...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 69, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 2, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 69 makes a number of amendments to the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act. These include amendments to:

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allow for the duration of the Legislative Assembly to be extended in the event of a postponed polling day under the Elections and Plebiscites Act;

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align the sitting requirements of the Legislative Assembly with the Northwest Territories Act (Canada);

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clarify certain provisions...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would there be an opportunity to commit to a multi-year approach? As opposed to spending millions of dollars in one year, maybe going to a multiple year, like going $400,000 and $500,000 a year for 10 years, as opposed to giving $12 million to the project.

We’re looking for a commitment financially to the project. Is the department willing to put that into their own end budget? Thank you.

One of the parties that we can’t get to the table is the federal government. Are we inviting the federal government to get into this deal?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to acknowledge Elsie Bouvier, one of my constituents, who is proud to be with her friend Jeanna, who won an award today at the Culture and Heritage Circle Awards.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have some general questions to the Minister about the ENR expenditure on the US purchase of these aircraft.

My first question is: Why wouldn’t we have hedged the major purchase of these assets and are we making that correction going forward? We know we have multiple payments to make in US currency and are we making that in the future so that we don’t have to spend $400,000 every time we try to make a payment?

Thank you. I see this item on here and I’m just wondering if we have some other capital expenditures. I know we’ve talked, the Board of Management, about doing some upgrades to the building. Have we completed all those upgrades for access? I know we’ve had people with disabilities come through, CNIB come through and stuff like that. Are there any other building upgrades that we’re looking at doing in this upcoming year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions about the Stanton Project as well. Obviously, there is a bit of a balancing here. We, obviously, as Regular Members, had an opportunity to walk through Stanton, and there is definitely a need for improvement to the facility, and talking to some of the contractors that were bidding on it and were talking about bidding on it, a stand-alone building is probably more efficient and a more effective way to do this project.

I guess the difficulty comes in the fact that in the communities in the regions we kind of often see that and say, okay, well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if the Minister can give me more information or indicate to me whether we are linked to all other departments in the NWT, Justice, HR, Housing, some of those positions where we know we need a certain skill set that we want, not just for highly educated people but also for tradespeople. Are we linked to all the sectors and all the private sectors? Can the private sector come to us and say we would like to put this job out to the students of the Northwest Territories? Are we able to take that information and pass it on to our students? Thank you, Mr...

Can I clarify a question with the Minister? So, now we have that checkmark in the application, currently we have the ability to contact those students when we have job positions from HR? We can contact the students that these are the positions we currently have in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.