Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise with great excitement that in Hay River on June 28th and July 1st we are having the Hay River Homecoming. It’s an event that people are busy in Hay River right now organizing and getting things ready. We have 550 signed up on the website, and the website is hayriver2013.ca.

If you are from Hay River or you have ever lived in Hay River, we are looking for people to come back to Hay River and visit with the folks that have been there and have enjoyed the community.

We also are acknowledging some of the events and anniversaries. It’s been 50 years since the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along with my colleagues, I will be supporting this motion. I know this is an issue for Hay River. We are in the centre of three highways and we do respond quite a bit to rescue outside of the community. We have issue with this and we think this motion moves us in the right direction.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to say that I will not be supporting this motion as well. As my colleagues have said, this has been a process 20 years in the making and a priority of this Assembly. We are moving forward with the process. The mover and seconder talk about democracy, and the democracy that happened was when we were elected to make decisions for this territory. I think it’s in our hands to make the decisions and to go forward.

To have a plebiscite would be a costly venture, anywhere from $400,000 to $500,000 are the numbers I have heard. The government is in the process of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To begin my Member’s statement today, I’d like to quote a great poet and musician, Stompin’ Tom Connors.

“Hello out there, we’re on the air, it’s hockey night tonight. Tension grows, the whistle blows, the puck goes down the ice. The goalie jumps, the players bump, the fans all go insane, someone roars, Bobby scores, at the good old hockey game.”

“Oh, the good old hockey game, is the best game you can name. The best name you can name, is the good old hockey game.”

I started this because I’ve got a couple of hockey issues that are going on in Hay River over the next couple...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering if I can get a little bit more detail from the Minister on what this expenditure is for again.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce or recognize Wendy Morgan, also, not my constituency assistant but she definitely helps me out when I’m in Hay River for my Hay River riding. She definitely helps me out, and thanks for all the hard work. Like I said, we’ve been here for six weeks so she has been very helpful.

I’d also like to say thanks to Mr. Bubar and his team from Avalon for coming here. We look forward to having them in the South Slave and working with them in Hay River.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Mr. Dolynny for putting this motion forward. I know, obviously, his hard work and his commitment to this process. He’s framed out the concept quite well and I’d just like to speak to the fact that I support this strongly.

The Northwest Territories and the diamond industry is very important to us and that we have opportunity from private industry, from our experience in the past, that we need to look at the potential of keeping this industry in the Northwest Territories, keeping it and making the Northwest Territories more of an influence in the diamond...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re in our sixth week of session, our longest session on an annual basis here, and as I’ve indicated in these sessions here before, this is a long period of time with our extended family, and like with any family, sometimes we’re short with each other and get tired of each other towards the end. I appreciate everybody here and I appreciate everybody’s tolerance to my comments during the last six weeks.

During the last six weeks, we have passed a $1.6 billion budget, which extends out to 33 communities for 43,000 people. We look at 13 departments and as we go through...

As I indicated earlier, I think the $5 million we’re approving here is one piece of the large puzzle, and I think we’ll be seeing further supplements here quickly. Basically to the point of committing to the project, I think this is a tough decision for a lot of the Members here to decide what we want to do with this money and whether we support this project. For me personally, it’s been a challenge back and forth. I know it’s large infrastructure money, and it’s hard not to look at last projects such as the Deh Cho Bridge and the overruns there. The Deh Cho Bridge had a revenue stream to it...

The deputy minister kind of led me into my next question. I’m just wondering how the GNWT expect… We talk about the economic development, the opportunity this provides for our members in our communities and our constituents in the Far North. I’m just wondering how the department expects to maximize the northern content for the employment on this project.