Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that no decision has been made on the route yet. I think it was just a preliminary discussion. I can assure the Member that it is not development at all costs. We will have a position, and we will continue to put our position forward, ENR, to the appropriate decisionmakers. Cabinet actually does not decide on the route. We would work with the decisionmakers and make our concerns known on the calving grounds as well as any other effects it might have on the environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As soon as we complete the work, we will be sharing that with committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I respect the Member's concern. That detail of information, offhand, we just do not have. We can confirm the numbers as well as some of the functions that they provide. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, our commitment is to work with the Government of Nunavut on the questions of shared caribou concern. I have already had a preliminary discussion with my counterpart in Nunavut and we will continue to relay our concerns to the Government of Nunavut and work with them in trying to find a balanced approach.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the Member's encouragement to the department to try to go out and get as much money as we can. I can tell the Member, though, and I think we get to it later on in the budget document that there is a lot of money that comes into the Northwest Territories through research projects, and we continue to try and explore every opportunity to have money come into the Northwest Territories to do research on climate change and mitigation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, gladly, Mr. Chair, thank you. We had a plan. Because of attrition we have eliminated four positions, and that gives us an opportunity to work on a new plan, recognizing some of the workload that ENR is going to be facing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we are. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t determined that yet, but one other thing I could share with Members or share with this House is, in our discussions with Canada, they recognize our high cost of providing services up here and they have a green energy fund, I believe it is, and there are some opportunities for us to apply for money through that fund to help mitigate our emissions. Again, to our advantage is that they know about the high cost of living up here, the 22 or 23 communities on these. We’ve made that case. I believe that we’re working with Canada to try and access some of that green...

I’ll defer to Dr. Kelly.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for those who are working within the government system, some who work in the system, you know fairly quickly that they have the ability to move through the system based on what they bring to the job. We continue to promote that. There are a number of initiatives that we use, the regional recruitment, direct appointments, the Aboriginal Management Development Program.

I can assure the Members that I want to see the folks from the Northwest Territories move through the system, but I want them to move through the system based on their ability and what they...