Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I'm not personally aware of it; maybe the department is, but what I will ask them to do is to do some research into the issue that the Member speaks of. I mean it's unfortunate that we have to be having this discussion on the pension of those employees in Hay River for -- or all the employees of NTCL. But I will commit to the Member that I'll do further research. I'll ask the department to maybe have a conversation with Ontario, see exactly what it is that they do there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we find that this is a system that works for the government's needs very good. It does have to process a lot of information. One of the benefits, as Mr. Koe pointed out, was that we do get support from the vendor when we purchase their product. After 2024, I am not sure what the plan is going to be. If there is another upgrade to the system that we are quite comfortable with, then we will continue to use it. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Just as an example, in the 2015-16 fiscal year, SAM, or the System for Accountability and Management...

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the GNWT had a standing in the Royal Oak proceeding so it was easier to intervene and make representation. I said before, we have limited exposure with NTCL. We don’t have a standing in the bankruptcy proceedings, so it would be difficult for us to do so, and it's also assumed that the pensioners and affected employees are suitably represented in the proceedings.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my right I have Mr. David Stewart, deputy minister of Finance. To my left, I have skip Jamie Koe who is our Comptroller General.

Mr. Speaker, I can work with my federal counterpart and see what they have in the works for this particular area and see what the next steps are, and again, we will work closely with them and the community to see if we can advance the community's wishes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Members have expressed a concern with the new department which is actually a proposal and a decision has not been made. The decision, I don't think is made until it's approved by the Legislative Assembly. What I can commit to do and I think I've already started that process today is I've provided a letter to committee with the appropriations broken down from both departments, and I notice in the order of appearance they have both departments actually separately.

So if committee wishes, those letters that I've provided to committee I could probably table...

Mr. Speaker, as far as the protected areas, we do have some influence, I mean, we would work closely with our federal counterparts; work closely with the communities. I understand in this particular situation, the community of Paulatuk are keepers of this particular area, so we will work closely with them. But as the way things are working now we do have a bit more influence than we may have had in the past.

No, I've used up my quota of yesses for the week. Mr. Chair, the Member makes a good point on the housing infrastructure. One of the challenges that all of jurisdictions are facing is, and I've said it a number of times, is the decline in funding at CMHC. I think the current Minister of Housing has made a commitment that they're going to continue to raise the issue at the FPT table, and one of the benefits with the new federal government is that they actually are willing to come to the table. We've never had that before; we were very challenged.

In all my time as Minister of Housing I think we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to develop a territorial climate change strategy and I wanted to tell Members about the work that is underway. As you know, climate change is occurring at an accelerated pace in the Northwest Territories. We have no choice but to be leaders in addressing and adapting to the impacts of climate change in our communities.

The Northwest Territories is warming at a rate four to five times faster than global averages and this is causing significant changes to the natural environment...

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my right, I have Mr. David Stewart who is the deputy minister of Finance.