Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree. I totally agree that spending by the government in slow economic times is positive for the growth for the Northwest Territories, but I'm also a realist and I realize that we need to have the money to spend to stimulate the economy, and that's one of the reasons that I stand up here and take the flack I take for trying to make the decisions we make on reducing some of our spending so we can be in a position to reinvest that into the economy of the Northwest Territories. I will continue to stand here and preach that message, even though some of you may be getting...

Mr. Speaker, everything we do in this Assembly, and I'm talking all 19 of us, is I think targeted towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly, and many of the things in the mandate is to create employment, and it's a very large mandate so we don't miss too many parts of the mandate when we do our spending across the Northwest Territories. So the answer is yes, we do target the spending towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, we'll start the work and gather a lot of that information and I think it would be valuable information. I mean, we will share it with the Members obviously, and then once we get all the work done we will table it.

Mr. Speaker, I am getting weekly updates from the department. I mean, I've been in the portfolio for 36 days, four hours and 22 minutes. Not realizing what a huge department ENR is and how much it covers. So some of the information, as I get more educated on it, I'll be in a better position to respond to the Member's question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We work very closely with our northern counterparts because the carbon pricing mechanism that Ottawa came up with is going to have an effect on the three territories. We managed to get it into the architecture document that is going to be considered by the first ministers at their upcoming meeting and we also made it quite clear to our counterparts and the federal minister the effect that proposed carbon pricing is going to have on the Northwest Territories. They've committed to recognizing the uniqueness of the Northwest Territories as they move forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by Ms. Green on June 29, 2016, regarding Reporting of the Government Fiscal Responsibility Policy. The Fiscal Responsibility Policy is focused on committing the GNWT to prudent borrowing to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability. If the GNWT does not achieve sufficient cash from operating surpluses to finance 50 per cent of infrastructure investments in a fiscal year, the GNWT would be required to adopt a fiscal strategy to ensure sufficient operating surpluses were achieved over the subsequent two fiscal periods to...

Mr. Speaker, I can't commit to meeting for the technical team. I can commit to working with the technical team or communicating with them that there is an interest to have some further discussion with them, and, if they come back with a positive, then we will let committee know. I do commit to working with the technical team and seeing what their availability is for further meetings with the Regular Members or others that may be interested. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, according to the NWT Nunavut Spills Working Agreement, all spills or potential spills must be reported in a timely fashion to the 24hour spill line. In the case of a ship that runs aground, Canada Coast Guard, as I said before, is the lead agency for response component on behalf of the Government of Canada, and Transport Canada is responsible for the management and governance of Canada's marine oil spills preparedness. ENR will be involved in communicating critical aspects of the incident, and we can provide assistance when Canada's agencies request it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The federal government has given an indication that any carbon pricing mechanism used, the money would actually stay in the jurisdiction where it is generated. So there could be opportunities there for some investment in infrastructure, and in our meetings with the federal minister we talked about the fact that we have 22 of our 33 communities on diesel. We need to get them off diesel. There are opportunities there for some federal investments through the green infrastructure and any other pots of money that we may be able to access to help us reduce our emissions. So we are looking at all...

We recognize that the proposed carbon pricing is going to have an effect on people across the Northwest Territories. Having said that, we are going to undertake our regional public engagements this fall to inform the development of both the new energy strategy, get some feedback from residents, and I believe it's starting on October 25th and 26th.

There will be a schedule that would be made public, if it's not already. Also we have an on-line survey on the Department of ENR's website to get some public feedback. But we are having five regional workshops, regional public engagements, and we will...