Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, we do have a voice at the table. Unfortunately, they came to us after we had a bit of a break, and a lot of the decisions were already made. We brought that to their attention and the Chair recognized, and he apologized, that was his fault, that he should have included the three territories in the pre-discussion leading up to the break where a lot of conversations took place. They recognize that. We made our point. They gave us an opportunity to speak afterwards, but by then a lot of the decision had already been made. We brought it to their attention, and we intend in the future...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this would probably have been a result of our overall reduction exercise. If we find in the future we need to allocate these type of dollars again, then we can make some adjustments in the future, but it is part of our overall reduction exercise. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the RMO1s were wellreceived, and we have them all filled. They're all filled with local people. I think three of the five or four of the five are female. We've had very good interest in that, actually. If there are, as part of the HR plan, you know, if there's further opportunities to offer training positions in the regions, then that's something that we'll take into consideration. We want to be able to build up the capacity in the region because who knows the region better than the folks that live there, right. We would like to try to build the capacity there...

We are always looking at ways that we can increase our funding, especially for the youth. I mean, I can tell this House that we've had five events, I think, in the last year or so and we spent close to $650,000 at these events, and some of this is O and M funding for staff time and such. So it is a program that, you know, we will look at ways to enhance once the evaluation has been completed, and we will work with committee members to see how we can incorporate into our business plans and main estimates going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we actually have some from the GNWT that were affected. Also some of the federal employees were affected as well. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my opening response, the federal government has accepted responsibility for historical remediation or liabilities. However, on a go-forward basis, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, they monitor the activities of the mineral and development petroleum companies operating in the NWT and including the financial status of the company and the work is delivered through ITI’s financial analysis and royalties administration division. As much as we would like all the companies operating in the NWT to be financially stable, our main concern is to ensure that we...

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, the administration and control of the site has been transferred to the GNWT. However, through provisions of the devolution agreement, any historic liabilities are still the responsibility of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, the environmental remediation would be the responsibility of the owners. If the town owns the land, responsibility for remediation would be theirs. If the GNWT owns the land, then the responsibility for the remediation would be the GNWT’s. We have an Environmental Liabilities Committee, which would do an assessment whether contamination exists on the land and so the land would go to on our environmental liabilities list and would be remediated according to the GNWT priority and procedures. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where whoever owns the property would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my first advice to the town would be to seek some advice from their lawyer or their accountant and in fact, I would advise all communities that find themselves in this similar situation to seek the proper advice. If the $685,000, or $600,000, just close to $700,000 is owed for property taxes, the town does have the ability to explore the recovery taxes as per the Property Assessment and Taxation Act, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

I appreciate the Member letting the department drive the bus when it’s convenient for Members on the other side. We will work with the Members as we have committed to do, and bring in a lot of the issues in the mandate forward. There’s times where we try being erased to the bottom with the other jurisdictions across the country as far as business tax go, and in our case, because of the high cost of delivering programs and services up here, it gets to be a little unaffordable. I have made the commitment to work with Members opposite when we go through our business planning process, and as we...