Robert C. McLeod

The reason I dropped my earpiece before was I have had feedback that I do tend to snap my earpiece a lot. I just realized I was doing it, so I dropped it, so I picked up the pencil and now I'll break it.

---Laughter

The GNWT continues to press the Government of Canada to address this issue. Officials from the Department of Lands raised the issue in early 2015 in a meeting with INAC senior officials. Obviously, the GNWT supports decision-making in the environmental assessment process but we will continue to work with our counterparts in Ottawa to see if there's ways that we can address the issue...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the First Ministers meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 4, Interim Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2016-2017 be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 4, Interim Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2016-2017 be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, we have oversight on these projects, and that is how we discover some of the deficiencies in the project. You know, we can't assume that with the new hospital we're going to run into difficulties there too, but we do have a fairly significant oversight to a lot of products that we work on.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There should be no change. Thank you.

We value the input of all of our youth across the Northwest Territories. There have been no decisions, as the Member well knows, that have been made yet, and we will debate all aspects of the main estimates during the business planning process that is upcoming in just over a month. We will have that opportunity to debate and have feedback from committee as we move forward.

We were very disappointed in the six sports that were excluded from the 2016 Arctic Winter Games, and we tried very hard to get an alternative event planned. Unfortunately, one of the jurisdictions backed out and we were unable to pull that together. We have given the excluded sports an option to find an opportunity to find a development opportunity, a tournament that they can go to as they would if they were competing in the Arctic Winter Games. We have a very strong, healthy support system for all of our athletes. We have the $650,000 that we use for multi-sport events, and we continue...

We recognize the value of having our NWT residents participate in a lot of these processes, and I will commit to the Member that I will continue to raise the issue with our federal counterpart. We are fairly new in devolution. The responsibilities we're taking over are fairly new. I will take up the cause and continue to raise that issue with Ottawa so people in the Northwest Territories are able to be funded to participate in some of the hearings.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for that I would like to go to Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.