Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the third time; and, Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 42, An Act to amend the Petroleum Products Tax Act, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think what we need to do is clarify, because I think he is thinking that I said something which I didn't say. Let's read this exactly here again so that everyone is quite clear on it. Confidentiality was identified as an issue, so we chose to tailor this provision to have a positive obligation to circulate the notice to Indigenous governments as a way to demonstrate our commitment to the inherent rights and relationship to the land. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said before, we will work with the proponents to try to build some of these requirements into the contract. Again, it would be up to the proponent where they will get their supplies from, but if we were able to come to sort of agreement that would benefit, the proponents obviously want to do things fairly quickly and use people that they are familiar with. Having said that, though, we need to build some of these requirements in. One of the benefits of the P3 projects, and we have seen that, I think, with the Stanton Territorial Hospital, is that they come in on time and on budget. That is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member pointed out in his Member's statement before, P3 projects have allowed the government to allow their dollars to go further and make further investments in infrastructure, which is a benefit to the people of the Northwest Territories.

When a project is undertaken as a P3, a specific part of the agreement is negotiated with respect to local and northern content. A good example of this is our latest P3 project that we just completed where there was $71 million of that particular amount that was spent on northern businesses. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Yellowknife is the only community in the Northwest Territories to operate a paper and cardboard recycling program, funded through municipal taxes. It has recently encountered challenges in finding markets for these materials. My understanding is the city is currently stockpiling these materials onsite in the hopes that markets improve in the future. Packaging and printed paper are identified in the strategy as target material for waste reductions and diversion efforts over the next 10 years.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government has made a commitment at the beginning of this Legislative Assembly to support the effective co-management of our caribou herds. As you know, many of our herds are experiencing rapid declines, and it is our shared responsibility as a government and a territory to promote their recovery.

Range plans are a vital part of how we work together to co-manage our caribou herds and provide guidance to decision makers, developers, and communities to manage activities on the land in a way that supports healthy caribou populations.

Mr. Speaker, today, after years of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the comments that are being made. I feel compelled to stand up and speak to whoever is left awake in the Northwest Territories at this late hour and let them know because the messaging that they have been getting is: we have been letting some of the negative messaging get out there. We need to not do that. We need to not play politics with something as important as this.

I have heard someone say that our Premier signed onto this Pan-Canadian Framework, and he agreed that we need to come up with a made-in-NWT approach. I believe we did. I believe we did. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 39, Environmental Rights Act, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote. Thank you.

As I said earlier, we do want a lot of the benefits from these projects to go to Northerners, be it training, business opportunities, job opportunities, and it is expected in our negotiations with the proponents that these are built in so that Northerners will benefit from the money that the government spends on a lot of these infrastructure projects. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.