Rocky Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister what initiatives or are there any special initiatives in place or have been taken to recruit physicians specifically for the locations outside Yellowknife, such as Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had a chance to talk with the Minister of health for a bit, and she said she'd be willing to take some questions. So these are pretty straightforward. Can the Minister of health tell me why Hay River is consistently without a full complement of physicians or always a limited number of physicians. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, you know, I guess the topic of water is very important. You know, the Mackenzie River basin I think counts for about has a drainage area of about 1.8 million square miles, which is about 20 percent of Canada's land mass. And you know, it all comes down, you know, funneling through this area. And, you know, as we see more development in south, the bigger the impact could be. And, you know, with the Kearl spill, for some reason we missed it. Partly because, I guess, we weren't informed by the Alberta government. And secondly, I'm not sure if anybody...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, March 9th, 2023, I will move the following motion:

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that when this House adjourns on Thursday, March 9th, 2023, it shall be adjourned until Monday, March 27th, 2023;

And furthermore, that at any time prior to March 27th, 2023, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, or at a time later than the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This question, I know, the Minister will be able to answer because we just had a chat about it yesterday.

Is the Minister willing to have the department cost out an upgrade to electrical panels in existing units that would allow for use of small generators to power the houses during an outage? So it's a matter of flipping a switch and plugging in our little Honda generator or whatever you have. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you I guess, you've identified some criteria there, but I can you expand on that bit because, you know, we talk about, you know, volume of snow; we may have some rain down south; we have cold weather possibly that could impact it; we might have you know, you say that with ice we you know, it makes it difficult to predict as well but, you know, if it it just depends what the weather's like we could have thicker ice. If we don't have a lot of snow, that could cause that as well. We have, you know, in the Hay River for instance, we got the mouth of the river and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about NTPC. I want to take about aging infrastructure that NTPC has. I want to talk about frequent power outages. And I want to talk about temporary backup power. But my questions aren't for the Minister of NTPC; it's for the Minister of housing.

Mr. Speaker, during an extended power outage, what backup power is available to housing units owned by Housing NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One thing I haven't really heard, I guess, in the news or from the department is the involvement of the Indigenous governments in the territories who you know, who have comprehensive agreements signed. And in those agreements, you know, they have some, you know, water rights and, you know, the right to, you know, quantity and quality of water as well. So what discussions have been taking place with Indigenous governments within the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And the minister in I think in the media there had indicated that they would be using a dispute mechanism. And I'm just wondering, you know, how or if that mechanism has been used and how it will be used in this instance with the Kearl spill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you I guess, you've identified some criteria there, but I can you expand on that bit because, you know, we talk about, you know, volume of snow; we may have some rain down south; we have cold weather possibly that could impact it; we might have you know, you say that with ice we you know, it makes it difficult to predict as well but, you know, if it it just depends what the weather's like we could have thicker ice. If we don't have a lot of snow, that could cause that as well. We have, you know, in the Hay River for instance, we got the mouth of the river...