Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have general comments on the opening statement, but I do have some questions on the proposed expenditure to prepare for the Mackenzie gas project of $1.3 million for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and $378,000 for the Department of Health and Social Services. Certainly this is something that many individuals and groups across the Territories have been asking for the government to do. I know the government has been trying to get the federal government to perhaps take over a bigger burden of it and the GNWT has been left with no choice but to...

I don’t think I got confirmation as to whether this is supposed to be non-profit. I think Minister Roland indicated that it’s supposed to be self-sustaining. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if there are too many groups out there without making any money. I am assuming somebody will make some money. They should make some money on this. I am being told that they will be required to pay some of these fees back. We don’t want to see a situation where they would be overburdened by having to make these payments. I guess at this point we don’t have any idea how it’s going to work once it...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my questions are also to the Minister of Finance and it is not in regard to an item before the Committee of the Whole, but in regard to the budget for 2004-05 which has passed. It is in regard to the money for TTC. Madam Speaker, it is only yesterday, I believe, I finally figured out that the money that this Assembly had voted on, as Mr. Braden had stated, $2.4 million was in fact not spent. It was last November that the government started looking at the possibility of moving this. My general question is how do we as MLAs have any confidence that...

Could the Minister confirm whether this was supposed to be a non-profit operation? I think that is what has been the plan. We expect that the non-profit community organizations would bid for these projects and run them. Now the Minister is indicating that the government will buy this equipment. I don’t know how long these contracts are. If somebody gets to do this work for two or three years, what happens to the equipment after that? If they are self-sustaining after the program gets off the ground, are they expected to pay towards the equipment and, if not, the equipment should stay as...

Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to finish my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is $550,000 stated for materials and supplies, which is a huge sum of money. It could mean anything. It could be a pen and pencil to whatever the recycling equipment may be. Perhaps that’s what this is about. I would like to know more details about what the money is going to be spent on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been in the works for many, many years. It is going across two assemblies. The laws on these were approved in the last Assembly. It was started at the beginning of that Assembly almost, and it is quite frustrating actually to see that this is still not off the ground. I would like to know from the Minister what is the problem. Should we have put more resources there? It seems like the negotiations for depots have been going on forever. Regulations have been written forever, like for two or three years. It was something that was concrete and seemed to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask some questions, not on a specific item, although obviously reference will be made to it. On this issue of the government coming back to us to approve something that has been approved before in principle, I think that as a budgeting process that has to be reviewed.

Mr. Chairman, we have a rule in this House where normally we are not allowed to revisit things that have been decided on. We are not allowed to revisit a new motion unless it is to be rescinded. So why is it possible, why is that part of the process that a capital project as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess that is pretty clear here, but I think there are, and I am wondering if the Minister or the government has any plans to invite those groups who might be based in Yellowknife but share an NWT focus, whether they be chambers of commerce or numerous NGOs who might have particular work or objectives that although they are based here, they are not really Yellowknife groups but are territorial-wide based who might have something useful who could gain from these workshops or to be able to contribute to these workshops. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to be supporting this motion and in my comments I really do not want to express in that this is a Yellowknife-versus-other-communities issue. I don’t think that sort of debate enhances the work that we do in this Assembly, and I hope that in all decisions I make in this House that it is not ever about one community versus another community.

I am sympathetic to those who lost their jobs in Hay River. I don’t think that because Hay River people lost jobs now it’s time for Yellowknife people to lose their jobs so that the Hay River people could get their jobs...