Sandy Lee

It doesn’t appear to be that we are making much progress there. I know that we have our negotiators, but we still haven’t heard much about what’s going on in that area. So while I support and I know that everyone here supports the economic gains and economic benefits that will come from the pipeline, it is really with heavy heart, because we have no guarantee that we are going to get our share of the resource revenues that we want to see and that we still don’t have power and control over things that we need to have in order to make the right public policies and guidelines and regulations...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to speak to this motion. Mr. Speaker, obviously the pipeline train is coming toward us and it’s probably actually right at our doorstep with the filing of the application just a few days ago. There’s no question we, as a government, are feeling squeezed because there are lots of things that we wanted to have in place before this pipeline project becomes a reality in order that our jurisdiction and our people receive the maximum benefits out of such a megaproject, a project that would be ranked worldwide as one of the biggest projects of our time. Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do believe we must come up with a more concrete and more focused response and preparedness for what is going to befall upon us socially and with this megaproject. I think we have to do more than just business as usual, Mr. Speaker, because there are some specific issues and specific fallouts that we are going to have from this mega resource development from transient workers. We are already seeing increased use of crack cocaine and more prostitution, promiscuity. This report is talking about things like that. People use easy money frivolously on gambling. We are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ve been sort of tasked, I guess by Members on this side, to question the social impacts of the departments, which I am happy to do because I know that it is one that is a concern of all of us on this side and I think I will direct my questions to the Minister responsible for women, the honourable Minister Dent. Mr. Speaker, I realize that social impacts of mega resource development projects are not women’s issues alone, but there are a lot of issues that we need to deal with and there is no question that these important issues are not being discussed at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, indeed the news is out about the Northwest Territories diamonds, oil and gas, and our exceptional economic situation is making good copy in southern newspapers. Our economic growth is almost 10 times greater than the rest of Canada, and our employment rates are also breaking all records already without the pipeline. In Yellowknife, we have full employment, statistically speaking, already.

Mr. Speaker, the future indeed looks very bright, but there are many in our communities who are very concerned about the social impact the explosion of booming economy...

Thank you. This is another potential liability amount that we are supposed to, I think, put on the books. But reading the explanation for this it’s still quite puzzling, because it is largely, I think, for now anyway, until we know what the outcome of the litigation might be, it really is an accounting exercise to make sure that we have some funds allocated as a potential liability. But I’m just wondering why we have to do this, because it seems to me that the litigation is in such an initial stage, that we really don’t know what the final outcome might be; and why would anything like this...

I’m sorry; I still don’t understand why we had to pay out $2.69 million.

Okay, so it’s page 5 of the schedule.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We could argue about this, but let me tell you the union has a designate, and that designate is not permitted to represent the appellant. I think that is another way of saying that it is a prop. Mr. Speaker, the Minister is not saying this, but I am getting a feeling that there is a process being worked out that may not be agreeable to the union. It is going to be maybe an opinion process that would not involve the employer or the union, it would just be a whole third-party process. Maybe that works for us, but I think the Minister is making a big mistake if he is...

Good question.