Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would support this motion. I think that the instructions were not clearly laid out. I think that it was assumed by this Legislature that when you selected three individuals that those three individuals would look at language and culture as being something that was very, very important and something that was paramount in the decisions, and in developing the electoral boundaries that culture and language would be something that this commission would automatically know that was essential, was paramount in our decision. However, it was not clearly laid out in the...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Chair. Although I know we don’t have interpreters anymore, I just want to speak a bit in my language to the elders. [English translation not provided.]

I just wanted to stress a point of how important it is even today as more and more people speak English and communicate in English, and English is a working language for us, we still need to work in our own languages as well. We still need to have representation in the House here that represents people of all Aboriginal languages across this great territory of ours.

We know that some of the languages have almost died because...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity.

I found this to be a very difficult topic, very difficult report to understand. We have the people from the Northwest Territories, the Aboriginal people that are impacted by decisions made in this House know where the boundaries should be drawn, individual communities. The 19 seats option, there’s something that Akaitcho Territorial Government passed a motion to support and that was to leave the status quo as is. They have difficulty understanding why, with the amount of MLAs, that they would have to take and essentially eliminate one seat...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will not be supporting this motion. I think that it’s important that this type of discussion, this type of decision being made by the people in this room, like with the discussion we had today, as you can see individuals are trying to protect nations or trying to protect the people that they represent. This would take it completely out of our hands and it will go to individuals who are not elected by the people who will be going out there as a commission making a final decision on how the electoral boundaries would look in the Northwest Territories.

I thought this last...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the various departments still go forward with direct appointments. Direct appointments are made by Cabinet. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, November 6, 2013, I will move that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a lot of work done in the cost-benefit analysis before the bridge was completed to get some good baseline data. So my assumption is that there will be an audit and I’m assuming these numbers are from some form of an audit that was done on the cost of the various items. If more audits need to be done on this, I’m sure that the department is continuing to track for the purpose of determining if the bridge has put a heavy burden as far as cost goes on the items that are being sold in Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you. The trucking industry is an unregulated industry, just like the airline industry is an unregulated industry. However, what we’re seeing is that with the Deh Cho Bridge, the competition is what’s going to bring the costs down. There hasn’t been a significant increase in other areas, either, in this time period. The cost of fuel has only gone up by 1.6 percent, gasoline by 0.3 percent, footwear by 1 percent and household furnishings by 0.4 percent, so it’s not significantly an increase that is a result of the bridge. Thank you.

Thank you. The department and myself would be glad to review that bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Likely the law is stopping us from doing it, but I can check with the Department of Human Resources and if there are no privacy laws that we are breaking to print people’s individual salaries, then I can discuss that further with the Members across. Like, probably go to the committee as opposed to just saying that I’m going to table people’s salaries here in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.