Wally Schumann

As I have said in my previous comments, not everybody will be happy with everything in this bill, including me. This bill is built on the collaboration and consensus of the people of the Northwest Territories. I support the bill that we are bringing forward. I believe it is the bill at the right time, for the right industry, that we are doing this through the devolution process. This is a bill that people of the Northwest Territories are clearly interested in. As I have said, this is probably one of the biggest and most important ones in this Legislative Assembly. If the Member does not like...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Wednesday, February 13, 2019, I will move that Bill 35, Supply Chain Management Professional Designation Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That might be his approach, but not mine. From the Government of the Northwest Territories' approach, we have done our due diligence on this act.

As we know, this is probably one of the most important pieces of act coming forward in the 18th Legislative Assembly. We have involved the intergovernmental council right from day one on this thing, along with their technical advisory panel, which is the North Slave Metis Alliance and the Dehcho First Nations, who also attend this meeting. We have met with special interest groups, environmental and non-government organizations...

As I've said, I'm willing to have a conversation with anybody, but this is a conversation that has to include more than just me. As I said, this is something that happened, not under our watch, under the federal government's watch. There are other opportunities for those people to have those discussions at different venues, as I've said. I'm willing to have those discussions, and I suspect through more consultation with Indigenous governments and their leadership on moving this project forward, I can raise this question of around the impacted residents, and we'll see what the leadership wants...

At this point, right now, as I've said, I've clearly laid out the three Indigenous governments that the government is willing to engage with. I am willing to go into the communities to have a discussion with the local communities of Fort Resolution, Fort Smith, and Lutselk'e, in particular. At that point, maybe that's when there will be an opportunity for some questions from the Regular Members.

No, that is not the case. As I said, we are trying to put this thing as efficiently and as fast as we can for the residents, particularly in his home community. We have made the unprecedented step where we put the Arctic Red River in first now so the community can actually get out of there sooner and cross over to go to McPherson. We can actually pull that, maybe, and put that money towards the main crossing if the Member wants us to spend in his community. That is going to mean that they are going to have to wait a lot longer to get out of there. I have committed in this House that I will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to read my notes because this stuff is from all different sources. The funding is coming from two federal sources, with some additional funding from the GNWT. From CanNor we are receiving $480,000, with an additional $120,000 from the Government of the Northwest Territories funding. This is an allocation for technical and commercial work on the project. From CIRNAC we are receiving $619,950. This money will be used to support Indigenous partnership. Funding for technical questions is only sufficient to take us to the end of this fiscal year.

As I said, I stated that I met with the Akaitcho, and the Deninu Kue were there, represented by their leadership, and I had a conversation with all the leaders of the Akaitcho First Nations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When you start looking at the whole electrical grid system across North America, which is not connected at this point, actually, the federal government is having a serious look at how they can do that to help make a more stable grid right across the country and share renewables, but the situation with Alberta and Saskatchewan the Member does not bring up is they are on an extensive amount of coal. Both of these provinces have coal generation that they need to get off there to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Both provinces are clearly at the odds right now with the federal government...

For those of you who have read the energy strategy very, very closely, in there it clearly states that the Northwest Territories needs to reduce our GHGs by 517 kilotonnes by 2030 to meet our targets for the 2030 pan-Canadian framework that we have signed on to. Of this, 290 kilotonnes can be achieved through a variety of models, reducing diesel generation in communities, industrial efficiency, renewable heating in communities, transportation, et cetera. That leaves us a gap of 227 kilotonnes which is in there. The 240 from the Taltson Project, which it would generate, would be sufficient to...