Wendy Bisaro

I’m afraid we have to agree the work that the Minister is doing is going to be in the best interest of NWT residents. This project, albeit they may be working hard at trying to do the cleanup, it’s not in the best interests of residents. Over half of the recommendations are suggested by the Giant team. The project team is suggesting that over half of the recommendations be modified or rejected.

I’d like to know from the Minister why is it so important that 50 percent, more than 50 percent of the recommendations from the MVERB report, why is it so important that they be rejected. Cost should be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement. I want to ask the Minister with regard to the project team’s response to the environmental assessment on the Giant Mine.

On October 21st this House passed a motion which said, “that the Government of the Northwest Territories accept the measures and suggestions contained in the report of the environmental assessment,” and that motion was passed by the House.

Eleven days later the project team released a letter to the public, and that was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up today on Mr. Bromley’s statement from Monday and express my concerns with the response from the Giant Mine Remediation Team, their response to the recommendations in the environmental assessment report from the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board about the Giant Mine Remediation Project.

It’s been almost four months since the Mackenzie Valley Review Board released its final report on the old gold mine’s remediation. I’m on record that I was pleased with the report’s recommendations, recommendations which directed the federal government...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion for bringing it forward. This is a motion which I can fully support. I’ve spoken to the issue of alcohol in my own community and in all NWT communities many times. It’s an issue which, unfortunately, is going to take very many years before it will ever go away. I suspect it won’t ever go away fully.

It’s been spoken to I think by a couple of the Members already, but alcohol is involved in, obviously, the majority of incidents that the RCMP and/or the municipal enforcement officers deal with. It takes up a huge...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, one of the ones that have been rejected that I’ve referenced several times is an independent oversight. If we have to accept a non-independent oversight body, the Oversight Working Group has been working on an environmental agreement. It’s been worked on for many years. I’d like to ask the Minister when will the oversight group get back to the table and finalize this environmental agreement. Thank you.

To the Minister, yes, things take time, but I don’t think it should take five years for an environmental assessment. Goodness knows when it took that long for the pipeline, people were screaming that it was far too long.

The Minister quoted from a letter from 2012, I believe he was referencing the Oversight Working Group at that point, and I feel strongly we need an independent oversight group, which apparently has been rejected, or which I know has been rejected. So the Oversight Working Group, from my understanding, has not met since September of 2012, shortly after the letter I think the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s unfortunate that the Minister feels we have to disagree on something which would go towards assuaging the concerns of residents, particularly here in Yellowknife.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he can tell me, one of the recommendations which was rejected referenced an oversight of the project, and there’s no recognition from the response from the team of environmental agreements that have been worked on. There is no recognition that oversight is a very large concern for residents.

Can the Minister tell me, again, to this particular one, why is oversight of the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Minister that anything we do for our children is an investment, but I believe again that he is misplaced in putting the investment in junior kindergarten as opposed to investing in our children from birth to three years of age.

Knowing that the research says that the science proves that the earlier we invest, the better the results later on, I would like to ask the Minister if he would consider, in the development of this action plan, putting off implementing junior kindergarten for at least five years until we can see the effects of early childhood...

Thanks to the Minister. At the risk of being contrary, I would like to say to the Minister that there is also an article that talks about Ontario’s kindergarten and that any benefits from junior kindergarten and kindergarten are lost by grade 3 or 4 and everybody is back to being on the same level, so I don’t think junior kindergarten is the panacea he’s suggesting.

We have a couple of junior kindergarten pilots right now. From what I understand, at least one of them, and I suspect all of them, are in a classroom combined with kindergarten, so you have junior kindergarten students in the same...