Wendy Bisaro

I thank the Minister for his 60 million reasons. I only want 55 million. I’ll take the other five million, thank you very much, and put it into an NWT green fund.

The Minister has, I assume, but since I asked why he isn’t enabling, he must consider that he is enabling, and I don’t feel if he thinks that enabling that it is a fair process. He talked about the gas tax money and that communities have gas tax money, but in my estimation the gas tax money is used for the communities’ capital projects in general. It’s not specific to energy projects, and energy projects can be very costly.

A green...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question with regard to recreational land leased to recreational organizations. I believe that the Yellowknife Golf Course, at least part of it is on Department of Transportation land or Commissioner’s land which is managed by the Department of Transportation. I wondered if the Minister could comment on whether or not there’s any possibility that because this is a Yellowknife recreational organization and I know that other recreational organizations within the city of Yellowknife that lease land from the city pay somewhat reduced lease fees, from what I can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister I guess I have to say that I appreciate that people can apply for these funds, but there’s no identified pot of money that is going specifically to communities. I guess I would encourage any community out there to apply to the Minister for some funds.

The last thing I want to say is that the situation that exists now with no specific process for communities to apply does not allow them to apply for a loan, and in many cases it’s the community needs a loan not necessarily a grant. So can I ask the Minister how a community who needs a loan for a project...

Thanks to the Minister. It’s good to hear that, that businesses are related to the airline industry. In terms of the land, is this government land? Is it city land? If it is city land, how are taxes dealt with? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little nonplussed, I guess, by the Minister’s response that he would choose to ignore the request of a standing committee. I want to quote from the letter that was sent to the Hon. Robert R. McLeod sometime in January. The date is not evident here, but from the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, and the chair said, “committee members are very interested in the recommendations made in the JRP report on the Mackenzie Gas Project and want both the opportunity to provide input in the development of a response and an opportunity to review the response before it...

So let’s try that novel idea, Mr. Speaker, the idea of working together with respect and consideration for others. We can accomplish a whole lot more together than we can if we antagonize each other. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following on the statement of the Minister of ENR, this is rather interesting. If I thought my job was depressing last week, yesterday set things up for this week to be even worse. I was aghast to discover yesterday morning that the GNWT had submitted a response to the National Energy Board regarding the recommendations in the Joint Review Panel report. I am not trying to suggest that GNWT should not respond to the JRP recommendations. No, absolutely, we should respond. But if it is the government who’s responding, Regular Members must be included in the development of...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess having asked about these two things individually I’d like to now ask the Minister how they relate to each other. Will these two projects operate or be developed in isolation of each other? I would hope not, but could he give me sort of a description, I guess, of how we’re going to set our greenhouse gas targets and also develop an NWT Climate Adaptation Plan and not do them together? Or will they be done together?

Thank you to the Minister for that. I’d like to as well, when we reviewed the business plans there was a discussion about developing an NWT Climate Change Adaptation Plan and I don’t believe I saw any date in there. I think that that work was being undertaken in this current fiscal year. I’d like to ask the Minister if we are developing an NWT Climate Change Adaptation Plan and, if so, is it done or when might it be done.

Thanks to the Minister for that. I’m sorry; I missed that in your remarks. I must have been snoozing. I guess I would like to know if the Minister could elaborate a bit. You’re talking about this plan being a little more expansive. Are you looking to pull in communities, to have communities as part of sort of the overall greenhouse gas emission targets, and/or are you looking to involve individual residents so that they can adapt their activities to try and lower our greenhouse gas emissions? Thank you.