Robert Hawkins

Mr. Chairman, I certainly support this. I’ve been raising this particular matter for a lot of years, and I’m kind of glad to see it finally get a bit of traction on this side of the House. For many years I had heard at the time Finance Minister Roland say, oh no, don’t worry. That’s why we’ll have a Heritage Fund, and don’t worry; we’ll use the Heritage Fund to take care of any ups and downs. Then along came, following him, Finance Minister Miltenberger, the eldered Miltenberger, that is, and in his wise way he, too, said much the same way, don’t worry, there will be a Heritage Fund one day...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that potentially some Members may be having concerns with the grants and contributions and certainly the overall program with this particular page, so what I ask is rather than being sort of bent up in the sense of doing something we are not quite sure what we want to do at this particular time, is it possible that the Minister could commit to a discussion and certainly a briefing regarding things like the grants and contributions on this division. Maybe we could have an overall look at it before the end of this budget cycle and the commitment that we will...

The Minister seems to be missing the opportunity. Here is the chance for us to publicize things like our business building capacity section as highlighted in the socio-economic agreements, our cultural and community well-being results. Why doesn’t the Minister seize the opportunity and start publicizing these annually in a newspaper to show the everyday citizen who wants to know are Northerners being employed, are they meeting up to these agreements, and what is the government if they’re not. Will he consider that and do that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a clear expectation, and I certainly will say a right and correct expectation of the public that the Government of the Northwest Territories is monitoring, managing and certainly enforcing the socio-economic agreements. But frankly, the everyday person doesn’t know where to find these things, and thank goodness we have the research to help us track these down.

By way of example, I’ll say De Beers, in a 2012 report – by the way, it was a 40-page report – said that they were almost meeting their targets of 300 NWT residents working for them. They were at 275. That...

Mr. Chairman, after hearing that, it inspired me. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Madam Chair, that sounds good. I’m not asking for veto when I describe it this way, but committee feels very strongly, and I stress committee and not necessarily anything broader than that, but there would be a possibility to maybe open or exercise those concerns and maybe build upon those concerns, if necessary.

One of the challenges we have is, once we approve the budget, it is from a Regular Member perspective, it’s see you later at that point. Sometimes I think some things do take a fair bit of work to get to know, like, expect and work through. Again, I’m not stressing veto power. I’m...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2012 Diavik provided over $300,000 to Northerners in various ways under the culture and community well-being. That’s something to be very proud of. But we shouldn’t have to worry about checking with the feelings of the mining industry when these reports are given back to the government for the people of the Northwest Territories to ensure the socio-economic agreements are being lived up to. I don’t care how the mines feel; I want the government to show that they’re with the people, not protecting the mines.

Would the Minister agree today to publicize these things in a...

By the way, that mine promotion statement was brought to you by the Minister of ITI that everything’s fine.

The question for the public here is – now on to the next issue – building capacity. One agreement had highlighted 38 percent of material, equipment and purchasing through the construction phase would be done locally in the Northwest Territories. Furthermore, when they went on to operations, the goods and services at 32 percent would be purchased in the Northwest Territories.

The question to the Minister of ITI is: How does the public know that they’re living up to their agreement in a...

I keep asking the question for the benefit of the public. It’s been stressed, reaffirmed, continued… Ms. Bisaro’s phone is ringing there. They must be calling in with the number, I guess.

I keep asking the same question that is not before the public and I’m trying to get it on the public record. Is the Minister unwilling or unprepared to answer the question I keep asking about the value of these positions when it comes to the monetary portion? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, yet again the Minister tries to divide this as a big town against small town, against small communities, whatever the case may be. The fact is that there seems to be no plan whatsoever to cover this funding model, and it’s okay, Mr. Minister, you can say you just don’t know. When you do that and you feel better, we can all start working and building from there.

When the Minister says we’re going to enhance, let’s put the dollar on the table and tell me what type of dollar you’re going to have to come back to this Assembly and ask for, because we want to know because nobody out...