Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about how necessary good and vital communications are. Rather than stressing and saying this is sort of a bad situation of how communication didn’t work, I actually would rather look at it as here we have a fantastic opportunity to do things well and to certainly build on the lessons we learned from last summer.

We have many vital industries out there such as the folks who carry and stock groceries on our shelves day to day. That’s not just all of them, that’s just one area. There are many other areas.

I would like to ask the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My kind of question, of course, and I appreciate that. I always have a saying, we should know what the question is before we’re willing to answer it. I certainly am supportive of development and I’m supportive of the good work happening in the Sahtu region. It’s just the question needs to be asked first, and we shouldn’t be afraid to ask that question.

So, I’m going to ask the Minister, does he, firstly, have concern with this question? Is the department concerned about this question? Should the public be informed in any way that the department is not willing to ask the...

Largely, I don’t necessarily disagree with much of what the Minister had said, but I still think we’ve missed our moral compass on this particular issue, which is there’s a decision on how to do fracking, not a decision as to should we do fracking. I welcome that from the NEB, and I welcome the authority we’ve gained, but what is stopping the department from actually just getting out there to ask that basic building block question?

You have to have a solid foundation before you build a house. Let us ask the question and have the courage to ask the question: Should fracking happen in the...

Mr. Speaker, more now than ever, there are curious choices before all of us, choices that will pretty much define us as we go forward. It’s like sewing a seed into the future every step we take. A future we hold for ourselves and our children. If not our children’s future, then who?

Who do we secure this future for? Right before us, not unlike yesterday and certainly not unlike tomorrow, we must be faced with choices that have to be made by ourselves because we have been the ones we have been waiting for. We need the change that we promised we’d bring. We certainly need the strength and courage...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With great pleasure personally, I ask this Assembly for unanimous consent to return to item number 8, oral questions, on our standing orders of the day. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent denied

This is like putting icing on a cake and we never asked them if they like cake, type of thing, and we are serving it to them.

What the question really comes down to is we should ask them about what the fundamentals of the process are, which is should we allow fracking in the Northwest Territories and under what conditions?

Talking about down the road is great, and it’s not pre-empting the problem, it’s about asking the root of the question, which is the meaning of why we want to do something, because that drives the regulations. We passed the Wildlife Act and then we did the regulations. We’ll...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the issue of hydraulic fracturing, not unlike my good colleague to my left, Ms. Bisaro, and the concerns from the public.

One of the concerns from the public, and I certainly see it as an issue as an individual MLA, has been why have we not had the courage to just go straightforward and ask the question to Northerners: Is hydraulic fracturing appropriate for the Northwest Territories? Have that dialogue, understand and educate ourselves as to what the pros and cons are of it, and then step forward and work on regulations...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe we should just get down to the nitty-gritty here. Has the actual RFP been called for by the Town of Hay River, and if so, is the Minister aware when the NWT Power Corporation will be submitting a bid for this particular process? Lastly, on the same point, how long does the cycle for review of this process take? Thank you.

I think, actually, the official record should note it’s probably the 14th Assembly that has that credit from withdrawing from that particular competitive process.

That actually now leads perfectly into my third question, which is: Who directed the NWT Power Corporation to withdraw from fully competing in the competitive process for the Hay River franchise agreement – a tough word to say today – and was it politically motivated or was it done through any other reason, because they withdrew in that day?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use this opportunity to clear some of the air and we’ll call up this ATCO concerned problem about their ads and even some of the innuendos where they’re bemoaning on the street that they’re being muscled out of the Northwest Territories.

Frankly, let’s just put it on the table. I have questions for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation.

I want to ask clearly this: Is there any mandate by this Cabinet or certainly this Minister in any way to attempt to run ATCO out of Hay River or the Northwest Territories? We need to clear...