Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Monday evening I happened to catch on the CBC website late that night, I noticed that there was a story, and the story headline said, “NWT Highway No. 3 at Risk of Closing Due to Forest Fire.”

That story was issued at 5:37 that evening. What caused me some individual concern is after last year’s fire experience, there was no e-mail in my inbox saying that there was going to be a closure of the highway. Not only that, to my surprise, I had been talking to people in the industry, the grocery industry saying that they had no notice in any way.

The following morning it was...

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. 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. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the orders of the day called oral questions.

---Unanimous consent denied

That’s okay, Mr. Speaker. I think I have already sort of stated my issue for the record. I will go to the next question with no problem. Thanks for your guidance, Mr. Speaker.

Is there any reason that ATCO, the billion dollar company we talked about earlier today, could not bid on the upcoming Hay River franchise agreement? Thank you.

When was the last time the Northwest Territories Power Corporation put a competitive bid in the Town of Hay River for the Hay River franchise? What would be helpful here to understand is how long each franchise agreement is put into place. It is my understanding that it has been years since the last one that the Northwest Territories actually fully competed in, because, as I understand it, they fully withdrew from the last process they may have been considering to be involved in.