Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use the opportunity to ask some questions to the Minister of the Northwest Territories Power Corp about the latest damage and repair process that’s happening. As I see news reports point that it’s costing the NWT Power Corp over $40,000 a day additional to run that operation, that burden is going to fall on someone. Maybe the Minister can highlight what’s being done and how we’ll recover some of that process to make sure that that cost isn’t falling on the NWT residents.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about this weekend. I happened to drive to Gameti for the first annual John D. Quitte Men's Hand Game Tournament. I truly appreciated the invitation of the Tlicho chiefs that encouraged me to go there, and more particularly, I want to thank Chief Wedawin for his personal welcome to his community.

I drove that winter road and I have to say it was a wonderful experience, unlike some of my experiences on Highway No. 7, of course, but that’s a story for another day. Several community members said that they look forward to the year that their winter road...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the GNWT willing to put, sort of, money where their mouth is and start to make a commitment to the engineering and the environmental assessment on this particular project so we are able to get this off the ground so when the federal government does get off and make a decision and finally agree that this is an important highway to connect people and families and certainly put industry together and create a window of opportunity for people to go to work?

Is the GNWT placed in order to be able to respond in a timely way to these important things? Thank you.

I think I was reading in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago about how important connecting communities to road infrastructure is and how it changes the life when it comes to cost of living. It adds benefits such as regular fuel supply, regular grocery supply and certainly family connections. I could go on about the merits, but the question really is when can we expect to see it in the capital plan to help lower the costs of communities like that, that are so close to the highway? We could make a real difference and a dent in the cost of living in their lives. We should be on this.

If we estimate that this could take – one day is $40,000 – six weeks, that’s almost $1.7 million. This is certainly an expensive meter running at the cost of the NWT taxpayers.

Is the Minister able to update us at all other than what the media report has already covered out there? Otherwise, we’re just sitting in the dark not knowing what’s happening and it’s very difficult to deliver any type of accountability on this particular initiative. It’s not about criticism, it’s about transparency as to what’s happening and what will taxpayers be on the hook for. Thank you.

Thank you. What’s the anticipated cost of this particular problem that we have going on right now? Can the Minister qualify the additional cost it’s going to run? Although he’d pointed out how we’re going to pay for it, let’s find out exactly how much we think it’s going to cost. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, like Mr. Bromley, would like to recognize some Pages, and from the Yellowknife Centre riding I would like to recognize – I apologize if I pronounce your name incorrectly, but I’ll do the best I can – Hunaifa Malik, who’s a Sir John student and lives in Yellowknife Centre; and Mohammad Hasnain, who is from Sir John and a Yellowknife Centre Page as well. Thank you.

Why am I the only one that’s trying to do work here to create investment? It’s not my job to come up with the number. He has all the machinery. He has a multi-million dollar department that can come up with the right balance to create investment. I’m saying, I‘ve given the communications sector as an example to stimulate new investment, because if it’s not here you can’t tax it. So, how do we encourage investment? We have a good taxation structure. Sometimes it means tax holidays; sometimes it means those types of concepts.

Will the Minister invest a little time in his job and stop finding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It made my day. We’ll see how Cabinet feels about it, but you made by day.

I appreciate the Minister of Finance’s ability to distract the House where we got talking about the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link. That wasn’t the issue; it was about creating a climate for investment such as infrastructure. So my question really is to be focused in on let’s not talk about oil and gas, let’s not talk about the mining sector or the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link.

The Minister is quite right; we have declining revenue through corporate taxation, so what is the Minister doing...

I’m not talking about every industry. I’m talking about ones that we’re spending a fair bit of money in. We’re spending $80 million on the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link, which is a great thing. Well, let’s support that with a tax structure that supports new investment. New investment means new taxation opportunities. If people don’t invest money, we don’t have taxation opportunities, no growth. That’s what I’m talking about.

So what is wrong with developing a climate that encourages new investment, which would be new taxation opportunities? Thank you.