Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow your lead and acknowledge my wife, Sue, of almost 13 years. I want to say, when you add the wind chill to that some days…
---Laughter
… it’s still 13 years happily married, Mr. Speaker.
A great deal has been said in the House and in the media this week about disturbing news that the Mackenzie Valley Review Board has fired, not laid off, fired six members of their staff. I am sure that every Member of this House would agree it is detrimental to the protection of our environment in the NWT, and our federal government Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada has failed to provide supplementary funding that is much needed and, as we all know, is necessary for this review board to do their work. This is not a case of doing more with less. This is clearly a case of doing less with less. I only wonder when industry is all of a sudden going to catch up and realize what is happening, because this will affect their critical work that they need done.
I’m told that two of them were let go before their maternity leave even began. Another, a constituent of mine, is a single parent who does not have enough time in the review board to qualify for EI. This affects real lives.
Yesterday my colleague from Weledeh asked the Premier if the GNWT was consulted about the reduction of these six MVEIRB positions. I can advise this House that not even the affected employees were consulted about this in advance. So, in fact, there was no prior warning, and that’s a serious shame.
On Tuesday the Premier rightly observed that there was little the GNWT can do with respect to the MVEIRB board in ANSI’s funding position. However, like anything, there’s always an opportunity. So later today I will be asking the Premier about what he can do with my suggestion, which will be about putting these people who’ve just been let go on a GNWT priority list because we have to show that we care. This is an interagency that does great work in the North and it’s critical. Let’s not abandon these people the way they were abandoned last week. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
