Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement, I addressed the response to the JRP recommendations that was filed by the GNWT to the NEB. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, who is responsible for the NEB portion of this. It was Minister McLeod who advised the chair of the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee that the response was filed. Since the Minister was the recipient of a letter from the Social Programs committee, the same kind of a letter that went to the Minister of EDI. I would like to know from Minister McLeod why the chair of the Social Programs committee was not advised of the filing of the response in the same manner that he advised the chair of EDI. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess for a couple of reasons. One is we normally work with the Standing Committee of Economic Development. Secondly, we weren’t aware that the Standing Committee on Operations wanted input into the response to NEB. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am a little nonplussed, I guess, by the Minister’s response that he would choose to ignore the request of a standing committee. I want to quote from the letter that was sent to the Hon. Robert R. McLeod sometime in January. The date is not evident here, but from the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, and the chair said, “committee members are very interested in the recommendations made in the JRP report on the Mackenzie Gas Project and want both the opportunity to provide input in the development of a response and an opportunity to review the response before it is final.”
I guess from that I would like to reiterate to the Minister and ask the Minister why, in the light of that letter, would he ignore that request and not advise the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I have the letter right here. It is from the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs. There is no reference to the NEB in that letter. I assume that the Standing Committee on Social Programs is only interested in the Joint Review Panel recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I guess I have to then ask the Minister of ITI how he can say that that response that was filed with the NEB did not reference the recommendations from the Joint Review Panel. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am just going by the letter that I received from the Standing Committee on Social Programs. As my colleague the Minister of ENR indicated, we are quite prepared to do a joint briefing with the different committees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the offer from both Ministers to have a briefing. I think it is something that absolutely is necessary. It will certainly forestall the lack of feeling that we are being left out over here on this side of the House.
I wonder if I could ask the Minister how the response was filed without any input from Regular Members. What was the rationale for that? Thank you.
I guess there were a number of reasons. First and foremost is we were working under very tight timelines and if we didn’t file by February 11th we would have forgone the opportunity to appear before the different panel hearings. We didn’t want to be like the federal government where three federal departments that are intervening did not respond because they don’t support the pipeline. So as a responsible government, it was incumbent upon us.
We have to recognize that through NEB we are very limited in scope as to what we can respond on. We’re talking about the technical aspects with regard to construction of the pipeline and toll rates and development of the anchor fields. We can’t introduce any new material, so it’s quite restrictive. Also, it is still unclear as to how information would be handled because of the fact that there are three Members that are interveners and there is the Clerk and the legal lawyers working on what kind of process we can establish. That hasn’t been finalized as of yet.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
