Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Language is about identity, who we are and how we understand and interact with each other. Promoting Aboriginal languages encourages the promotion of healthy lifestyles and family and cultural values.
In 1993, the Assembly of First Nations declared the Month of March Aboriginal Languages Month. Since then, the Northwest Territories honours Aboriginal languages and cultures in March. This year, Mr. Speaker, we not only celebrate Aboriginal languages through initiatives in place for 2011 but also recognize the achievements of 2010.
Mr. Speaker, 2010 was a very active year for Aboriginal languages, starting with the Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Symposium. The information generated from the symposium formed part of the Aboriginal Languages Plan. The strategy, “Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Plan - A Shared Responsibility,” was tabled during the October 2010 session of the Legislative Assembly.
The development of the plan was a collaborative effort involving many people across the Territory and reflects not only priorities of the people of the Northwest Territories, but also recognizes that languages strengthen our society and underpins our culture. Implementing this plan will help us strengthen awareness of our northern uniqueness and identity, part of this Assembly’s vision for a strong, independent North built on partnerships.
Mr. Speaker, the overarching aim of this document is “A Shared Responsibility,” because the
participants of the symposium told us about the revitalization, preservation and maintenance of the Aboriginal languages in our Territory are the responsibilities of all stakeholders.
Mr. Speaker, 2011 will also be an active year. We are developing a full implementation plan for the Aboriginal Languages Strategy, which will outline a time frame and give more detail for the actions and outcomes proposed in the strategy.
The work plan is framed over a 10-year period and will address issues including government services, education programming, actions required to support revitalization and language community activities.
Next summer the Government of the Northwest Territories will host a second Northwest Territories Aboriginal Languages Summer Institute, a partnership between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and the University of Victoria Certificate Program in Aboriginal Language Revitalization.
The partnership with the University of Victoria program benefits from the university’s relationship with the En’owkin Centre, the post-secondary education institute of the Okanagan First Nations known for its commitment to language revitalization. The two-week institute brings together community language workers and teachers representing official languages of the Northwest Territories. It is our goal that this is another initiative that will enable more people to speak their Aboriginal language in the coming years.
Mr. Speaker, Aboriginal Languages Month is a good opportunity to recognize the hard work of the language communities and applaud them for their ongoing dedication to ensure that languages flourish.
This government is committed to continuing its support of language and cultural activities. The involvement of each of the language communities is essential if we are to protect, maintain and strengthen language usage.
We hope all Aboriginal language speakers, language students and, indeed, all Northerners enjoy the celebration of language and culture in their communities during Aboriginal Languages Month.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Before I go on to Ministers’ statements I’d like to draw your attention to the gallery and the presence of a former Member of the Assembly, former Minister, former Sergeant-at-Arms, former Commissioner, marriage counsellor extraordinaire, Mr. Tony Whitford, in the gallery today.
---Applause
I’d also like to draw your attention to the presence of the Auditor General for Canada, Sheila Fraser, and her staff: Andrew Lennox, assistant auditor general; Jerome Berthelette, assistant auditor general; Glenn Wheeler, Tedd Wood, Eric Hellsten and Ghislain Desjardins.
The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A recent report commissioned by the Gwich’in Tribal Council has raised some questions about certain financial aspects of the devolution agreement-in-principle. The Government of the Northwest Territories does not agree with most of the conclusions of this report. We remain confident that the financial provisions of the devolution AIP are fair and reflect the best deal available. I rise today to set the record straight and address some of the confusion this report may have caused.
First of all I would like to point out that devolution is not just about money, it is about moving responsibility for public lands and resources from the Government of Canada to the Government of the Northwest Territories. With devolution, the people of the NWT will be making decisions respecting land, water and resource development that are currently being made in Ottawa. The financial components of the AIP are important but they need to be considered against the entire devolution agreement.
Anybody can pick and choose selected portions of the AIP and criticize them, but that isolated criticism is meaningless if it doesn’t take into account the benefits and advantages that have been achieved in other parts of the AIP. The Gwich’in report in fact concludes that “accepting the proposed AIP would be beneficial, but not optimal.” Taken along with the rest of the deal, it is the GNWT’s position that the financial arrangements of the AIP provide the basis for a final devolution agreement that will create real benefits for all NWT residents. Devolution negotiators spent considerable time and effort maximizing the financial benefits of the deal. All of the issues were raised and discussed at the table, from the treatment of resource revenues from Norman Wells to the net fiscal benefit and A-base funding. If there had been any realistic prospect of dramatically improving the financial components of the federal offer, the GNWT would have pursued it.
The net fiscal benefit reflected in the AIP is a vast improvement over previous federal offers. Once we have devolution, the Government of the Northwest Territories will collect the resource revenues that are currently going directly to Ottawa. These resource revenues will reduce our formula financing grant, but only by 50 cents for every dollar collected. The net fiscal benefit or the difference between the resource revenues we collect and reduction in the grant is subject to a cap equal to 5 percent of our gross expenditure base; about $60 million right now. By comparison, the Yukon devolution agreement only allows them to keep $3 million in mineral revenues and between 20 percent and 40 percent of oil and gas revenues, with everything above that going to Ottawa. It’s no wonder that the Yukon government is already indicating a desire to renegotiate their agreement.
The arrangements in the AIP are completely consistent with what the provinces would receive under the Federal-Provincial Equalization Program. Under this program, 50 percent of a province’s resource revenues are excluded from the equalization calculation, not 100 percent like the GTC report claims. Certain provinces did negotiate special time-limited agreements for off-shore revenues 25 years ago, but off-shore resources are not part of the NWT devolution AIP. While provinces that do not receive equalization payments get to keep 100 percent of their resource revenues, no province receiving equalization gets better treatment than what is contemplated in the devolution AIP.
The GTC report questions whether the net fiscal benefit will be adequate for managing the resources being devolved to the Government of the Northwest Territories, but this is not the purpose of the net fiscal benefit. The Government of the Northwest Territories will receive funding -- known as A-base funding -- each year to cover the cost of operating the programs and services that will be devolved to the Government of the Northwest Territories. This is funding over and above any resource revenues the Government of the Northwest Territories will retain.
A-base funding will begin at $65.3 million per year and will escalate annually under the terms of the Territorial Formula Financing. This amount was based on the work that the GNWT did to determine how much it would cost to operate devolved programs.
There has been some public discussion of a higher A-base amount supposedly negotiated in 2007. The GNWT and Aboriginal governments did propose a higher A-base figure to Canada in 2007, based on a best-case scenario that assumed very high levels of resource development in the Northwest Territories. There was never any guarantee that we would experience that level of development and Canada never did seriously entertain the proposal.
What Canada has agreed to, however, is to negotiate a post-devolution resource development cooperation agreement. We recognize that there may be times when additional investment may be necessary to help the Government of the Northwest Territories deal with the pressures of high levels of resource development. Where there are major projects with considerable national, environmental, social and economic significance, it would be in the interests of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories to work together to address their implications. Rather than try to accommodate that through higher A-base funding, these implications can be considered through a post-devolution cooperation agreement with Canada.
Mr. Speaker, it is the Government of the Northwest Territories position that we have achieved a good deal on devolution that includes fair and reasonable financial arrangements. After years of negotiations we have an agreement-in-principle that can serve as a basis for a devolution agreement that will create real economic benefits for all NWT residents, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. We have the basis of a deal that will give us access to substantial resource revenues and legislative authority over public lands, water and resources. We have the basis of a deal that will establish government-to-government relationships with northern Aboriginal governments and give them a share of revenues earned from resource royalties.
We have the basis for an agreement that will see Canada continue to contribute to the development of projects of national significance in the Northwest Territories. And we have the basis for an agreement that will see the Northwest Territories enter into negotiations with Canada over revenue sharing for offshore oil and gas resources.
Based on the current agreement-in-principle, the Government of the Northwest Territories would stand to receive $26.5 million in one-time transition costs from Canada. The first year of the agreement we would receive another $65.3 million in A-base funding. On top of the A-base funding, we would also begin to receive annual revenues from the development of NWT resources. Over the past five years we calculated that we have missed out on $200 million in resource revenues based on the current AIP. That’s money that the Northwest Territories governments could have invested in economic development, infrastructure and programs and services for our residents.
Today we are faced with all the potential impacts of resource development but have no control over the pace of development. This will be rectified with devolution and the Government of the Northwest Territories will have the tools necessary to manage risks. Every day that goes by without a devolution agreement, opportunity is lost. Non-renewable resources are being extracted from public lands in the Northwest Territories and resource revenues are flowing out of the North.
We can hold out for a marginally better financial deal from Canada, Mr. Speaker, but we will never be able to make a deal rich enough to make up for the millions of dollars that we are losing each year that we do not have a devolution agreement. This is a fair deal and an important step. It’s time to get down to business and put NWT governments in charge of the decisions that affect our Territory and our future. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend the Arctic Gas Symposium in Calgary. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently planes were unable to land in Inuvik for a number of reasons, notably that runway did not have enough friction for the airplanes to land properly. Our region and our communities rely heavily on the airports, especially Inuvik. The reliability of infrastructure, wherever there is a telecommunications system at our airports, the airport systems are a critical process to the economic development projects and the people’s safety. It is a critical time to provide a certain standard of living for our residents in the Beaufort-Delta and the more northerly communities. Mr. Speaker, a friction problem at minus 20 degree weather might be allowable in Vancouver Island, but not in the High Arctic. It is unacceptable.
Airport managers have been working hard and resources that they have been... Our government needs to do more to help them. Airports all over the Beaufort-Delta require more resources. Some communities in Nunakput have recently had airport construction, like my three airport terminal buildings in Sachs, Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok. I would like to thank the Minister and rehabilitation he has injected are greatly appreciated, but our resources are referring to the technology. You would think that especially in the High Arctic the government would have issues such as de-icing our services preparation techniques in and around the airport.
Most of the people in the Beaufort-Delta recognize unique challenges living in the region, but we are concerned if our flights are cancelled. We had three flights cancelled this week out of here, out of Yellowknife heading into Inuvik, which caused havoc with communities and doctors’ appointments. Resources, lack of certain technologies are used elsewhere. Other technologies of this government must be required to advance the aviation tracking communications, weather tracking systems. These systems are additional for pilots in conditions such as fog and blizzards.
As I expressed previously, small, remote communities in Nunakput solely rely on airports for all of our means of transportation. A schedule of chartered flights cancelled, preventing people carrying out business, medical appointments, visiting family and other unique opportunities like the kids’ hockey tournament in Inuvik coming up this weekend, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] I will be talking about things that are important issues to my constituents. One of the items that I would like to express is the Liard Highway, and since the spring, it has been hard to travel because of the condition of the highway. [Translation ends]
...from washboards to washout to bathtub-size potholes, highways No. 1 and No. 7 continue to challenge drivers in the Deh Cho region and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Poor road conditions in my region have a negative impact on residents, tourism and business, not to mention taxpayers who foot the bill for the repairs.
I am extremely disappointed that I see no investment in the upgrades to highways No. 1 and No. 7 in the 2012-13 capital plan. As MLA, I feel I have worked hard, yet my region has been kept out of the capital planning process. I feel government is forgetting about my constituents. Bad road conditions are a barrier to people who want to visit, do business and live in my region. Technology exists and is emerging that can help road conditions in the Deh Cho. Special chipseal formulas are being developed that are more responsive to our northern conditions. Our roads are valuable pieces of infrastructure. Highways No. 1 and No. 7 form a unique circular route from Alberta up to the Deh Cho and Fort Liard and back into British Columbia. This Deh Cho connection is important in my riding and even for the North as a whole, Mr. Speaker.
In 2010, the B.C. government invested $87 million in its northern highway system, including a paving project on Highway No. 77 that connects to the highway just south of Fort Liard. As I have said before, these roads are not just a tourist attraction, they are a transportation lifeline for the Deh Cho. Nahendeh constituents make a living driving it every day. The Government of the Northwest Territories is eager to build new infrastructure without maintaining what they already have. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation must work to upgrade the highways No. 1 and No. 7 in my region in the capital plan for the next coming fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to revisit a topic I’ve brought to the House several times before. In May of 2008 and again last February I spoke of the need for the NWT to have an ombudsman’s office. The need for this service has not yet gone away, Mr. Speaker. We are one of only three jurisdictions in Canada which does not have an ombudsman. Our sister territory, Yukon, is not one of them. The Yukon does have an ombudsman office for Yukon residents.
There are many, many situations where NWT residents need an impartial arbiter, an ombudsman to assist them with a dispute or a disagreement so they can avoid having to go to court to settle it. Disputes such as landlord-tenant issues that are outside of the jurisdiction of the rental officer, decisions by a self-regulating body, decisions by housing authorities, income support issues where an appeal has been denied, administrative decisions by officials in hospitals and other medical facilities, decisions made by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission. There’s many more.
In my last question and answer session with the Minister of Justice I was advised that a number of possibilities exist for someone who has a problem with a government decision to appeal it. I agree with them, there are some. People can talk to department staff, there are appeal boards in some cases and some people can ask their MLA for help. However, none of these possibilities provides an impartial forum and when all opportunities or all options are exhausted and the individual still feels wronged, the only action left to them is to take the matter to court and that’s an expensive and an intimidating solution for most people, Mr. Speaker.
On previous occasions when the establishment of an ombudsman office was raised in response to my questions, the Minister of Justice advised that his department had looked at it and determined that such an office was not necessary. However, he also said that the department would continue to look at options in conjunction with the Department of Executive. I figure it’s time, Mr. Speaker, to find out if either department has done any looking in the last 12 months, so I will have questions for the Minister of Executive at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In recent years the Northwest Territories has seen improvement in the number of alcohol-related vehicle collisions on our roads and highways and yet in 2009 there were 35 collisions involving alcohol, resulting in 18 persons injured and one person dead.
Back in 2003 the Legislative Assembly passed amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act that introduced new measures to reduce impaired driving. The amendments provided the drivers convicted of impaired driving were prohibited from driving the length of time depending on the number of offenses. It also identified conditions that could be imposed on drivers who want to have their licences reinstated. One of these was a requirement to use an alcohol ignition interlock device. This is a mechanism like a breathalyser that is installed in a motor vehicle’s dashboard. Before the vehicle’s motor will start, the driver first must exhale into the device. Basically, if the breath alcohol concentration is greater than 0.02 percent, the device prevents the engine from being started. There are also safeguards to prevent cheating. To my knowledge, requiring the use of this device has not been used as yet.
I think there may be reasons to consider such an option. Let me be clear that I do not condone or approve in any way people drinking and driving under the influence of alcohol, but sometimes a person needs a driver’s licence for emergency or safety reasons or to make their living either on the job or their commute to work. If the person’s licence is renewed on condition that an alcohol ignition interlock device would be installed in the person’s vehicle, this could provide more assurance that the driver will be sober.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage the government to develop regulations as to what situations might warrant the use of an ignition interlock device and a program to implement its usage. But, Mr. Speaker, at this time a judge cannot make an ignition interlock device a condition of a person seeking limited driving permission because such regulations as a companion to our Motor Vehicles Act have never been developed.
Mr. Speaker, I will have questions today for the Minister of Transportation on this subject. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be talking on behalf of my community of Lutselk’e in regards to a service. [Translation ends]
I speak of a winter road. A winter road to Lutselk’e will provide a service to their citizens that are enjoyed by 29 of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. That enjoyment is the ability for those communities to access their communities with their personal vehicles.
Where possible, I feel that this government should provide a road that can be used by community members to lower the cost of living by buying goods in larger centres and opening a door for tourists, even allowing the community to hold revenue-generating events such as fishing derbies. While the majority of the NWT wish to have better highways leading to their communities, communities like Lutselk’e dream of some day when they will no longer be isolated and can drive on winter roads to and from their communities.
As it stands today, the people of Lutselk’e are limited to even what kind of furniture they can buy due to transportation, and the amount of food they can transport to their communities due to freight costs or limited space when they can only use snowmobiles and boats.
Members of Lutselk’e have even indicated they would work with the Department of Transportation on a route and construction of the road. There exists several options for routing of a winter road to Lutselk’e. I have been provided with options such as coming off of the Ingraham Trail or building a road through the bush to the Great Slave Lake across from Lutselk’e all the way to building all the way on the Great Slave Lake around to Lutselk’e and a couple of options in between.
A winter road to Lutselk’e is much needed and would be much appreciated by the people of Lutselk’e and I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation at the appropriate time.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My comments today are in regard to the recent Norman Wells block land transfer lease decision. This action is wrong every way you look at it. Negotiations leading up to the 144 square kilometre lease or sale were confidential, not just ignoring but excluding the interests of the Town of Norman Wells. The department allowed the corporation 10 months to get their application right and the municipality 72 hours to respond, without even providing the necessary documentation on which to base their response. Our municipal partners were treated with contempt. Even the terms and conditions of the lease are confidential. The Town has been told that they are protected under the Access to Information and Privacy Act; more contempt.
This lease was granted even though there was no development proposal justifying the need for this huge total parcel. At a minimum, this makes a joke of the progressive improvements to our own Commissioner’s Land Act. How do you require security deposits if you don’t even know what the land use is going to be? We’ve debased our own law.
Lacking a clear development proposal, we can only presume the corporation is going to sit on the land. This is called speculation, which is specifically discouraged under our own land pricing policies, so we have violated our own policies.
This all makes a pretty embarrassing checklist. The failure to accommodate our own law, the secretive process, the exclusion of municipal interests, the preferential treatment and receipt of a deficient application, the buffet-style selection of lease versus sale. This is one of the most questionable government actions I have come across. The final outcome, putting this municipality at the mercy of the corporation with rights to all lands surrounding it, strangles and robs this community of its future.
The Minister recognizes the possibility of errors and is going to review how future major sales and lease agreements are handled. I’m not convinced he realizes the serious and flagrant failure to act in the best interests of our communities for this case. For the sake of our relations with all municipal government partners, I hope his review is done quickly and transparently and includes a look at the ethics of the actions taken. I’m calling on the Minister to do this in full consultation with committee and with the NWT Association of Communities. I’ll be asking questions.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on some conversations I’ve had earlier in this House with the Minister of Health and Social Services on the Community Health Nurse Development Program, the NP Program and the Introduction to Advanced Practice. The last two are delivered by Aurora College.
We all know that health and social services in the Northwest Territories is facing some significant challenge. As we move forward, our programs and services here in the Northwest Territories evolved as outlined in the Framework for Change to be more responsive and cost effective and better suited to the residents of the Northwest Territories. Some hard decisions are going to need to be made and we’re going to have to dig in and review our programs to make sure that they are meeting those needs. These training programs -- Community Health Nurse Development Program, Nurse Practitioner Program and Introduction to Advanced Practice -- are no different. We do need to review them. The Minister has indicated that the department is in fact reviewing them.
In reviewing them I think it’s critical that we’re aware of the facts. I’d like to talk about some of the facts here today and I’d like to actually start off first by saying when we were having our previous conversations, I was talking about one position in the Community Health Nurse Development Program. The Minister has kindly reminded me that there were four in 2010-2011, not one as I had indicated, but there was one enrolled when I was having that conversation. I apologize for that confusion.
Since the program was implemented in 2007, 21 individuals were enrolled. Of those, 17 have graduated and are currently working in the Northwest Territories; 14 of them as community health nurses and three in other capacities.
We have 65 community health nurse positions in the Northwest Territories. Of these, 15 are filled and 50 are vacant. Given that 14 of them are from the Community Health Nurse Program, that means 28 percent of all community health nurses in the Northwest Territories accessed employment and were trained via the Community Health Nurse Development Program. This is something we can’t forget when we review the program. Without question, this program is a success.
The Nurse Practitioner Program is delivered by Aurora College and it’s my understanding that the funding for that will end technically in June 2012 when the last of the current students graduate. This program is important and I will be asking the Minister some questions on that when we get to question period. I think it’s important that that program be assessed based on the value it adds and our potential value with putting nurse practitioners in the communities. We can’t forget the value that nurse practitioners will have.
I will have some questions on community health nurses, IAP and NP during question period.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to continue to speak about violence and crime in our Territory. I have the utmost respect for the words spoken by our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Honourable John Vertes, who appeared on Northbeat last evening. I appreciated what he had to say and I agree with him that we have to address the issues that face us. He stated that in the last five years violent crime has gone up by 28 percent in the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. Our violent crime rate continues to rise and we have the highest incarceration rate in this country.
Yesterday I talked about recidivism, data collection, and the need to better measure the success of programs and services we have for those incarcerated for violent crimes. Work must continue in this area.
My opinion is we should be putting violent, dangerous, repeat offenders away before they kill or maim someone else. I’d like to see our prosecutors seeking dangerous offender applications on those individuals that continue to prey on our people and use violence as a means to get what they want. My point is: how many violent crimes does it take, how many people have to get hurt or even killed before dangerous offender status is sought?
Our problems run deep. I have to agree that we have to address the root causes of violence and violent crime in our communities, like homelessness, unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction, gambling, poverty and family breakdown.
Between Health and Social Services, Education, and Justice this government spends over $700 million a year. We have to start asking ourselves what kind of difference are we really making. Is all the money being spent on the right programs and services for our people? Do the programs and services that we have currently work and for their intended purposes?
We cannot afford to keep trying to spend our way out of all the problems that face this Territory or limp along hoping all of our problems are just going to go away. We have to continue to chip away at the problems. They’re not going to disappear overnight, but, again, we must continue to tackle the issues facing our communities every day.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Alienating the members of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 from the signing of the devolution agreement undermines the fundamental basis of treaty rights in the Northwest Territories with treaty Indians.
The majority of the lands in the Northwest Territories are covered by two treaties: Treaty 8 and Treaty 11. In 1898 Treaty 8 was signed in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. In 1921 Treaty 11 was signed in the northern part of the Northwest Territories, which goes all the way to the Arctic Ocean.
In 1973 the Dene Nation led a court challenge, better known as the Paulette Case, which clearly defined that the Dene did not extinguish their rights under Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 to lands and resources. It clearly defined that they do have fundamental rights to lands and resources throughout Treaty 8 and throughout Treaty 11. There was also the Calder case in B.C. with regard to the Nisga’a which clearly defined that there has to be a comprehensive claims process to allow for those rights to be negotiated and defined.
Under the Dene/Metis claim, which took place during the ‘70s and ‘80s which clearly illustrated and identified the rights to lands resources, the management of land, water and resources, and also the fundamental rights in regard hunting, fishing and gathering. The Government of the Northwest Territories are not honouring their obligations under the modern day treaties or Treaty 11 and Treaty 8 with regard to the fundamental rights of indigenous people that are protected under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution and also recognized under the UN Declaration for Indigenous Peoples.
That is the problem I see with devolution. You do not have the Dene people signed onto that agreement which affects treaty lands, Treaty 8, Treaty 11. The groups that have signed on do not have treaties. For me, that is the issue. The fundamental treaty rights of these indigenous people who are indigenous to the Mackenzie Valley which encompasses the largest portion of the Northwest Territories and who is going to be affected by this devolution agreement is being undermined by the government and is not fulfilling its obligations and ensuring that they will be full participants and that this shall be included in all negotiations that affect them.
I will have questions for the Minister of Finance later.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about the GNWT’s Waste Reduction and Recovery Program expansion. This program has been part of Managing This Land Strategic Initiative to meet the 16th Assembly’s goals on sustainable environment. This is a program I support.
One month ago the government implemented the second phase of its Single-Use Retail Bag Program. This program applies not only to grocery stores but also to all retail stores in the Northwest Territories. Therefore, outside of a few prescribed examples, every bag will now be charged a 25 cent environmental fee.
The purpose of this program is very clear: it’s designed to discourage the use of needless bags. I support that principle. It makes a lot of sense. Clearly it will divert plastic bags from our landfill sites and reduce litter and waste on our land. Clearly it’s a good principle that I think we all stand behind. With this good principle, we should hope that this will reduce landfill costs and create revenue which will help bolster the GNWT’s Environmental Fund. It’s a fund I support that has good initiatives.
I’m hopeful that this summer, as well, we’ll certainly see a reduction of plastic bags flying around our community and certainly stuck in the trees and bushes. A side benefit that’s not accounted for, but will certainly be seen.
While these are well and good intentions for this program, I’m being asked by many why this levy applies to paper bags. This is a surprise to many of my constituents out there who were concerned that the 25 cent levy is applied to paper bags. Paper bags are both recyclable and biodegradable. Anyone who has a woodstove out there will certainly tell you they’re great for starting fires. What is the point of having a levy on such a product that is recyclable and biodegradable? The big question now becomes, is it just simply a bag tax or is it an environmental fee.
These products are going just a little too far for what people are wondering why the government penalizes them on what is considered a good bag.
Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Environment about the thoughts as to why they approached this matter in this way. Paper bags are environmentally friendly, they are biodegradable, and they’re certainly achieving good land stewardship, which I wholeheartedly believe in. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a number of people that I’d like to recognize today. The first person I’d like to recognize is Chris Bassi. He’s in the front here. He’s a retired bridge engineer and, of course, he retired to Yellowknife where his daughter Sheila Bassi-Kellett works, as we all know. As well in the gallery, I’d like to recognize a constituent as well as a neighbour, Didier Bourgois, and he has, I believe, his cousin here from Paris, and her name is Dr. Elizabeth Dey. May I welcome her. The last person I’d like to make note, Mr. Speaker, while I have the floor, is I’d also like to acknowledge in the gallery our retiring or outgoing Sheila Fraser, who is our Auditor General. She is a giant among her peers and my wife happens to be her biggest fan. She will be dearly missed. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two constituents of the Great Slave riding: Mr. Mark Bogan and Mrs. Theresa Crane. Welcome to the gallery.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome Mr. Tony Whitford again, a past Member. I’d like to welcome Tony. It’s always good to see you. And Ms. Sheila Fraser and her staff Andrew Lennox. Good to see you, Andrew. The most important person in the building for me today is my wife, Jenny. She’s up...(inaudible)...and back home. She just flew down from a five-day blizzard so it’s good to have her in the House today watching us work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize one of my favourite constituents, Ms. Joy Watt, who’s in the audience this afternoon. As well, I’d like to recognize the former Commissioner, former Member for Kam Lake as well, Mr. Tony Whitford. As well, of course, the Auditor General, Ms. Sheila Fraser, and her staff as well. I’d like to welcome them and everyone that’s in the gallery today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. We hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.
