Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today because I wanted to talk about a conflict. Whether it’s perceived or real shouldn’t be so much the issue. It’s the matter that it’s thought there might be a problem. A constituent has brought to me a complaint where they believe, quite strongly, that there is a perceived bias within the WSCC process. In this case my constituent has informed me that, when they were working through the process, they used to approach this person when they were the claims advisor. But in the way process changes here, this person has now become the adjudicator. When their file...

Oh, no. To that issue.

Would the Minister be able to provide some correspondence on that type of discussion they seem to be having with their federal counterparts? Everyone in this House knows that this is going to be a challenging and very emotional debate if that 75/25 breaks down. We don’t know where that number will end and that’s why it’s fundamentally important early on to know that we do support the intent of this project and we have the support of the federal government to get behind it before it starts. As we know – and I’m not trying to turn this into the Deh Cho Bridge example – but who knows where the...

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I hate to say it but, for clarity, it just sounded like he was going to have a discussion about the process and maybe even just muse about the idea. Really, what I’m asking for is for the Department of Finance to investigate the costs, procedures and policies required. It doesn’t mean go write them. It just means go investigate the mechanics of creating one and how much it would cost us. That’s the type of discussion I’m just trying to get on the record. That’s all I’m asking. Would he be willing to do that so then we can have a full discussion when it comes to budget time...

Has the Department of Finance ever examined something like this type of tax credit such as the example I’ve given, a film tax credit, and furthermore, what cost does it actually affect the Government of the Northwest Territories? I mean, are we talking about fifty cent dollars? Are we talking 75, 25? I’m trying to get a sense of an example of how much it costs and affects the government’s books. Thank you.

I’ll decline. The Minister answered the question satisfactorily.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about a perceived or real process problem of potential conflict. Perceived or real are about the same in this type of business. It’s about the integrity of our particular system. The folks I’m talking about in my examples, I know are all good and honourable people and they certainly work to do the best job that they can. My questions will be directed to the Minister responsible for WSCC.

Knowing that the Governance Council is well within its authority to make rules and procedures regarding conflict of interest, and with respect to...

Mr. Speaker, I am completely surprised, but I am happy to help.

The following guidelines were established for the pilot project.

The Assembly would maintain the current process of paper petitions.

Electronic petitions could be used on their own or could be combined with the traditional paper petition.

The electronic petitions would resemble the Assembly website as closely as possible.

The Assembly would approve the format of the electronic petition before it was posted on-line.

An acceptable petition must contain a proper and respectful request of the NWT government or Minister to take or refrain...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll certainly be brief. As I understand it, this will be a future discussion on the upcoming Caucus agenda, where Members will discuss at length. So what I will say and leave, certainly in brevity, that is I’m very concerned about the lack of collaboration with Regular Members on the development of this. I view this as a blueprint on the mission of where government is going from a vision context.

So in absence of sort of a collaborative approach, which we often hear about how we work together, the assurance of the 20-minute speech turned into 45 minutes and I’m sure it...

I just want to make sure it’s clear on the record, I’m fully supportive of the money being spent today on the environmental assessment and I wouldn’t want anyone to think that that isn’t the case. I’ve even stood steadfast on any questions from the public when they say we should stop now before it goes out of control. This is absolutely critical information to get the right price. I don’t change that.

Is the Minister saying today that we have to get all the environmental assessment work done for us to be able to develop a price in order for us to have a formal discussion with the federal...