Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not my intention to break the promise of the Finance Minister when he says he’s holding the line on taxes, so he should be assured that I’m not trying to trip him up on that promise to the people of the NWT. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister of Finance be willing to come to a meeting, if I was able to arrange it, with the Hotel Association and even some municipality officials on this particular issue about creating the hotel tax initiative? That money could be targeted at the tourism industry, an industry that could use more money to help bring new dollars into our...

The Hotel Association as well as a number of people in the tourism organizations out there all would like a hotel tax. I think they’ve been advocating for this particular type of tax for some time now. This is not a new initiative that’s been suggested. The Minister talked about downloading it maybe to further governance but I don’t think that’s the ideal approach. What conditions would the Minister of Finance need to be in place or to see supported in order to make it a territorial hotel tax?

Thank you. The Minister highlighted some things about the Edmonton mayor and what he had heard, and I should also take this opportunity to point out that the team from ITI did a bang-up job about informing the mayor about opportunities in the North and that should be said certainly and clearly on the record that they did a great job. I think they did such a good job, the mayor was sparked with many other ideas about what could be done for our territorial market. He came here with an open hand saying how could he help, and again, tourism was a particular area he kept highlighting, saying more...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister of Tourism, Bob McLeod, for his opening remarks today because it works well with my Member’s statement.

As the Minister has said, on April 1, 2011, the GNWT and NWT Tourism are set to launch their Tourism 2015: A New Direction for a Spectacular Future. Tourism 2015 builds on the Tourism 2010 Plan, as said earlier, and certainly makes an effort to continue the great opportunities that are available in our tourism market.

When the mayor of Edmonton was in Yellowknife a few weeks back, he asked why the GNWT doesn’t focus tourism campaigns...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a Yellowknife MLA, in my experience I don’t tend to have a ton of transportation issues in particular. But first I’ll say that what dealings I have had with the department have been very good and I find them generally quite easy to deal with. So that being certainly the primary experience I’ve gone through over the years, I too would like to highlight the Deh Cho Bridge as a significant issue that still continues to be a matter of concern in the riding and I look forward to any further update we have, both on the quality of the project and, of course, how the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s nice to be able to provide a couple of comments regarding the Minister’s opening remarks, and quite namely, a few things inside his opening remarks did cause some interest and I would like to hear perhaps a little more detail.

In one of the paragraphs, the Minister mentioned about the transboundary water agreement with neighbouring jurisdictions. One of the challenges is we have become keenly aware, of course, as being downriver, we see the effects of the other jurisdictions. Although it has been some time since I sat on the committee that would oversee this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. I realize that it is a very passionate particular issue in the community of Aklavik. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that has been drawn out of this particular case that removing them from the community doesn’t take into consideration is the social impact the community will have as well as those people in care, the detriment offer to them losing their close ties to their community that many of them were born in, had lived their whole lives. Many of them hoped to sort of spend their final days in that particular community.

Mr. Speaker...

Those are all fantastic things and I wouldn’t want to detract from them. I guess I would follow up in the same type of manner as my earlier question, which is: has the Minister or the NWT Tourism ever considered establishing a permanent presence in Edmonton? That said, that presence could work with the City of Edmonton’s economic development, because again the mayor of Edmonton seemed quite keen on wanting to partner in a way that could benefit the whole North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about tourism and, more specifically, tourism in Edmonton about attracting Edmontonians and perhaps even Calgarians to the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, my questions would be the for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and what I’d like to ask today is: is Edmonton, Calgary, or even just the Alberta market a tourism target market for the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a particular area I left off by accident and in listening to Mr. Yakeleya when he talked about the car shredding, I’ve raised in the past, as well as other Members, but I certainly have raised in the past my concern about battery recycling here in the Northwest Territories and whether that be both large and small batteries, that’s a particular initiative that I was hopeful that this time around the government would show some interest in and I’m curious as to where that has let in. As well as computer recycling. There is a concern in the community, not just in...