Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to congratulate our Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on being named the president of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region and all the work that his department is doing with the geoscience office in undertaking of forming of the office of the regulator of the oil and gas operations in the Northwest Territories.
I want to ask the Minister of ITI to update the House briefly as to where his office is at in adopting and creating new policies and guidelines as the regulator.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the decisions that the government made was to regulate the oil and gas industry ourselves here in the Northwest Territories and grow the capacity here in the NWT, and we’ve done that. We’ve got an office set up separate from the Department of ITI, the office of the oil and gas regulator. It’s got an executive director; we’ve got staff in place at that office, and we’re looking forward to regulating the industry. We don’t have a lot of activity taking place currently, but we’re looking to see some more activity in the future. Thank you.
Thank you. I want to say that we have a saying in the Sahtu: If you shoot a moose right the first time, you’ll have enough meat and hide and you’ll feed the family.
As the regulator, we’re setting up this office now in the Northwest Territories. Is the Minister in this fashion, are we learning the hard way or are we learning the amazing and fast way? Can the Minister guarantee that we’ll be engaged in shaping the new regulation body, which stems directly and philosophically from the 17th Assembly priorities of their positions and goals? Thank you.
What we have is an opportunity here, an opportunity to get things right, and it is our belief that we can regulate the industry ourselves. We have put the pieces in place that are going to allow us to regulate the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and we feel very competent that who best to regulate the industry than Northerners. We’re very proud of the decisions we’ve made to date and we’re proud of the opportunities that we have going forward and certainly look forward to working with Regular Members as we continue to strive to get the best regulatory system in place here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Also, we have a saying in the Sahtu: fought over many years of our own sovereignty, institutions and culture.
Will the process of the regulations of oil and gas in the Northwest Territories respect the sovereignty of the Sahtu people, their settled land claims, the regulatory boards that we have? Will this process respect that there are land claims in place, there is sovereignty in place, there are processes of regulating oil and gas through the co-management boards that we have set up? Would that be respected?
The quick answer is yes, it will be respected. We have independent land and water boards across the Northwest Territories. It’s not our intention to do anything to fetter their decision-making authority. What we want to do is get out. We inherited the filing requirements from the National Energy Board. Our intention is to get out draft requirements and filing requirements to the public and other stakeholders early in the new year, and we are moving forward with that plan.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Minister. Can the Minister go a little further? Can he give us more certainty than the honourable Premier did last week in the House? The regulatory office is at the heart of the next vital economy engine for the Northwest Territories.
In this country, shale gas is helping to shut down the dirty coal industry south of the border.
Does the Minister and Cabinet agree to share the draft regulations with all the Members of this House before Christmas and April 1, 2015? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It’s our intention, certainly once the draft requirements are ready, we will certainly look at sharing those with the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning and the Regular Members. It is our intention to do so.
As for the date of the end of December, our time frame right now is early January, and we’re hoping to ensure that we hit that we target of early January. So, at the earliest opportunity, we will be ready to share those draft filing requirements and new regulations with the Regular Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
