Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about my concerns of the regulatory system and the fact that the process has been buckled down with not only just confusion, but probably delay. Mr. Speaker, I can probably ask a variety of Ministers the same types of questions so I’d like to focus my direct questions towards the Premier of this House, because I think his position could both represent the environmental concerns as well as the industry concerns that ITI may have covered. So, Mr. Speaker, my question directly to the Premier is: where is the development of the streamlining of the regulatory process as presented by the McCrank report and further followed up by the GNWT’s response? Where is that in the federal government’s hands? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have responded to the federal government through the Minister of ENR and we responded to Minister Strahl on this initiative as that’s where the McCrank report issue was generated. We’re waiting for their official response as to what they would incorporate. We’ve put in a number of recommendations where we feel things could move forward fairly quickly and easily without major changes to existing structures in a sense of land claims and so on. So we’re waiting for them to respond back to those issues. Thank you.
I need not give the Premier any lesson about how important industry is to this economy, but, Mr. Speaker, a number of people are very concerned as to what’s taking this Minister -- the federal Minister that is -- so long to address this issue. It’s a significant issue for the whole Territory and no one needs to be reminded about the recession and our much relied upon corporate taxes when economy is working.
So, Mr. Speaker, to the Premier once again, what is taking this issue so long that’s stalling it, from their point of view? Thank you.
It’s difficult to answer what’s holding back the federal government. Of course, there are quite a number of issues that have to be dealt with. It’s a complex matter, it involves a number of departments, it involves settled claims, it involves different areas of responsibility and that example is one why we continue to pursue devolution and resource revenue sharing, for example, so we can streamline through that process as well. Thank you.
Of course, I don’t expect the Premier to know exactly what is in the Indian and Northern Affairs Minister’s mind or the agenda, but I do hope there are certain communications that go on that help to allude this.
Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement today, recession is a great time to deal with things that people kind of put on the backburner, and streamlining the regulatory process is a great time to say why don’t we address these things now because we don’t have a lot going on. It’s a great time focus in, in a fair way, to balance industry’s needs and wants and environmental concerns and the balance it takes.
Mr. Speaker, what pressure is being put on by this government to make sure that they address this problem in a timely way, which I would define as the best time to do this work? Thank you.
In the area of the McCrank report, our response, we’ve had a number of Ministers follow up, not only myself. We’ve had the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, we’ve had the Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment make their approaches. Recent meetings were held, as well, in Ottawa. This was one of the items discussed. So we continue to raise this issue, continue to pursue the initiatives we think can be done, for example, like board appointments that can be done rather straightforward rather than waiting for a full response on that report. So we continue to apply pressure and continue to try to move this initiative forward.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as easy as this next question sounds, it’s not meant to be simple and I believe it’s really complex. The real issue right now is what is it going to take for this Assembly to get on the radar of the federal government. What is it going to take that this is an important issue to the people of the Northwest Territories as well as the growth of the Northwest Territories? Is there a singular message that we can send for them to realize that we are important and that we mean to do business? Thank you.
We’ve continued to highlight the significance of that report, their response and the potential impact it would have on the Northwest Territories. I think the bigger question, as the Member has asked, is what are we going to do in the North with the aboriginal leadership and ourselves coming together in a common voice saying this is where we think we can work together and pursue the changes that are required. So I think that’s the avenue that we are going to start to put our energies into, is start coming up with a common message and support from a northern perspective on that initiative. Meanwhile, we continue to do our piece and try to see what can be moved along, but the real change will come when we use a regional aboriginal leadership table to pursue these types of initiatives. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
