Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an ambitious target. I am glad to hear the Premier talk today, as he did yesterday, about jointly developing the strategy with aboriginal and northern residents. It seems very ambitious. I wanted to explore this a bit further because we are also included in this with our sister territories, the Yukon and Nunavut. Is there a process by which we are expected to or we want to bring together some joint agendas here as the three northern territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, thank you and good morning, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this year on a family vacation to Europe, my family and I took the opportunity to visit one of the most remarkable and inspiring places I’ve seen and that was the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France, Mr. Speaker. The time allotted won’t allow me to go into a description of everything that we saw and felt, but it was a very calm and a very quite day in June when my family and I walked amongst the monuments. Those 30-metre-tall white marble spires dominating the landscape are indeed inspiring. The rows and rows of graves of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.

Please provide data available regarding trends in drug-related offences, court appearances, jail terms, Legal Aid files and social services intervention, such as child apprehensions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would certainly like to see a plan that is well designed and that everybody buys into as our goal, instead of speed on this one. I look forward to the developing plan.

Mr. Speaker, it was kind of interesting as well to hear about the progress of the northern strategy, but also the creation of an expert panel which is going to be looking at equalization and territorial formula financing models. These are two very big and far-reaching processes, Mr. Speaker. Is there any potential for conflict between the northern strategy process and this one regarding financing and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had a very interesting day yesterday led by the Premier’s report from his meetings, along with our Minister of Finance in Ottawa. I would like to direct a couple of questions to the Premier with regard to the processes underway for putting together long-term strategies for the North.

We all know, Mr. Speaker, in the Throne speech of some weeks ago that the initiative was undertaken by the federal government to look at a new pan-northern strategic plan for Canada’s northern regions. The Premier supplied us with some further information on this. One of the points...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to this bill, I will be voting against it.

Mr. Speaker, it is not too often that I oppose this kind of legislation. Mr. Speaker, this is brought before us, in fact on the recommendation of the Commissioner, and it is a serious piece of legislation for this committee, for this Legislature. But there are elements of this bill that I believe must be challenged. As I have done during debate in Committee of the Whole of this spending appropriation act, I want to take this final opportunity to air my objections.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill for...

Okay. I guess this leaves me wondering, and I think it shouldn’t leave the communities wondering and the volunteers and the many participants in our sport and recreation system wondering, Mr. Speaker, why we are taking this step. It has been a torturous journey for the creation of this council, but we really have the thinnest and most skeletal of arrangements for how it is going to work. When can the Minister bring back to this Assembly a better plan and a framework for how it is going to work, and how we will be able to gauge its success? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. The creation of this council, it seems, is something very much driven by the government. The history was one of expectations and things that people from various sectors, various communities and regions thought should be in there but weren’t quite being delivered on. I would like to probe again just what is the mandate of this council and how is it going to improve the delivery of sport and recreation services in the NWT. The mandates, please, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every northerner watches daily, nervously, as the world price of oil rises. It looks more and more like it's going to settle in the $50 U.S. a barrel range, and that means yet more dollars out of pockets for essential heat and transportation and fewer dollars for the other necessities of life. We look at a world suffering more and more from the effects of pollution from fossil fuels, how it affects our health and the environment around us, and we know that our northern regions, Mr. Speaker, are going to take the earliest and the most severe hit from global warming.

We...

Because it’s the kind of inaction that on this side of the House I don’t want to tolerate any more from this government. I’m sending a signal.

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Mr. Speaker, I believe in a good security system for the travelling public in Canada. I believe northerners are prepared to pay a share of it, but I object to being handed an open-ended invoice with no plan and, therefore, no confidence in how we’re going to implement this.

On a more fundamental issue, Mr. Speaker, related to this security business, all legislators must be on guard when independent security agencies can dictate conditions to...