Bob Bromley

Thanks for the comments from the Minister. It’s good to know that we’re on this.

Regulation of the exploration and production process is another critical matter. I mentioned the particular threat of failure of drill casings and contamination of massive amounts of water. We need a review of other jurisdictions’ regimes and evaluation of their suitability for our needs, then action to develop and put in place our own regs. Perhaps that’s part of what Mr. Minister was referring to.

Upon the release of the government response to our EDI report, will the Minister move quickly to contract and manage a...

Thanks to the Minister again for those comments. Sounds good.

I also appreciated the comment earlier from the Minister that there needs to be integration between these various strategies like the Anti-Poverty Strategy and so on. A challenging job, but I will be looking forward to that. I did appreciate that comment. That’s all I have on this page.

Some who haven’t affected bans are now realizing steep costs to people’s health, drinking water, climate, livestock, wildlife, municipal systems and so on. All this to mine an energy source that is destroying our global climate and the ability of our natural system to support life and cultures as we know them.

Healthy and beneficial energy alternatives abound. I will have questions for the Minister. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, there are some great mysteries out there and there doesn’t seem to be anything else we can do. I am aware that we are permitting some harvest on this herd, despite this situation and failure to recover after three years of closure. I even have heard that those tags we do permit are not able to be fulfilled because of the small population and difficulty in finding these caribou. It’s, indeed, a grave situation. I know there’s certainly cultural loss happening amongst many cultures, perhaps all cultures of the Northwest Territories, as a result of this situation.

I agree with the...

No comment.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just a few brief comments here. I want to start off by highlighting the statement by our Finance Minister that no non-renewable resource revenues will go towards government programs and services. Again, great concerns on this point and it flies absolutely in the face of what our Premier has said to the nation, very publicly on TV just days before this budget address, where he explicitly said that non-renewable resource revenues will, in fact, be used for programs and services, and I agree with that. So I assume there will be some correction made on that in line with...

Mr. Chair, that’s all I had.

I do note that I have used both that chicken manure and the Yellowknife composting products in my garden at home and I know many have. Obviously the goals Yellowknife sets out to achieve – waste reduction and making soil amendments available – are challenges facing our communities, all of them. Partners have learned that aggressive public education and motivation are essential for promoting participation.

With community gardens really taking off around the territory and very small transportation distances, there seems a big opportunity to begin establishing the habit of household composting as...

Thanks for the Minister’s comments there. I don’t think they’re very accurate, obviously. I guess I would like to ask the Minister, what has been the greenhouse gas reductions net reductions in these industry emissions in the Northwest Territories for whatever time frame he cares to talk about. I’m very happy to see Diavik taking a leadership role on their own, and I think they’re talking about 4 to 6 percent of their energy being from wind compared to zero from renewable energy. That’s significant. The opportunity, as the Minister said, is there in a way that saves money. It’s not being taken...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today I want to salute the City of Yellowknife and Ecology North as the co-winners of the 2013 Federation of Canadian Municipalities Sustainable Communities Award in the waste category. The award recognizes the impressive achievement of piloting and then implementing the first phase of an organic waste composting project.

From 2009 to 2012, the city partnered with Ecology North on a centralizing composting pilot project to learn about and test the process and to evaluate the feasibility of a full-scale operation. The three-year project looked to composting in cold...