Bob Bromley

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t want to spend any more time on this, Madam Chair, but we’ve been interested before and an expression of interest is not a commitment. An expression of interest is curiosity. We need commitment. We have passed over and over again the opportunity to put in renewable energy to avoid these costs. We could do a much more significant effort here had we taken the sufficient funds last year to put in five megawatts that would have handled at least a third to a half of the monthly demands now forecasted in materials the Minister has provided us with from the Power...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my Member’s statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thanks to the deputy minister for that response. I know he’s aware that some of the conventional authorities are forecasting $20 a barrel of oil. Certainly the price is dropping and it’s anticipated to continue to drop. I believe we budgeted about $1 per litre and I’m wondering, if that’s so, what are the potential savings on this purchase?

We have to do both and to do it effectively, it takes planning. I think the Minister would agree with that. How, in what modest way, are we planning to use some of this $22 million to do both?

We’re spending now $50 million over the last 12 months and planning for the next eight or ten months so that people that could experience high power rates would be protected from those. The latest information shows that we’re talking billions of dollars for public infrastructure and damages over the next 15 years. Then we have private, commercial and institutional infrastructure. Are we planning on bailing out all of those to protect our public from the costs of climate change in this manner?

I’m disappointed that we, as a government, are not on top of that equation, and we should have been for the last several years. We heard just a month or so ago about the storm surges and whatnot in Tuktoyaktuk that left some government buildings hanging over the water, oil tanks suspended or lost into the sea and so on. We’re losing, in some areas, 10 metres of coastline per year there. I’d say the writing is on the wall for that community.

We’re looking at $22 million here on top of the $32 million for the fire suppression this year. Have we estimated the cost? Are we planning on what to do or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, October 8, 2015, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories develop a comprehensive and long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation plan in anticipation of the projected effects of climate change;

And further, that this action plan include a strategy for shifting the Northwest Territories from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, including targets recommended by the...

Thanks to the Minister. Yellowknife had a midwife before we embarked on a territory-wide program. Now we don’t, but we now have two coordinator positions apparently with a goal of developing a territorial Midwifery Program based in Yellowknife and expanding into areas such as the Deh Cho and Behchoko.

I’m wondering: how does this affect the future of having practicing midwives in Yellowknife for Yellowknife, Ndilo, Detah and this region given the need for program delivery staff who support the territorial model. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services following up on my Member’s statement. We have been waiting for several years for the long-promised territory-wide midwife program. People are starting to question whether this government is really serious about implementing one. We get assurances, but so far little action. We do not have any idea what this territorial program is currently looking like. I want to ask the Minister, to start with, what is the status of the program and where are we in the process to implement it? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for bringing this to our attention, and I want to thank the workers’ compensation and safety organization plus the Minister and our Justice staff for the quick work on putting this bill together. I’ll leave it at that.