Bob Bromley

Appreciation to the Minister for those comments. Obviously he’s been thinking about this. How does the Minister see this unfolding so that the public is aware of what’s going on and the process for consultation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, and Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project, and would like to report that Bill 7 is ready for third reading. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think there’s any question that we’ll be collecting those. We’ve already had people down at the big…or the Juno awards or the Oscar awards, filmmakers down there from Yellowknife. We’re well on our way, and with the Minister’s support I have no doubt we’ll achieve that.

ITI’s annual publication -- my last question -- the economic review does not contain, currently, information on the value and activity of the arts and culture industry such as film and media production. I’d like to conclude here by asking the Minister if he will take steps to begin to collect the...

Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that Bill 7 is ready for third reading?

I appreciate that. I also appreciate that the Minister indicated that he would work hard to incorporate the findings of this review into the business plans. That’s my interest in the time frame. Obviously those draft business plans are due in just a few short months. Timelines for the inclusion are, therefore, pretty tight. Can the Minister say what schedule he has set or will be setting for the review to be completed and allow that to happen?

Thank you, committee. We will start on page 1 with clause 1. Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, clause 1.

---Clauses 1 through 53 inclusive approved

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick question. I understand that the stimulus dollars cannot be carried over beyond this coming March 31st. If that’s true, I’m wondering, do we have assurance that those dollars will be completely expended this fiscal year. Thank you.

It sounds like a pretty reasonable investment: $8 million in return for a million of somebody else’s money. So I appreciate that.

On the final one, the Department of Transportation looking to carry over funding. I’ve heard for two years about research that’s supposed to be done related to climate change and highways. I’ve never seen any results on that and I’m wondering what have we learned so far for the research dollars we have spent. Is this additional money or ongoing money going to be also dedicated to the climate change research with regard to highway construction maintenance? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d just like to add a little bit to this discussion. I’m wondering if, well, obviously the costs are going up. I think earlier on in this Assembly we raised this pretty straightforwardly and the estimated cost there was $4 million to $5 million at that time. So this is something that’s going up in cost. I’m also very sensitive to the Finance Minister’s recognition of our current fiscal situation. Is there any room for managing this to the point where the one-time cost of finally getting it done would be more modest? Are there some time-related leave sorts of issues...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just totalling these things up, that’s almost another million dollars. So we’re pretty close to an additional $10 million of subsidies this year and this is in addition to our apparently now routine at 10 to 12 million dollars per year and this is what I mean about we’re not really reducing costs and we’re removing options for services for our people. So I’d like to ask the Premier, during the life of this Assembly what community will actually have an electricity system with reduced costs. What community? Even one community.