Bob Bromley

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I recognize those situations.

Again, I think there is an opportunity here to save the taxpayer some dollars, to save the environment some greenhouse gas emissions. I think we heard the Minister of Human Resources talking earlier about how we want to develop a good working relationship with our employees and so on. I think challenges are something, especially for good causes, that our employees really react to.

Here’s a situation. The environment is on lot of folks’ minds, especially young engineers. The Minister’s noted big gains that could be achieved...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Housing.

I appreciated his Minister’s statement on the EnerGuide 80 Program — very progressive. The one thing I noticed is that it’s actually for implementation in 2010. Everybody knows a dollar saved is a dollar earned. The same goes for greenhouse gas submissions. Why can’t we get going and get some of this implemented this coming year?

Mr. Speaker, I don’t disagree with that. I just think that what we should be discussing is whether those dollars for youth should be going strictly to sports or whether they should be going to sports plus arts and cultural programs.

Are arts organizations represented in this review that the sports and recreation organization is doing? If they’re not, then it’s hardly surprising what they would come out with. So can we get arts organizations — territorial arts organizations, regional arts organizations — participating with the Council of Sports and Recreation in doing that review?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of MACA, and it has to do with the lottery funds that I talked about in my Member’s statement earlier today. What would be required to get that reviewed and some of those funds from the lottery program going towards arts and cultural programs, rather than just to sports?

Mr. Speaker, the amount of money generated from lottery proceeds in the NWT was $3 million last year, a significant amount of money. Currently in the NWT proceeds of the Western Canada Lottery program are exclusively allocated to sports organizations. The NWT is the only jurisdiction in Canada that exclusively allocates lottery proceeds to sports. Alberta and British Columbia divide their lottery proceeds between many different organizations and causes, and the Yukon divides its proceeds between arts and cultural programs and sports programs.

The arts play a significant role in a community’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to begin by reiterating that this idea came from the people, and I’m just one of the vehicles here bringing this forward. It has been stressed that this is a preventative and creative approach. It has got an element of fairness to it — small communities and so on, the potential to be revenue neutral. There is absolutely no duplication with the Food Mail Program.

I have to comment briefly on some of the spurious arguments I have heard on that. There are about half of our communities that actually have the food mail service. But this program could apply to...

WHEREAS the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories has set the goal of having a healthy and educated population and has agreed to work with families, communities and schools to improve the physical and mental well-being of our youth;

AND WHEREAS the Government of the Northwest Territories provides subsidies for goods and services that cost too much for ordinary northerners to realistically bear;

AND WHEREAS the increasing costs of living in the NWT make it more and more difficult for many northerners to provide the basic necessities for their families;

AND WHEREAS milk is an essential...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for the comments on that. I realize that they are narrowly economic, but I think we have many more win-win situations we could find here.

My final question is on the Power Corporation. Would the Minister commit to leading this government and doing a comprehensive and thorough review of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, their work on the energy front, the possibility of restructuring and so on, to address many of the fundamental issues that we hear so much about from our constituents?

Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for those comments. I don’t want to detract from the Energy Priorities Framework, because I think there is some very good stuff here. I think the Minister has pointed at the home environment and buildings. There are some very good things happening there. But as he has pointed out, transportation is the biggest source of many of our problems with our cost of living. So I’m hoping that some real outside the box thinking can be done there, some fundamental solutions.

One of the things I found missing was the development of local expertise on implementing some...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement on the Energy Priorities Framework by asking the Minister who is the lead for energy about why transportation was completely missed out here. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every decade subsidizing highways, highway transport, and costs are continuing to soar. Greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase. What are we doing outside the box? Why aren’t we thinking outside the box, trying to lower our costs, coming up with low intensity greenhouse gas emission ways of transport and some long term solutions? Thank you...