Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to present a petition with the matter of referring any further horizontal hydraulic fracturing applications to environmental assessment.

Mr. Speaker, the petition contains 327 handwritten signatures and 463 electronic signatures, for a total of 790 of Northwest Territories residents from at least 24 communities. The petitioners request that the Government of the Northwest Territories exert its authority from the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to refer any further horizontal hydraulic fracturing applications in the NWT to a full environmental...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll look forward to that on time. The MVRMA gives criteria for determining when a project should be referred for an environmental assessment. I would assume that we use the criteria listed in the legislation, and I’d be happy to give the Minister a reference to that, clause 125, section 1.

I would assume that we use the criteria listed in the legislation, but to be sure, would the Minister commit to making public the criteria this government and its agencies use when deciding whether to refer a project to environmental assessment even if it’s following the legislation?

Thank you. I suppose most stuff is, but we’re looking for transparency here, so again, I hope we work towards that.

Section 10(4) allows for deposits for liability related to loss damage, et cetera. Again, in reference to Mr. Fulford’s earlier comment, deposits are not mandatory. This is, again, unfortunate. I would just like to give the Premier an opportunity to say I’m wrong here and, in fact, somewhere in the act it is made mandatory. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to Mr. Fulford. That’s good information to have and I appreciate that. I’ll maybe just postpone any further discussion on that aspect. I believe that’s all I had. Yes, that’s it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just about there. I just wanted to express appreciation for the possibility of an invite there. I don’t recall his previous commitment, so I again appreciate him repeating it here.

My last question is: Given that there are many discussions that will influence decision-making on how we manage our public land and resources, is there any reason why we can’t develop regulations or rules? Perhaps the Premier could bring this up as a possible rule that requires the publication of minutes, decisions, costs, that sort of thing, accountability from these meetings so that the public...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Hopefully, these will be electronically available and we won’t have to worry about that.

Finally, I don’t see any provisions for participant funding or for applicants to cover some or all of the costs of those who wish to intervene such as is the case, for example, with the Public Utilities Board, and I suspect I could tell myself the answer: We’re mirroring legislation. I guess that’s all the questions I have. I just hope that that’s all we’re mirroring. The evidence is quite to the contrary of that, unfortunately, that we’re also mirroring a lack of transparency and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up on some of these similar questions for Bill 11, Petroleum Resources Act. I know a number of the public are alarmed at the regulations being proposed and put in force by this act, particularly because it is a fundamental change in public policy that demands public discussion certainly, and one would think in a consensus government that it would at least have demanded committee discussion. The questions were asked at the beginning of this six-week sitting. Commitments were made about briefing committee and that still has not been done. Again, so-called...

Thank you for that information, Mr. Chair. I’ll repeat my question again. Given that these meetings can affect how our public land, water and resources are managed, planned – and resources and water that belong to all of our public – is there any reason why these meetings cannot be public and made so through regulations?

Could I know generally just what sections, if that’s handy? I will just go on with my next question while you’re looking that up.

Sections 27 and 35, although they speak a little bit to financial security, it’s not mandatory. I’m wondering why, when this was an opportunity to make this mandatory. It’s “may require” and so on, so doesn’t offer the certainty that residents of the Northwest Territories are looking for, and in fact, it does make us liable to take on significant liabilities in their absence. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Good to hear that. The previous Greenhouse Gas Strategy massively overestimated the level of industrial development that would take place in the NWT and now, of course, the Minister claims the lack of development is a success in reducing missions. How to preplan success.

Will the next Greenhouse Gas Strategy take a more rigorous approach and list the emissions reductions that we aim to achieve from each action in the strategy?