Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, obviously if we could wave a magic wand and fix the problem tomorrow, we would be very interested in doing that. I think in order to go and approach the AANDC Minister, I think you have to be very clear on what the Member is asking for. Are we talking about only new innovative methods that are not already out there? Are we talking about somebody bringing a truckload of arsenic-eating bacteria, would we give them $20 million? Is that what the Member is suggesting? I’m not very clear on what the Member is asking us to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if Churchill was thinking of Giant Mine when he made that famous quotation. Perhaps a Yogi Berra quote of “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” would be more appropriate.

We’ve been part of the Giant Mine process for some time. We see this as the most immediate response and step to deal with the problem. I’m not sure what the Member is suggesting, whether he’s suggesting we should stop everything and wait until somebody comes up with an innovative idea before we do anything more. As a government, we see the best approach right now is to deal with the immediate...

Thank you. I think the Member hit it right on the head. In the past whenever we wanted to develop our hydro resources, the companies that we were talking to always wanted us to take all of the risk and then they would take most of the power. I think that with the plan that we’re developing, we need to find a way to transport the power first. We want to bring the power to where the development will be happening so that we can promote development.

There’s a potential for nine new mines in the Northwest Territories by 2020 and invariably every one of them wants cheaper power. We’re also talking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are obviously very much looking forward to devolution, because as we’ve said many times, it will bring control and decision-making into our hands. Obviously, energy and our hydro development are first and foremost in our minds. We’ve been working very hard in putting together our Energy Plan, and also our NWT Power Corporation is working on a Hydro Development Strategy that we hope to be rolling out very soon.

When the Prime Minister was in Hay River I talked to him very specifically about hydro development and about the fact that even with devolution we still will be...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome my colleagues back to the continuation of the Fourth Session of the 17th Legislative Assembly. It is good to be getting back to work. We have an ambitious agenda, Mr. Speaker, and a lot left to accomplish as a territory and as a government, so I hope my colleagues are feeling well-rested.

The Fourth Session began on February 6, 2013. During the winter and spring sittings of this session, Members considered and passed 13 bills contributing to the good government and administration of the Northwest Territories. This included the 2013-14 budget, which was...

I think we all aspire to that. We are obviously limited by the level of resources. We try to do the best we can for every community. I should point out that in our capital needs assessment, Colville Lake has been identified in there, that there will be some planning studies that will be done to make sure that the needs of Colville Lake are eventually addressed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With the myriad of programs and services that we deliver, generally we take into account a number of different features. For example, population is a very important component of any program delivery. For example, Education, they tried to tie their funding to the number of students, parent/student ratios. The Department of Health has a compendium of care, and depending on the population, if we have very small communities we can’t always have a nurse in every community. Some programs are tied to each other. Generally we don’t send nurses where there are no RCMP officers. Those kinds of things.

We...

Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we always listen to suggestions from the other side, and we are able to do so again. I just need to know what it is that you are proposing. We can’t manage through press releases, so we would need something more definitive. The Member knows the process. We don’t respond to a single MLA. I think we would need a request from the committee. Obviously, if the committee requests us to seek this from the federal government and the committee supports it, we will do it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is there are quite a number of options that are out there. The option that is being pursued now is seen as the best, most immediate option. There are bacteria that eat arsenic that have been used in other processes to recover a mine. There are also some other approaches that are more expensive such as finding a way to get rid of the arsenic. One of the recommendations was to haul it away. So there are a number of options, but the option that is being pursued now that is being undertaken is the most immediate and will have the best way to control the...

Thank you. Very pleased with the support, and we see this hydro development and the transmission line as probably the biggest project that we can start in the next two years, or in the remaining life of this 17th Assembly. Thank you.