Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I am just going by the letter that I received from the Standing Committee on Social Programs. As my colleague the Minister of ENR indicated, we are quite prepared to do a joint briefing with the different committees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess for a couple of reasons. One is we normally work with the Standing Committee of Economic Development. Secondly, we weren’t aware that the Standing Committee on Operations wanted input into the response to NEB. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if it would be somebody within my department, but I think that from within the government we can certainly look at the opportunities. Also, my understanding is the Prime Minister of Canada is in Haiti right now, so perhaps that would be another avenue whereby we get the Prime Minister to make an announcement and maybe they’ll pay for all the tents as well. I think there are a number of different ways we can approach this and I think that we’ll start looking at it right away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess the hardest part would be the logistics of getting 160 tents from Fort McPherson to Haiti. Right off the top of my head, I would expect we could probably do it on a backhaul from Inuvik or one of the trucks that are going back. I know that one of the local airlines, First Air, has provided a couple of their Hercs free of charge to assist in Haiti, so that’s one avenue. I guess another avenue is to get the military to fly it out of Inuvik. Those are some of the logistics that we would have to look at, Mr. Speaker.

I guess there were a number of reasons. First and foremost is we were working under very tight timelines and if we didn’t file by February 11th we would have forgone the opportunity to appear before the different panel hearings. We didn’t want to be like the federal government where three federal departments that are intervening did not respond because they don’t support the pipeline. So as a responsible government, it was incumbent upon us.

We have to recognize that through NEB we are very limited in scope as to what we can respond on. We’re talking about the technical aspects with regard to...

Mr. Speaker, I have the letter right here. It is from the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs. There is no reference to the NEB in that letter. I assume that the Standing Committee on Social Programs is only interested in the Joint Review Panel recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on Section 23(i). The Member is suggesting that we are withholding information from him. I would like to point out that he is an intervener in the Joint Review Panel process. As such, by providing information to him, he would have unfair advantage over other interveners in the process. For that reason, I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through the regulatory process, there is a process of intervening with the report. As far as I understand, the Member is listed as an intervener with the Joint Review Panel process. As such, it is to make sure that we have a fair process. We have to make sure that if we provide the Member with information, it has to go to all of the interveners in the Joint Review Panel process. As such, the Member, being an intervener, found out about the fact that we filed the statement with the National Energy Board like all the other interveners did. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think this is a very critical point to the operations of consensus government. Many times we hear that everybody wants information, as much information as possible. In order to function properly, we have to feel confident when we share confidential information that it will stay confidential. I don’t think we want to allow ourselves to get into a situation where we can pick and choose what is confidential or not and that you can just use it for your own purposes. I think that if we start operating that way, then everybody will start picking and choosing whatever they...

We want to develop all of those tourism opportunities. Anything that will attract people to the Northwest Territories I think is very important. The amount of interest that was generated with regard to promoting Deline as the birthplace of hockey, there was a lot of interest in it and I think that will probably have reaction to it. I guess we’ll see what kind of media exposure we’ll get. I expect we’ll get some articles about it and I think that you’ll have to be prepared to defend that claim.