Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me say that no, I was not aware of a commitment made in that regard, if one was made. A little bit of history, Mr. Speaker. I think in the mid-90s there were 17 communities who had community freezers and I think some of them had more than more, but certainly not more than two. At that point, the government made a decision to get out of funding the O and M for these community freezers for a variety of reasons. Cost was one of them. Upkeep was another. When freezers fail, obviously the entire community's subsistence harvest can be lost, Mr. Speaker. So we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. First let me again also have my thanks to Honourable Justice John Vertes, Eddie Erasmus and Rod O’Brien who put a lot of work into travelling and hearing from the people of the Northwest Territories and putting together this commission report. I think it was a very useful exercise.

As has been indicated here by a number of other Members, in hindsight maybe we should have sat down and talked about some more constraints on the commission in terms of limiting the number of seats and limiting the growth in government. I think that’s certainly something that we need to...

Mr. Speaker, I will have to check on that. It is my understanding that, in the past, we have used the barge schedule. We have needed some lead time to make sure that we could get the freezers ordered, on the barge and delivered to the community. I think the next opportunity is next summer to do that, but certainly let me see what is available in the region, Mr. Speaker, and I will get back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 12, Garnishment Remedies Statutes Amendment Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, let me say I agree with the Member that the urgency obviously with the weather turning colder is not as great as it was in the summer. We do believe that this is the model that makes sense, having people have their own chest freezers. The issue in Paulatuk where we have a large community freezer had the refrigeration unit go out on the equipment, much of the community subsistence harvest was lost is something that we don’t think makes sense anymore. We want to make sure that we hedge our bets and that everybody has a freezer, everybody who needs one. So we will work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member has indicated, we have sent, I believe, 50 freezers to Ulukhaktok, 25 to Paulatuk, and obviously we have had some recent problems with the community freezer in Paulatuk. We are prepared to sit down and arrange for more freezers to come to the community, but we do need to talk to the HDC, the hunters and trappers. We need a request from the hunters and trappers. I understand the region is working with them now. We need to understand who the families are that are in need of freezers. We can’t determine that on our own so we do rely on the hunters and...

Madam Chair, as I stated in my comments, currently the exemption is $300, plus a further $100 per adult, $80 per child. This proposed amendment raises that to 30 percent of net salaries and wages. As I have indicated as well, this is something we took from other jurisdictions. This is where the bar sits in a number of other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Madam Chair, for the record, we agree with the Member. She has made, what we think, is a reasoned argument. We know that we need to go to the judges, at any rate, to have the rules of court changed, so I would propose that what I do is direct my officials to sit down with the judges and propose that this be changed to allow this to happen, and I'm prepared to do that. So I think that's how we can best deal with this. The rules of court need to be changed. As the Member said, notice served to employees, the fact that another jurisdiction equals being served to the employee and I think we...

I want to thank the committee again for their support in this, and thank the Member for her personal interest in this. Obviously her operational experience in the court system probably was behind a number of the suggestions that she was bringing forward in committee. I do believe that they have improved the bill and I think that that's good to see. I look forward to her questions and any other committee questions. Thank you.

I would. Thank you, Madam Chair.