Brendan Bell

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Judicature Act, be read for the second time.

Madam Speaker, this bill amends the Judicature Act to include provisions enabling the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal to make orders preventing persons who have brought vexatious proceedings or conducted proceedings in a vexatious manner from commencing or continuing court proceedings without leave. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, in keeping with previous commitments to report progress, I would like to update the House on the implementation of the corrections human resource action plan, tabled in the House in December 2004.

In August 2004, corporate human resources began a review of the human resources challenges corrections was facing. Madam Speaker, by November 2004, a number of issues were identified which required priority attention. In response, the Department of Justice prepared an action plan and a team was established to begin the work immediately.

Madam Speaker, I am...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Judicature Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, in much of this discussion, we tend to want to focus on the hypothetical, the what-ifs. We don’t know what’s going to happen and obviously we can’t chain people up and force them to work or force them to live somewhere. We have to do our best to make sure that it is an environment that people want to live in; that’s what we are here to do. We are here to improve life, reduce the cost of living and make sure this is the best place in the country to live. I believe it is. Will some people want to move south because they have now seen a window? I don’t know. I guess hypothetically...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a difficult issue for us to address, but we know what we need to do is get more northerners trained, especially for the jobs that require a high level of expertise. The fact of the matter at that specific mine is 70 percent of their workforce -- I think it’s 72 percent, in fact -- are northerners. The other 30 percent currently come from the South. Had we had that expertise locally available in the North, there would be no one coming in from the South. That is our goal. That’s why we have programs set up like the ASEP program that the Minister of Education has...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 6, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2005, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill, 3 An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a very comprehensive and broad response required to that difficult question. It is a priority of the government to start to address the cost of living in the North, and it’s one that cuts across many departments and many aspects of life in the North. Obviously we need to make more land available for housing developments. We need to pursue opportunities like hydro to make sure that the cost of electricity across the North isn’t so onerous. There are many things that we need to do. We need to focus as a government on a number of these issues, but there is no...

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. It is difficult for me to know what the producers believe, but my sense is that the producers are looking for a framework or a box that access and benefits can be negotiated in. They believe that there are certain things that make up access and benefits, an amount of money, essentially a rent for use of the land. That is the realm they would like to see this in. However, they acknowledge that there are all of these other socioeconomic impacts in communities that need to be adequately dealt with, but they believe they are the responsibility of government. I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No. We had a long discussion around resource revenue sharing and the projected timeline for money to flow to northern governments. Optimistically, we were talking about probably 2007-08. Federal legislation would have to be changed in order for us to start to receive royalty revenues. What we were talking about was a way to bridge us to that point. We have pressing needs of communities up and down the valley now. We know royalty revenues can’t flow until 2007-08. We have a need now. We needed a bridge to get us there. That is why we entered into this...