David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier today. It gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about this new proposal the Government of the Northwest Territories put forward to the federal government that was in addition to the devolution and resource revenue sharing negotiations that were ongoing.

Everybody knows that the Government of the Northwest Territories has been trying to get a deal with the federal government for the past 20 years. This may or may not be a good proposal that the government has put forward, but all of a sudden, to plop a massive — and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak today about the ongoing developments on the devolution and resource revenue sharing negotiations with the federal government. The Premier recently shared with Regular Members some correspondence between our government and the federal government, and I must say I was quite surprised with the new tack being taken with the negotiations. Aside from what I read in the correspondence, I have also heard the Premier mention this new proposal in his sessional statement to the House on Wednesday. There have also been news reports and interviews of both the Premier...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t disagree with the Premier. Obviously, we need to do something. If they are moving forward with this, that is good. I just think it would be nice to know on this side of the House, especially with what I have seen and heard. It’s a billion dollar cost shared infrastructure agreement with the federal government.

Maybe I could ask the Premier this question: where is the $500 million coming from in the Government of Northwest Territories to cost share with the federal government’s $500 million?

I appreciate the challenge that the government finds itself in, and I know the pressures on our infrastructure and the need for more money. You can’t debate that. But the fact remains there was an impasse. The government has put a new proposal on the table to the federal government without first consulting the Regular Members of this House — duly elected Members — and I’ve heard from other Members that perhaps aboriginal governments across the Northwest Territories weren’t consulted on this either.

So, again, let’s be up front with each other. Let’s put the deal on the table before we take it...

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this time to recognize a friend of mine, Everett McQueen, and his two lovely daughters he has with him, Wynter and Montana. Welcome.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that.

Another question that I do have — and it’s an issue that I’ve raised in the House — gets back to home heating fuel and the fact that the Government of Canada charges GST on home heating fuel. There’s an election going on right now, and I do believe that the Government of the Northwest Territories has to be working with their counterparts in Nunavut and the Yukon Territory to make the federal government understand that charging GST on home heating fuel in northern Canada is the wrong thing to do and that they should stop that practice immediately. That...

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the questions I had earlier, but this time I’m going to ask the questions of the Minister of Finance.

The one thing I think residents here in the Northwest Territories have a difficult time with is that we ship our resources south — look at the Norman Wells Pipeline, the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project — and then they get trucked back to us, and our residents get charged exorbitant prices for the fuel once it gets back to the Northwest Territories. We have the resources here. That’s the thing I take issue with. I think we need to find a way and means to keep...

With winter coming I think it’s very important. I want to get a commitment today from the Minister that the government will engage the Competition Bureau of Canada to have a look at the price fixing that’s obviously going on here in Yellowknife and perhaps in other market communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of MACA, who is also the Minister responsible for consumer protection in the Northwest Territories.

I’ve been receiving a number of calls and complaints from residents about fuel pricing here in Yellowknife. I’m having trouble helping them or explaining to them how pricing is arrived at here in Yellowknife. I can’t explain it. World oil prices go down; prices in southern Canada go down corresponding to those world oil prices — in some cases just recently 12 to 15 cents a litre. But here in Yellowknife it takes a week or ten days...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use my Member’s statement today to continue to talk about the cost of living here in the Northwest Territories. Yesterday I spoke about how offside the government is with their proposed tax initiatives and how by even discussing increasing the cost of living they are scaring residents and potential residents away.

Last winter I heard from many residents who were having a difficult time paying their home heating fuel bills, and now this winter it is going to be 25 per cent more than last winter. I really am worried that coupled with the proposed 19 per cent rate...