Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a personal matter under Rule 20(1). Yesterday our Member of Parliament, the MP for the Western Arctic, testified before the federal Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The committee is considering Bill C-530. The MP’s private member’s bill is to amend the NWT Act to change the GNWT borrowing limit.

I am concerned his comments did not reflect all of the information that I conveyed to him. For the record, Mr. Speaker, in a letter dated October 20, 2010, I told the Member of Parliament the GNWT would await the outcome of the federal review of...

Again, in our many communications -- and we have quite a number of letters that have gone back to committee -- this has been raised. This has been committed to look at through the Financial Administration Act. I think that question is mute. We have in fact been looking towards dealing with this subject matter.

Thank you. Again, there is no requirement through indemnities for providing Members that. The Members are getting hooked up on... I believe there’s a requirement over the $500,000 figure, 14 days’ notice that’s honoured. In the requirement for indemnities, that process has been followed. There wasn’t a change in regulation to make it, so that process was excluded. Thank you.

Thank you. There are a number of other communities as well that benefit from the Food Mail Program. Of course, we will look at the implementation of this program and ensure that the appropriate people benefit from this program, and many times it’s been raised in here that it’s the cost of food in the communities that needs to be affected. We’ve shared those concerns in the past and we’ll, again, follow up with more communications in that area. Thank you.

Thank you. From our understanding, the review has been done. They were working to implement the new program that would see retailers dealing with the subsidy instead of through Canada Post and what we were informed was it’s October 2012 that they will implement this revised Food Mail Program and we will, of course, correspond with the appropriate authorities in this area around that implementation and delays on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Assembly has a vision of strong individuals, families and communities sharing the benefits and responsibilities of a unified environmentally sustainable and prosperous Northwest Territories. We called our plan Northerners Working Together because we know that each of us has a part to play in helping us achieve that vision. Last year, with the support of Members, I engaged with residents all across the Territory to hear about their priorities and ideas for coming together to create a better future for all Northerners. I would like to take this opportunity to update...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Creating Our Future Together: In Search of a Common Vision for the Northwest Territories, Results Report and Appendix. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The issue of negotiated contracts is one that does come up right across the Northwest Territories. The challenge we have is when there are competing interests and when there is capacity to be able to bid the work. My understanding is there’s some work coming up, there’s opportunity and there’s some work in progress on a couple of potential negotiated contracts during the life of this government, if not already been dealt with. For example, the demolition of one of the schools is one of those areas, so some success in that area. But we will look at the Negotiated Contracts Policy, its...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Negotiated Contracts Policy is one that we do use throughout the Northwest Territories, as the Member highlighted. We have a number of other tools that we use, as well, and it was referenced in this House about the memorandums of understanding with a number of the Aboriginal groups around contracting, and negotiated contracts falls in that to help meet some of those targets. Some of the work that we need to do in those areas and in reference to the Sahtu is to get a better understanding of the businesses that would qualify.

I must say that, for example in the...

Thank you. As I believe I said, but I will confirm, that in fact when we responded to the standing committee it was a request to Executive to do an overview of this process on the Deh Cho Bridge Project and that was provided to committee and we’ll send it again. In there it referenced the fact that the Financial Administration Act was under review to look at these types of issues as future governments would look towards these types of projects or indemnifications.