Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of cost of living is one that is important and affects communities in quite a number of ways through power generation, goods and services, and the high cost of housing. There are a whole number of areas that other departments do fall into. Part of their responsibility as we proceed, how they would address that, I am not sure if appointing a Minister responsible for that one that is across the boards. What I would offer up is a solution in the sense of Cabinet working together and a number of Ministers who may have more responsibility in those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of Arctic sovereignty is of great interest to us here in the Northwest Territories. In my brief discussion with the Prime Minister, I referenced the Throne speech. It is good to hear that the Arctic is playing such a prominent role in it. I look forward to working with his government in coming up with how we can be a part of dealing with Arctic sovereignty. In other areas, I have also mentioned that Arctic sovereignty, we are here, we are living here. One of the things they can do is support us in securing the sovereignty piece by helping us...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I definitely will work with the Member and try to move this project along and how we work together with ourselves as a government with the Inuvialuit, with companies. We’ve got to come up with some potential solutions of how we can proceed forward with this project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that area would take a fair bit of work as we work with the federal government in collection and remittance of our personal income tax in the Northwest Territories. I am sure there are ways of looking at our portion to see if we can make something like this happen. As we know, there are other ways already. If you have a small business, you can remit receipts for certain areas and have an impact on your taxation side. I would have to look at that if that is already available to people in this area, but that’s something we can look at working at.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of the access road 177 in Tuktoyaktuk is something that has been discussed by a number of Assemblies. As we’ve heard -- Members are probably starting to get tired of hearing this -- as we set out our direction, as we look at our business planning process, we’ll have to look at how we incorporate a number of these initiatives. This project would fall into that category of having to have a look at it and how it would fit within the overall plan of the 16th Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is those kinds of partnerships that will help in the delivery of key infrastructure in our communities. The more that that type of partnership can come forward and can help us and we help each other by bringing our resources together, that is something that we definitely have to look at. So we would be open to those types of discussions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll use my prerogative in this matter and ask the Minister of ENR, who’s made his statement on wind energy a day or so ago.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we have entered this cycle, we are preparing to come forward once we have our discussion about the overall priorities of the 16th Assembly, look at the interim appropriation, for example, to carry on before we come forward with our full budget which would be in early spring, May or June. At that point, the requests for additional money, change of programs, we would be willing to work with Members, again looking at the overall priorities of the 16th Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is, within Executive, the whole sending out through the Messenger falls through the Department of Executive. My understanding is when that came across -- and I am just going from the note that was forwarded to me -- the question was asked for more thoughts on this matter. So that discussion I’m not aware has taken place yet. The government, overall, should have a discussion about what appropriate message should be sent. I recall in the past being requested to put some things from other groups on that Messenger service and they’ve been disallowed on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the 16th Legislative Assembly, we’ve already started, I think, a cooperative arrangement. We’ve gone forward, a meeting already has been held on this issue. A decision has not been made by Cabinet. I am prepared to sit down with Members again. As I already laid out, the interim appropriation, the business planning, no decisions have been made in that area. We have to set the priorities, but we are going to have to work within a fiscal environment that is going to squeeze us in a number of areas. Infrastructure is going to be one of those large...