Floyd Roland

I respect the Members who rise on issues and present a certain case on behalf of their constituents in communities.

In the matter of partnerships and working together, I think we can point quite clearly to a number of big pieces of legislation that this government has been working on that we have worked hand in hand with in developing legislation. I would say this is one of the first for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Look at the Wildlife Act that’s being worked on, worked in partnership co-writing the legislation. Look at the Species at Risk Act. That’s another piece of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for rising on the issue of the agreement-in-principle. We did travel together and took part in the meeting. I must say that I viewed the meeting as a glass half full. I’m not sure if the Member was looking at it as half empty. There are challenges and issues that were raised at the meeting. As we had opportunity to speak with them, we recognized that challenge. There are issues around the agreement-in-principle that as I spoke to the leadership and heard from the leadership that we feel we can work forward on by signing the agreement-in-principle...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been such a long time since I’ve done a Member’s statement, I thought I’d recognize the two young ladies who have been Pages here down from my constituency of Inuvik Boot Lake. We have Pages Meagan Ross and Paisley Day. I have to thank Mr. Robert C. McLeod’s constituency assistant who has travelled down as their chaperone and has been helping them as they help us do our job here in the House. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m informed that the Town of Hay River, the council, has a working group between the Town, Imperial and, I believe, another firm, Global Technical Services, looking at their operations. We’d have to go to them to see what alternatives they may be looking at. Thank you.

The specific area there would be one that is more directed between the community itself and Esso, as Esso right now is the generator and the Power Corporation is the distributor of that energy. We are directly involved in that work going towards conversion and we’d have to look at alternatives, depending on what the community would decide. I would have to get more up to speed on that. I know that the Power Corporation, the CEO and the staff who were at the meeting are aware of the concerns and I’ll look to them to see the work they’re engaged in. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 3.

---Unanimous consent granted

Again, I know from the Power Corporation side on the energy distribution and working with Imperial Oil, that that work is ongoing. From an overall Government of the Northwest Territories perspective, when this issue first came to our attention, a number of departments were pulled together to look at what needed to be done and the alternatives that could be looked at, and some of the initial work was to convert some of our larger buildings to diesel so that there would be less of a draw on the natural gas supply that was remaining, to allow a longer transition period. There hasn’t been a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the natural gas situation in Norman Wells has been one we’ve been working on as the Government of the Northwest Territories in a number of fashions. The Power Corporation itself has recently had a meeting with the mayor and council of Norman Wells to discuss some of the work that’s ongoing and concerns with outages and so on and the distribution of power. They’ve also engaged in the work that’s going on for the conversion to either diesel or another form of energy in the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member’s statement earlier, leading up to these questions, made a number of comments about secret negotiations and so on. I will say for the record that there were no secret negotiations. All bilateral discussions that may have happened between the GNWT and the federal government, specifically because there are areas that we clearly are for or would be, those issues and discussions were shared at the main table with all of the partners that were at the table.

As for signing this agreement, there are many things to be negotiated as we go forward. One of those is the...

Those that have made application, I will ask on the results. The first thing, as I had committed to earlier, was the total number of complaints or applications that were sent in, what were the responses to those applications and if there are any outstanding issues. I will get that information back to the Member. Thank you.