Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as many have said, it would be easy to sit and vote on it when the call for a vote came up. This is something that I go back to before we elected Members to the Executive Council. It is about your word, Mr. Speaker. It is about when we first meet each other around this table, some of us may know a little bit about each other, especially those who have been in this arena before. Others, we come here and all we know is a name or somebody else telling us about an individual. When we cast that vote we hope to have the opportunity to speak to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 11, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2004-2005, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that Bill 9, Write-off of Assets and Debts Act, 2004, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to outline the steps being taken by the Department of Public Works and Services with respect to the Samuel Hearne Secondary School in Inuvik.

First of all, let me state my appreciation for the combined efforts of those involved, which has resulted in getting students back to class.

Although the classroom portion of the school is back in operation, a great deal needs to be done. Much of the repair work is only temporary. More permanent solutions are required. The foyer and gymnasium remain unusable, and options are being considered to restore...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 11, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2004-2005, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker this bill makes supplementary appropriations for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2004-05 fiscal year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Payroll Tax Act, 1993 and the Income Tax Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the students and staff of Samuel Hearne Secondary School in Inuvik narrowly avoided tragedy when the roof of the foyer collapsed. As a parent of three children in the school and as MLA for the area, I am grateful that no one was injured. Since then, efforts have been focused on getting students back to class so that they are able to complete their school year. Although the subsequent fire in the gymnasium was a major setback, the timely response of the Inuvik fire department and the efforts of the school and education officials...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there are a number of avenues we continue to work on, not only in our own sources of revenue, but today is the final piece of that package. We continue to work with our partners, with aboriginal governments in the Northwest Territories, when we go to Ottawa and advance the royalty revenue and discussions that are ongoing and try to ensure that the messages goes out that we are, in fact, doing the best we can with what we have. If we are going to be a positive asset to Canada, then the federal government needs to recognize that there needs to be more...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the two levels that we come on in the 15th Assembly is, one, we are faced with a problem and that is we don’t have enough revenues to run the existing level of programs and services. We’ve committed, and in the budget address I have committed and laid out the fact that we’ve found $10 million through this existing fiscal year and that we are going forward looking for another $20 million in the upcoming fiscal year and a further $20 million. So we are going through the exercise of restraint in the sense of trying to limit the growth of the Government of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to thank the Member for his comments. We’ve covered the area fairly thoroughly and put out the information that we have on the estimates we’ve used. This being the third piece, it’s one of the ones where we have an ability to ensure the lower income residents of the Northwest Territories don’t feel the impact of the changes, and that’s one of the considerations taken to this package. Any effort that we make in the sense of our own revenue sources impacts on us positively when we go to the federal government, through our tax effort in the formula...