Floyd Roland

Thank you. The estimation of, for example, 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour will impact residents of about $17 a month. We know it is an increase. We’ve tried to minimize the overall construction costs. One of the things we’ve done with the contract is risk sharing, and that may be able to lower the actual amount that we’ve budgeted and reduce the contingency, for example. So right now the process as it would work out is the construction would have to be completed and the overall budget looked at and the impact then passed on. So it would be beyond the life of the 16th Assembly. Well, it will have...

When this project was first proposed there was an estimate given to the PUB as this project had to be filed through them as well. The targeted impact was in the neighbourhood of up to between 1.5 to 2 cents per kilowatt hour. So that was budgeted prior to any changes in the budget. With this change we’re looking at 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour impact in this region. That does affect the rest of the communities because our Power Support Program, as we’ve changed it, is based on the Yellowknife rate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to get a message back to the people of Inuvik Boot Lake, my constituency, to inform them that I will not be putting my name forward in the next general election.

After much thought about the future and the work that I’ve done with the people of Inuvik, I feel it is time to let some younger, more energetic folks take a look at representing the fine community of Inuvik and the constituency of Inuvik Boot Lake. So I want to inform them that I will not be putting my name in, and wish the best for the future Assemblies of the Northwest Territories.

I’m sure I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought I heard Public Works and Services or Transportation in his statement. It went on for a while, so I lost track.

Seriously, though, the issue of student hires has been one that this government has pushed and worked with the Department of Human Resources and all departments to improve on our numbers. The fiscal situation that we find ourselves in, the departments are doing their best to improve on that, but as we’ve heard from a number of Ministers, with our fiscal restraints departments have had to voluntarily squeeze in some areas. We’re still trying to match or...

The process that we use, number one is if there...and through the Department of Human Resources working through a number of categories and programs we have in place. For example, as individuals go through to college or university and they have specific training that could then be used by the department in some of the work we have scheduled for the summer season.

I’ll use last year for an example. We knew we were going to be tasking our people within Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations on the Northern Leaders’ Forum work on vision exercise, so we hired a couple of individuals...

Since the signing of the agreement-in-principle, we’ve taken a number of initiatives to get as much of the facts out to the public as we could. We did a householder, radio ads, as well as had meetings; for example, at the request of the Sahtu, travelled up there and had a meeting with a number of the communities on the agreement-in-principle. We went again into the Sahtu more with a Chamber event and spoke to them about the agreement-in-principle. We took the opportunity to raise the issue in Hay River with the Chamber there as well as in Inuvik. As well, as the Member stated, we’ve taken...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s an honour today to recognize Mandy Day, part of the Ingamo Hall Friendship Centre in Inuvik.

I must say that it’s rare that a Minister has a chance and an opportunity to stump a Member...(inaudible)...questions. Maybe it’s just the seniors' questions about funding that we all face on a day-to-day basis.

The issue of funding and the forced growth nature is, as I was saying, some of the earlier work we did in the 16th Assembly as Members raised the issue around funding stabilization and previous Assemblies, was the third-party accountability framework that we worked on to identify areas of accountability and dealing with some of those forced-growth pressures. In some categories there was...

In the recommendations that have been laid out, that would have to occur within the life of the next government as our processes and budget have been passed. Changes in that pattern and the way of doing business would need to be carried on through the transition work. Thank you.

The process we have used has been open. It has been inviting to ask the groups to be a part of this. The two groups that are involved in this have signed the agreement-in-principle, and by signing that agreement-in-principle have taken their spot at the table. The table and chairs are waiting for the other groups to sign up to come in and affect those discussions.

Again, the door is open, the invite is there, and resources would be made available. In fact, this Assembly discussed the resources we require within Executive to help them in preparations for negotiations. So we’ve made offers, both...