Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you. I don’t want to be contrary and not support the motion, but, I move the committee strongly recommends that the Premier of the Northwest Territories take immediate action to seek federal authority for a temporary increase to the territorial borrowing authority. Well, good luck with that. I mean we just had it raised from 300 to 500 not so long ago and that was a big ordeal.

We’re not on a shopping trip here. We’re not going down to the federal government and saying, you know, we’ll take one of those or one of those, we’ll take 10 years instead of five years, we’ll take, you know? I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the committee today would like to deal with Tabled Document 8-16(5), Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011 (Infrastructure Expenditures).

I’d like to ask the Premier, since he brings up the Taltson hydro expansion, how is having our debt card full going to affect our ability to guarantee any loan to do the Taltson expansion?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask my questions to the Premier and it is about the Deh Cho Bridge. Mr. Speaker, in the statement that the Premier made, it said: “First, I want to assure Members and the public that assuming responsibility for the Deh Cho Bridge Project will not change the GNWT’s fiscal situation or the GNWT’s ability to pay for programs and services.”

Mr. Speaker, that is a very categorical statement and doesn’t really take into account anything unforeseen. As my colleague Mr. Ramsay had pointed out, there have been some unexpected occurrences with the Deh Cho Bridge...

I do apologize. This is a big topic and maybe it was the wrong time to start it on the last day of session, but, Mr. Speaker, the idea of party politics, unfortunately, we have little snippets of party politics mingled, hybridized with this consensus government. For example, Cabinet solidarity; you know the Cabinet is always going to stick together. When you come over to this side, we’re not allowed to be called the opposition, just the accountability side of the House, Mr. Speaker. It’s an awkward situation, because that solidarity does not exist on this side of the House. And the balance of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about some of the downside of consensus government. Maybe it isn’t that consensus government is all bad, but maybe the Territory has evolved and maybe a change from consensus government would be a natural stepping stone, a natural evolution in the way that we govern ourselves here in the Territory.

I am not sure where changes to the way we govern ourselves would actually begin. I’m hoping that the Premier could help me out with this, because all of our systems and committee structures and rules of the House and everything are...

Mr. Speaker, we have a wonderful Territory full of amazing opportunities. Mr. Speaker, the Premier has alluded to going to other jurisdictions, and I’ve been in that same situation where they’re almost in awe, you know, that we get together and we make it sound like we hammer everything out until everybody agrees when, in fact, that’s not exactly the way it is. Maybe it sounds a little more rosy than it is.

From the government’s side, normally the government is a governing party and they have party discipline and they have party protection, they have a party platform going into an election...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to talk a little bit about consensus government. I’m not going to do justice to this very, very big topic in two and a half minutes, Mr. Speaker, but coming up on 15 years working in consensus government, Mr. Speaker, I am starting to not think that this is the best way to govern our Territory. I don’t want to be particularly critical of anybody or anything, it is the system in which we work, but, Mr. Speaker, there are some downfalls.

Mr. Speaker, the consensus government purports to have significant cooperation between all Members. We come...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank my colleague Mr. Abernethy for bringing this motion forward. We know there have been many advances made in the ability of health care providers in the diagnoses of FASD. Mr. Speaker, it is challenging enough for people who live with challenges to function and this is one avenue, one opportunity to bring the presence of this disorder in our society into the light and perhaps also remove some of the stigma that is attached to it. It is for the benefit of everyone. I thank Mr. Abernethy for bringing this forward. I support it 100 hundred...