Jane Groenewegen

That’s good and I appreciate that and I thank the Minister for that. Initially when we were trying to get a third member from our committee to attend, we were told that we should pay our own way and I asked how much it would be and he said $86,000 divided by six. So it looks like they’ve got their budget under control here and apparently a slight change in schedule and more people can go and they’re paying less money for airfare. Travelling economy, that is truly impressive and I’d like to thank the Minister for that. Thank you.

So, Mr. Chairman, at $50,000 for travel, is most of that airfare or is that for ground travel and everything when they get there? Because seven people at $50,000 for travel, that works out to over $7,000 per person and I don’t think it costs that much to fly to Copenhagen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had some questions on the $86,000 to provide funding for the costs associated with the Government of the Northwest Territories participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference. I would like to ask the Minister for more detail of what comprises the $86,000. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’d like to start off with Tabled Document 19-16(4), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3 (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2009-2010, and then move to Tabled Document 18-16(4) following that and then, time permitting, I guess we could revisit what the wish of the committee is, but we’d like to start with those two, please. Thank you.

Not wanting to be pessimistic about the conclusion of all those kinds of activities that the Minister is referring to, I’ve lived in the Northwest Territories 35 years and the progress has been very, very slow. I don’t want to ascribe blame to the federal or territorial governments or to the claimant groups. I mean, the fact of the matter is that these lands are not available now and yet they could be used and the claimant groups could derive revenue, the person creating the agricultural activity on the land could generate revenue and we could produce crops and food closer to the people who...

Mr. Chairman, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a regrettable day in our Assembly that we need to be talking about a matter such as this.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier’s conduct I believe has put all Members of this Assembly in a very untenable situation. We’ve had to ask ourselves do something or do nothing, and that’s a question that I have had to ask myself many times during this process. Is this something that I can say and do nothing about?

I guess I have been in this Legislative Assembly for 14 years. I have devoted quite a large chunk of my working and adult life to this institution and it does bereave greatly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the beauty of that site, too, is the government already owns it. It is extremely prime real estate and the Government of Northwest Territories already owns that place. There is very little footprint from any buildings on that property already, so it seems like it would be fairly straightforward. Does the Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Speaker, have to get agreement from the current government departments that are occupying that site in order to move forward on that site? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, one of the alternate sites that was considered was an area that the Town of Hay River is currently working on developing. I believe it’s called the Sundog Subdivision. The problem with that is it’s not going to be ready for about another four years, and the other thing is that it’s definitely on the wrong side of the tracks. So if you had an ambulance coming in off the highway or something and there happened to be a train going by, of course the train would...You would have to wait. So that is the difficulty with that location.

It seems otherwise that the current ENR/ITI office is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to remind NWT residents of something they probably knew, but maybe from time to time need to be reminded of, and that has to do with coverage for medical travel.

Mr. Speaker, we have very good medical travel coverage for residents of the Northwest Territories. However, what people need to be reminded of is the only medical travel the GNWT pays for through your health insurance is travel that originates in the Northwest Territories. So, Mr. Speaker, when NWT residents travel, and I believe they travel very extensively and I believe...