Kevin A. Menicoche

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition dealing with the matter of regional position reductions in the sports, recreation and youth area. The petition contains 37 signatures of young people from the Deh Cho region. The petitioners request that the Members of the Legislative Assembly reconsider proposed regional positions and reduction to the sports, recreation and youth area.

The NWT has an Environmental Protection Act. Under this act, we also have a consolidation of spill contingency planning and reporting regulations. Anyone who stores more than 20,000 litres of contaminants above ground needs to file a spill contingency plan with the department. Can the Minister confirm that Northland Utilities had filed a spill contingency plan for the Trout Lake power station operation that accounts sufficiently for the circumstances and remoteness of that community? Mahsi.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in my Member’s statement, I talked about the diesel fuel spill in Trout Lake. In my opinion, this contamination was avoidable. Northland Utilities knew that the tank was sitting on unstable ground. Why was there no berm in place and why wasn’t a flexible feeding pipe used from the beginning? The community of Trout Lake is most concerned about avoiding anything similar happening again.

My question to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources concerns the planning and preparedness of such emergency situations, where the goal is to prevent situations like...

Mr. Speaker, the Deh Cho Drum took the recent contamination of the Trout Lake oil spill so seriously that they called it the Exxon Valdez of Trout Lake.

Trout Lake is a small, fly-in-only community in the Nahendeh riding. People take pride in their traditions, their pristine surroundings and still live off the land. They use the lake for drinking water and to fish and to provide sustenance. They have protected their environment for a long time and are proud for the food it provides to them.

At this time people in my constituency are still very concerned about what was allowed to happen: 9,500...

I’d like to thank Members of committee for reading the report.

In conclusion, the Standing Committee on Government Operations encourages the commissioner to make the promotion of her role and office her priority and to exercise her power to make full use of her mandate in accordance with the Official Languages Act to ensure the GNWT complies with the spirit and intent of the act.

Committee recommendation: The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends the GNWT table a comprehensive response to this report within 120 days.

That concludes the report of the Standing Committee on...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 93(4) and that Committee Report 2-16(2) be received by the Assembly and moved into Committee of the Whole today.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that the Report on the Review of the Report of the Auditor General of Canada on the NWT Housing Corporation Public Housing and Homeownership Programs be deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety.

Once again if the Minister can let me know, and let the House know: how soon will they begin this work, and when can they implement such a system?

I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation some questions, most particularly on the appeal system. Also, I would just like to thank him for coming to the Nahendeh riding. We did visit a few communities there, and we look forward to a return visit.

The continued concern that I get on a daily basis when I travel in my communities is basically appealing decisions by the housing corporation board. They are wanting to follow up on issues. I’m finding that an appeals system — and it’s something that I’ve been pursuing for some time now — if it were in place, would...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to honour the passing of an elder: Madeline Villeneuve from Fort Simpson. Madeline — best known as Madeleine, as she had been called all her life — was the oldest member of our community. She was 101 years old by church records. However, other elders and community members maintain she was far older than that. She was definitely the oldest one in our community and our region. She had lived a long and formidable life: from bows and arrows through to the moon landing, as it was said in her eulogy. This is significant, Mr. Speaker, because I read recently that the...