Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to thank the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for the invitation to the GNWT-Government of Nunavut research and management meeting on barren-ground caribou that was held this past Saturday. There were many Indigenous government leaders at the meeting, including the Tlicho chiefs, Lutselk'e Dene First Nation chief, Yellowknives Dene First Nation chiefs, North Slave Metis Alliance representatives, and also leaders from Nunavut, including Premier Joe Savikataaq, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated Vice President James Eatoolook, and others. There...

Thanks, Madam Chair. While we are on the subject of straight goods, I had suggested that I think the impediments to resource exploration and development is lack of certainty around land. That means completing the land rights agreements and implementing them to create greater certainty. That is not featured in here. I know we are going to get to a different priority that deals with that issue. What it comes down to is changing the kind of messaging that is coming out of our government and countering some of the messaging that is coming from particularly the mining industry, which is scaring...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I am glad to hear that Yellowknife is not going to be completely ignored, because it is the gateway, even to get people into the smaller communities. As part of the packaging, the Premier talked about, take people for a trip out to Thaidene Nene. If it can be a winter location there, it would be a great little trip outside of Yellowknife.

We do have needs here. We don't have a proper visitors' centre. I had to drag the last ITI Minister through the basement of City Hall to see what's left here. That's not a proper visitor service centre for a capital city that can serve as...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes, I have been asking for this plan for a number of years. I asked for it in the last Assembly. I will be asking again for it. Where is the plan to have distribution systems in all of our communities for the fibre link, whether it's the ones that are already passed by now or Tuktoyaktuk if we are going to build it to Tuktoyaktuk? That is a heads-up notice. I will keep asking about this. Look, I want this built to Tuktoyaktuk, but I don't want the community to be stranded at the end of the day.

I have questions about the next one, about modernizing NWT airport...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm not going back to the "big toys for big boys." I'm going to go on to the broadband part of the table. I see that one of the items here is to complete the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk fibre line. That's great, but what about linking the communities that the fibre link line already passes by to it, and providing distributions systems in communities that it already goes by? Why is that not part of the work that should be done here? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. This is not the first time I have raised this issue. I've continually raised this issue, whether it was during the development of the priorities, and in the previous Assembly as well, that if you want to have evidence-based decision-making -- that's what this Premier always says that she's about, and she's shaking her head "yes" -- you need to know whether you're getting value for money. Even with the Minister of Finance today, a big part of her speech was about value for money. I want to make sure that, if we're going to make investments in these big infrastructure...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I concur with everything that my colleague from Yellowknife Centre has said, because I was in the last Assembly, and I disagreed with this priority when we were talking about it. I made no bones whatsoever about that, and I continue to think that it's very misleading to the public to say that we are going to continue to work on these three. We cannot afford them all at the same time.

The Premier and Minister said that we don't have any cost figures for these. After the Minister of Finance said in a supplementary appropriation, when I was asking what the cost of Slave...

I want to thank the Minister for that. I hope it's the Minister who makes the final decision and not the department. There was a lot of frustration at the meeting, particularly from the Dene communities that have shouldered the burden of actions to try to help with recovery of the Bathurst and Bluenose East caribou herds. They haven't been able to harvest those herds for a number of years now.

While I generally agree with the need for predator controls, virtually nothing has been done to protect habitat and slow down resource development. What is the Minister doing to protect habitat to ensure...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to once again thank the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for the opportunity to observe the GNWT-Nunavut caribou meeting on the weekend. Can the Minister tell us whether there will be further meetings that include more harvesters, elders, interpreters, and presentations from communities and Nunavut organizations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just a couple of points. What I see here is basically a cut and paste from the energy strategy of things that the previous Assembly had already signed onto. A lot of these projects, at least in the first one, are going to happen in the first couple of years. I am not sure that this is really going to advance us. What we need is an overall plan to get our communities off diesel, and I don't see that here. Is that something that is going to be developed? Thanks, Madam Chair.