Michael McLeod

I want to recognize a couple of people. First of all, Blake Lyons, former president of the NWT Association of Communities, and also a guy I went to college with: Norman Snowshoe, with whom I spent many long nights… studying.

Laughter.

Mr. Speaker, I fully recognize that there have been emergency situations and that fuel is of short supply. Incidents happen across the world. We have not yet encountered that in the Northwest Territories. We’ve had situations where some fuel suppliers were not able to get the supply that they required. They were able to work around it. We provided support and will continue to do that.

We recently met with some of the people that deliver the fuel and talked about looking at new methods and new sources and trying to rectify the situation that happened last year. We are not in a position right now...

Mr. Speaker, I don't know how he got a no out of what I thought was a yes.

All our communities have an adequate supply. We have the ability to make alternate arrangements if there is a situation where there is a need. We've not encountered that. We have new sources of supply that don't lock us into one source. We're flexible, and our fuel provider has indicated to us that there are a number of different areas where they can get the fuel from, so it's not an issue.

An emergency fuel supply at this point I don't think is something we need to do. We have adequate facilities in each community that...

He has now decided to enter the political arena and is running for the presidency of the Gwich’in Tribal Council. I’d like to welcome him here and also wish him the best of luck.

I am pleased to rise today and extend my very best wishes to the 350 athletes, coaches and managers who will make up Team NWT at the 2008 Arctic Winter Games being held here in Yellowknife from March 9 to 15.

For nearly a year now young people from across the Northwest Territories have been preparing themselves physically and mentally for this opportunity. They have been challenged along the way through regional and Territorial selections in order to achieve their goal of representing the Northwest Territories at this prestigious international celebration of sport and culture.

I congratulate all...

I’ve already committed to meeting with one of the communities in the Member’s riding. It wouldn’t take a whole lot more effort to meet with the Member in the other community he represents, Fort Resolution. We’d be glad to talk about budgeting and being able to redirect financing and things of that nature with the communities, along with the Member.

Mr. Speaker, I think we’re starting to see some of that already. Today the federal government announced that they’d like to move forward with the Kakisa Bridge, something that’s in our interim appropriation, so we’re quite excited about that. I’m already getting the sense that we’re campaigning for projects in the different ridings.

Mr. Speaker, we fully expect to have and be able to have some discussion with my cabinet colleagues and also the Regular Members. Sometime in mid-March for sure, if we’re going to do anything this year, we’ll have to have them approve it in the main. That will be...

Mr. Speaker, we have a two-phase process that’s identified for the initiatives under the Building Canada plan. The first phase was signed off today, and that includes the amount of money we’d be receiving through this fund and also a commitment for ongoing investment in the gas tax program. The next step will be to sign off on the financial agreement, and we expect that to start taking place. We have identified the areas that the investments will be required in, and those are the areas of transportation and municipal governments or communities.

On the municipal side we’ve started the discussion...

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have to correct the Member: we were the ones pitching the concept of bundling the project. We had serious problems attracting people to bid on these projects when they were put out on individual tenders. The costs that did come in on some of these other projects that are a concern to us were very high. We went to the communities. We sought out a company to give us a feasibility study on this concept, and we presented it to cabinet and decided to go on an open call for, first of all, a request for qualifications. We had five companies respond. We went to the next...

That is correct. In the case of an RFP, if the RFP process allows for further discussion and negotiation to the highest-rated company, that can be done.