Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Going back to my Member’s statement today on the pipeline, I have a couple of questions for Mr. Handley. I read, with interest, some of the comments he made in the paper about some of the demands being excessive. Does he believe that this could possibly kill the project? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, I will point out that it was a public presentation, and we would certainly encourage the NWTAC to provide people to attend those meetings in person. We will voice the concerns that are being related to us for sure. However, having said that, it’s still our position, and I think it should be expected as standard practice on our part, that we will be presenting our information to the NWTAC. We have committed to doing that with them and have been doing that for the past several years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure what kind of equipment we can put in the community of Colville Lake at this point. Maybe we can sit down and talk to the Member. As the Member has pointed out, you can't put a fire truck in there because there are no roads and there is no water plant at this point. So it's something that we have to be very creative about. There are mobile water pumps right now; there are dry chemical provisions; but it's very difficult until we have the infrastructure in place to house a fire hall, a fire truck and the roads that they can travel on and the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the services that qualify under this change are unpaid charges that provide a service. Anything that is considered to be an offence or anything that would go through a court system or quasi-judicial system would not qualify. That may be a simpler way of defining it. It’s a service provided by the municipal taxation authority, and if the service is provided by the City for an ambulance service, then that would qualify. A parking ticket would not qualify because there is a separate process for that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our responsibility for fire prevention flows from the Fire Prevention Act. Our department has many duties and responsibilities in that area, from investigations to inspections to building reviews; it is also involved in training, and we also provide capital for equipment. Colville has been a community that has wanted to live a traditional lifestyle. We've had the fire marshal going in two and sometimes three times a year to work with the community over the last while. The community has recently passed a BCR to create a fire department. As of yet...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there is a 30-day requirement that notice would have to be given and a two-year statute of limitations after the 30 days to start action. Failing that, they would have to demonstrate to the court that there are reasonable grounds to explain why they couldn’t provide the 30-day notice. The 30-day notice is there so that the municipality has opportunity, in the case of somebody who slipped and fell, to see what the conditions were, to be able to check out why and how it could actually happen. If it were any longer than that, it would be very difficult. It...

We should lock all the parties in the same room until they can reach an agreement that will work for everyone.

I do not believe this project is doomed, contrary to what some people think; however, we have lived without this pipeline for years and we'll survive without it, but with so much at stake, we have to think of our children and grandchildren and we must help pave the way for their future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to point out that it should be clear that the ability to transfer unpaid charges to property taxes only applies to municipal taxation authorities, which are tax-based communities. That’s something that was in place historically from the 1970s. This is not new. This was by mistake left out when the drafting of the legislation was brought into place during the 14th Assembly. We are trying to rectify that. The communities have asked us to do so. There is the ability for municipal taxation authorities to create a body that will deal with disputes or appeals. That...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we've been hearing talk of the pipeline for a long time and, as one of my colleagues asked this morning, what pipeline? It's time to quit talking, Mr. Speaker, and time to get working. Most people in the NWT stand to benefit from the construction of the pipeline, but now it seems that the project is running into one delay after another while everyone tries to think of what they can ask for next. The problem is, Mr. Speaker, that there are many excessive demands from all parties, and this is preventing the project from moving ahead and we may never see a...

Mr. Chairman, it would be our expectation that the community or municipal government would give some form of notice to individuals who had arrears that they were in a position to be having their charges transferred to a property tax. However, having said that, there is no real formal notice requirement in this legislation that requires the municipal government to provide that in writing. It really would be what the communities decide to set up in terms of process. There is no other outside appeal mechanism aside from the municipal government.