Michael Miltenberger

We see this as a territory-wide issue, and once again, tomorrow as I present the budget, in the budget we articulate what our thinking is and our intent to involve Northerners across the board, and of course, in this House we’ll commit to full engagement of the committees and the Members opposite as we look at ways to address this issue in a constructive way.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of areas that have been a source of persistent concern in regard to the issue that the Member raises. Things like the fly-in/fly-out population, things like our own vacancy rate, things like the amount of students that we pay to go to school, as the Member indicated in her opening comments, that we don’t recruit back here. We need to do a better job. We’ve put in place an immigrant Nominee Program, as well, that we believe needs to be improved and beefed up so that it can, in fact, help address some of the many jobs across government, not only across...

No, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a triggering event out on the line caused by some of the heavy icing events that occurred prior to the cold snap, causing one of the cross members to collapse. It had a line on it which triggered a series of cascading events. We were not alone in the country as we experienced all of these significant severe weather events. Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and on a comparative basis when you look at the three hours it took here to get things back and running compared to the, in many cases, weeks that it took in other jurisdictions, while it was unfortunate and...

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as a government we have invested a significant amount of resources to start addressing this issue and we will continue to provide that support. I’ve made a commitment to the Member and I will honour that commitment. We will share that information and we will have a further more informed discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been involved, as a government, with Norman Wells now for a number of years as we have worked towards this reality that is coming with natural gas. We have built into the budgets of Arctic Energy Alliance and Environment and Natural Resources a number of fairly significant rebate programs, assistance programs for conversions and those types of things that are there to assist in these circumstances. I will also go back to the Department of ENR, based on the Member’s concern, and ask and check to see what type of concerns and discussions we’ve had specifically of...

The Premier has given me the responsibility of being the chair of the Economic and Employment Development Committee of Cabinet, and this issue falls under the mandate of that committee, so I will be chairing that committee, and the deputy minister of Finance will be chairing the committee of deputies. If the Member would be patient for one day, in the budget address I would provide greater clarity as to the intent, how to proceed on this particular issue.

Thank you. The NTPC takes its responsibility as it does very, very seriously about keeping the power on. There was an enormous amount of effort and time put into place to make sure that the power was put on in what I see on a comparative basis a very timely way. The issue of acts of God versus man are a debate we can have separate from this issue and we are learning from this exercise, as well, this unfortunate incident, in terms of adding improvements and more investments into the system. We’re going to continue to provide a high quality of service. Thank you.

Thank you. I would suggest that when the power goes out in the wintertime, while the temperature is a variable, when you have no power in some cases for weeks, it is a crisis event. Up in the Northwest Territories, here in Yellowknife and Behchoko, we had the power on in a range of three hours, and we have watched with interest as the Member has solicited his feedback and input from the public about costs. We have some direct contact with folks that have raised concerns, but we did find the letter by the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce that was sent to all MLAs, including the...