Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The transboundary water agreement with Alberta definitely looked at quantity issues. We are blessed with significant flows into the Northwest Territories and on through into the Mackenzie and into the Arctic Ocean.

The amount of water coming in the Slave River has been negotiated at about 1.9 percent of the water is available for extraction between Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The other basically 98 percent stays in the river to feed the river and aquatic ecosystems and the Mackenzie Basin to make sure it stays healthy. It gives you a sense of the volume of the...

Yes, Madam Chair, that is correct.

One of the biggest needs was assessed to be the need for better coordination and resources, some resources at the executive level, the headquarters level to help coordinate better and more effectively the current system as well as all the programs and services that we have taken on since post-devolution. There are folks in the regions as well. But the overall need is for government to do a better overall job of coordinating and managing the communication requirements, and we are in, fundamentally, the communicating business. Thank you.

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 58, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2015-2016, be read for the first time.

I appreciate the Member’s comments and fervour, and I want to reassure him on the communications side we’re not swimming in positions, and that’s one of the issues. One of the decisions that has to be made today by this Assembly is what trumps what in terms of as a government do we invest in the money to improve our services and systems or because there are process concerns separate from the validity of the request that would cause us to defer this for, potentially, at least a year or so. Thank you.

We already have the practice of entertaining power purchase agreements and buying power from folks who are generating it. For example, the people of Lutselk’e.

Mr. Chairman, as we have discussed and we have been taken to task for, the population is flat or declining. Everybody in the Northwest Territories who has skills, qualifications, that is available to work, for the most part is working. We have a very high employment rate in that area.

We know that there are job requirements in the North that aren’t being filled. We are investing money, as well, to do a better job to make sure that northern students are given every opportunity to return home with employment with the government or anywhere else that employment may be available. We’re making...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, I will move that Bill 65, An Act to Amend the Safety Act, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in terms of the timelines, it did come out in December. The budget for the fiscal year is closed off at the end of November. There was a significant amount of work that took place within the government, as Mr. Bromley pointed out, when there was an initial ask, potentially a recommendation of many dozens of positions. It required a lot of internal review and adjustment to come up with what we have come up with. We missed that window, and once the budget is set in the process for review, it’s very difficult after the fact to try to add things. By the time this was...

Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to be the bearer of bad weather reports, but as Mother Nature may have it, and based on the reports from our meteorologist, we will once again experience drought over the summer of 2015.

The prediction for this fire season is for another year of hot, dry weather. The downturn in weather for the next two days is unlikely to make much difference. It will be getting warmer and drier in all regions starting on Wednesday.

This is the first time since 1998 that an El Nino winter is followed by an El Nino summer. In general, El Nino is known to produce warmer and drier...