Michael Miltenberger

His statement is the first awareness that I have, the first notice that I’ve had that the Hotel Association wants a tax imposed territory-wide. Unless I’ve missed it or I’ve forgotten it, I don’t recollect hearing this specifically before. He has raised this issue for the first time in the House. There was a different approach suggested by the Association of Communities. Once again, that alone, in terms of how it would be applied, is going to require some discussion. It’s not that we’re reluctant. There’s work being done. It has been done. We’ve indicated in this budget, in the House here a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not an issue of hesitation. It’s an issue of getting feedback, getting some initial direction and positive response through the revenue roundtables and then mapping out the way forward. In this case, it was recommended that the ability to have a hotel tax be delegated down to the community level. The Member is talking about something for the Hotel Association. This points to the need for doing the proper work to in fact decide upon what would be the right structure. I’ve indicated in this budget that there’s not going to be any tax increases, so that work would be...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to be as concise as possible

With regard to the water issue raised by all three Members that offer general comments, we are hard at work on the transboundary negotiations. We are engaged with Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and ourselves, as well as the federal government as we map out the rules of engagement and set up the negotiating processes that are going to be required. For the information of Member Hawkins, in fact the Alberta government is very willing and interested to come to the table. In fact, both the Alberta government and the Northwest...

Mr. Chairman, that is one of our goals coming out of our water strategies, to have the best information possible. Our challenge is to continue to work with this since this is still an area of shared jurisdiction and we will continue to be even after we take over authority, is to work with Environment Canada and DFO to make sure that we do coordinate that the system as efficiently and tightly as possible. The federal government, Environment Canada, is looking at, most immediately, in terms of putting in the proper monitoring that does not now exist for the oil sands development. At the same...

When there are requests we always make every effort to accommodate within the fiscal realities that are before us. Should there be a specific request from the City of Yellowknife, then we would give it fair and due consideration.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, we as a jurisdiction have been getting our thinking clear and our pieces and strategy in place to deal with water issues. There are a number of things that are happening. As I indicated earlier, we are now fully engaged in our transboundary processes with Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, laying out the negotiation process, the fact that we would like to have and we intend... we all want legally binding agreements that are going to speak to the broad areas of quality and quantity which, when you look at them in their individual detail, they are very complex issues tying in...

As the Member pointed out, the ENR staff was presenting the results of some of the studies that were being done in the mountains in his constituency. We have, through our research agenda, we’ve laid out this whole area as an area that requires study, and there are world-class experts like Dr. Pomeroy from the University of Saskatoon that have spent 30 years up here working and there’s enormous interest from the scientific community to find out what’s happening for all the reasons the Member has mentioned, as well as just some of the incredible releases of carbon and methane that may result...

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Member that every staff member in Environment and Natural Resources is working flat out on a whole host of issues, including this Greenhouse Gas Strategy, and the folks that are working on this strategy are fully applying themselves with their shoulder to the wheel, their nose to the grindstone and unremitting efforts to bring this process to a successful conclusion. I will commit that we will have a Greenhouse Gas Strategy at the end of the day that will hopefully meet the very high standard that the Member has set for himself and all the rest of us mere mortals...

As we proceed with the implementation of our Water Strategy, as we proceed with the work with the federal government about monitoring, and as we proceed with the discussions about taking over more authorities for land and water and resource development, those are the types of efforts we’re going to have to make. That we’re going to have to, as well, rely, and the Member talked about traditional knowledge, the people that are the users of the land and the water and the fish, and ENR will have a clear role to play, because have people on the ground in almost every community that can work with...