Michael Miltenberger

As a matter of practice, I look seriously at every invitation that I get, especially ones that are put forward by Members of the Legislative Assembly, and I will, of course, give such an invitation, should it come from the Member, every full and due consideration that it deserves. Thank you.

The Member is correct. In fact, this hotel tax initiative did come before this House back in 2000 and was not successful in being approved by this House, the concern being driving up the cost of doing business and putting an extra burden on the tourism industry. In this particular case, the Member’s line of questioning versus what we heard at the roundtable in October points to, at the very least, a need for further discussion. The Association of Communities made the request and supported the request that it be delegated, at their request, to the communities. The Member’s talking about a...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s just the grants and contribution portion. I’ll ask Ms. Magrum to give us where the rest of it is.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for making this clear on the record. We are very sensitive to the concern about how we work with the animals, how we do it. I point out that traditional knowledge and western science in this case I believe have to be compatible and we want the best all-around knowledge that we can get. We’ll make note of the fact that the Member has raised concerns on behalf of his constituents. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the land use framework is a critical initiative of the Government of the Northwest Territories. It is critical as we look going forward with the agreement-in-principle. It is a frame within which would fit things like the Water Strategy and a lot of our individual land use plans and our approaches of government to doing that. That particular initiative is driven and managed out of the Executive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intent is to have an inspection and folks go in, in the next few weeks to sit down with the community to see what options are available. The current arrangement is having its trials and tribulations and we want to make sure that we have a suitable location. We also have a full sea can that is almost full that is going to be hauled out over the winter road. So we appreciate the Member raising this issue with us and we hopefully will have it resolved in the next few weeks. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that strikes me as what I would call a hypothetical question of the highest category. Can I anticipate when we would not ask for security or some type of bond I believe the Member has asked? I am here to say it would be very expected of me to say whether I could or not. I would anticipate that we are going to be making sure for every development that we protect the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories. We have all the protections that the system allows us to do that. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, The Government of the Northwest Territories has a Traditional Knowledge Policy that applies across the government. It is reflected very clearly as well as in our GNWT’s research agenda. As we look at the areas of study that we think are important areas of research that are important, there is clear recognition of the role for traditional knowledge working in conjunction with and in collaboration is alongside of the western science. This traditional knowledge across government is reflected in course education in a lot of our curriculum development. It is reflected in some of the...

We deliberately called the Water Strategy Northern Voices for Northern Waters because we know it’s of interest and of great concern to all Northerners. We know that there’s a strong natural alliance with the territorial government and the Aboriginal governments as we work collectively together to protect our interests and ensure that we have these agreements, these legally binding transboundary agreements.

The Mackenzie River Basin Act has given us a vehicle to move forward on that. All the other jurisdictions have indicated willingness. We intend to continue on a going forward basis the strong...

Mr. Chairman, as we negotiate the devolution agreement, there is going to be an identification of sites and there is going to be milestone times. There are going to be ones that we will be responsible for. There are going to be older ones existing, ones on Crown land that the federal government will continue to have responsibility for. There will be a going forward date from which time that once the agreement is signed that we will be responsible for new ones. Thank you.