Michael Miltenberger

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, 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.

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.

As I indicated, we provide a support role in this particular area and we work with our community staff, our regional staff, the biologists. We provide a great many services in kind, boats and vehicles to assist. We guide them and assist them where necessary, but there’s no, once again, sort of budget item in our budget that speaks to veterinary services. Although I do take note of the Member’s concern that we at least maintain that type of collaborative approach, which we intend to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we initiated and charted off with the Water Strategy, we had extensive contract assistance. It was a very highly specialized area. We had all very, very limited water expertise in the department. Over the last year there’s been a diminishment in the contract levels, especially as it pertains to water. We’ve now had the benefit of getting some resources to set up our own land and water unit. We’ve been able to hire people of the calibre of Dr. Kelly. We still rely on specialized services periodically.

On the forestry side, of course, we make extensive use of contracts...

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Member’s comments and his request and his intent to make us aware of this. As the deputy indicated, there are going to be meetings in the Sahtu communities before the end of this fiscal year. Within the next five weeks, there is going to be work done and the intent is, like we are doing across the North, to come up with the regional plans and community plans and then we can start the planning process and identify the resources that we are going to need to try to move forward on as many of these initiatives as possible. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we as a government intend to come forward with a Greenhouse Gas Strategy that will address all of these critical areas and it may, in fact, become the position of the government, if not this government maybe the 17th Assembly, that we are going to look at building standards that are applied across the Territory for all construction and all levels of government.

At this point, we have the system that we just talked about. The work is underway to see where the improvements are necessary in terms of regulation and governance, and before this strategy is finalized, it will be up to...