Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to this particular issue referred to by the Member, due process was followed and the Gwich’in exercised their rights and declined to exercise their right of first refusal. But it has pointed out some other issues and, as the Member indicated, we have an outdated piece of legislation -- the Wildlife Act -- that needs to be remedied, which we are doing, and we intend to have a new Wildlife Act before this House, hopefully passed in the life of this Assembly.

We also recognize the circumstance between the Gwich’in and the Sahtu. There’s an overlap issue in that...

Mr. Chairman, these projects, from what I understand, are going to carry us over the two-year time frame of this program to get them in the ground and up and running. Thank you.

As far as I’m aware, that is the practice. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

We estimate a savings of 232 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year and an eight-year payback. Thank you.

Yes, I will, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Looking back over the years it would seem that our bigger challenge is the tendency, especially on capital projects, to underestimate and it’s something that we’ve worked very hard to come up with a process to be more accurate. This particular trip is unique, one of a kind.

A couple of years ago I was in Italy and I remember paying $10 for a cup of cocoa. So when I looked at the per diems, I thought for the amount of time we’re all going to be there it may not be a lot and I know our hotel rooms, for example, are to us very expensive but the norm, probably, in Europe...

Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the Financial Management Board.

My first commitment would be to work and talk to the Member to get a bit more information. The contaminated site area in Fort Smith was done to help remediate a very specific major spill. If there are issues in the community that would justify that kind of investment, what the Member has in mind in terms of a plan going forward, those are all the types of things that we need to talk about first and then we can involve the appropriate staff, instead of a meeting with myself and a deputy, to further discuss this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a meeting of global proportions to do with one of the most pressing issues of our time, which is global warming, climate change. There’s going to be a whole host of critical meetings from the heads of states for the countries to meetings that will involve the Premier, meetings that will involve myself and the MLAs that are going to be attending. There’s going to be an opportunity to have meetings with all the circumpolar countries to talk about issues related to climate change in the circumpolar world. There’s going to be an opportunity for us to make the case...