Robert Bouchard

Thank you, committee. We will resume. Committee has agreed to look at Bill 37, Financial Administration Act. I will ask the Minister responsible for the bill if he has introductions to make. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make a couple of quick comments. Obviously, this bill is very important to Hay River. Hay River is the anomaly in the process. Our employees are not GNWT employees and that became a big issue with this bill, and obviously I’d like to commend the Minister and his staff for getting us as much information there so that we give some comfort to those people, I guess. The question is still out there about how it’s going to look when it’s all said and done, but I think the department is committed to that process and committed to communicating with the staff at the...

Clauses 81 to 100.

---Clauses 81 through 100 inclusive approved

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just wondering if the Minister could look into some of the opportunities that we could get some feedback from the general public. Maybe have a third party do a polling of some of the communities where they are not going in for public consultation to get some feedback. You know, whether you support fracking, if you require more information on it, just to get an indication of where the general public sits on those two topics. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Committee, I will open the floor to general comments on Bill 44. Mr. Dolynny.

Clauses 41 to 60.

---Clauses 41 through 60 inclusive approved

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure the Minister has been briefed about the meeting. At that meeting the fishers asked for the subsidy. The department indicated the price is going to go up. The current fishers are asking for that price to be actually subsidized to that level right now so they can see how the industry will react to that type of price currently.

Is the Minister willing to commit to looking at that type of subsidy to increase the price for fishers on the Great Slave Lake? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister indicated he had a meeting previously with the federal Minister.

Can the Minister indicate to me when the next planned meeting or FPT on this type of situation would be coming up? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I guess we’re being handcuffed and pressured into just approving this $800,000 expenditure, because Cabinet has put it in a supplementary estimate that we have had limited time to review, have had limited time to have that discussion. I mean, we expressed our concerns last week, but with limited input and time to do anything about it. We’re talking about positions and we talked about positions and we talked about the budgets going up every year, and now we’re going to add another five positions to it. Never mind all the discussions I’ve talked about in this House about decentralization...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you are well aware, Hay River has a long history as being the NWT fishing industry capital. It’s exciting to hear that this government is investing $1.3 million through its Economic Opportunities Strategy to this industry.

Last week, along with members of the NWT Fisherman’s Federation, I was glad to hear a plan go forward on how we’re going to revitalize this industry and how we are going to implement a new fishing plant in the community of Hay River. This is a great renewable resource that we have in the Northwest Territories. We need to take full advantage of it...