Robert C. McLeod

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member said his comments were in line with the previous speaker's, and I take his comments and we're here to listen to all the comments. Of course, our goal at the end of the day is to make an investment into the Northwest Territories so we can put people to work and improve the services and access to services, reduce the cost of living. Everything the Member spoke of, this government is committed to doing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't think that it's true that the government is siding with the mining companies, and as far as restoring public confidence, as I said before, there was a bit of confusion and we will take steps to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and we will have a clear set of rules that everyone is going to need to follow, and I believe Ottawa will come to the conclusion that we are quite capable of managing our resources. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we can work closely with the other departments. We recognize that there's some areas around the NWT that are being conserved or that people wish to have conserved, so we're working closely with the other departments. One of the first things as Minister of ENR I've asked our officials to work a lot closer with the other departments so that we're all on the same page because this is a very important issue to residents in the Northwest Territories, so we'll continue to do that work, and then through the committee of Cabinet on the economy and environment we also have those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this individual and this government believes very strongly in the traditional value of the people of the Northwest Territories, especially those in the communities that still practice their traditional hunting. Through ENR and through some of the other departments there are a number of programs and I think there's even some resources put to those programs to assist those communities. Take a Kid Trapping is a perfect example, I think that's run out of multiple departments, there's some money there. There is the Grub Stake Program; I think that's provided...

No, I can't provide any preliminary estimates or thoughts on that, but I have committed to the Member that I will have a review of this and then we'll share the findings with the Members.

That was very beautiful, and the Member likes to throw this kind of stuff out there, but he knows as well as I do, and anybody that's been a part of this Assembly for a while knows that we work in partnership with Ottawa. We try to put ourselves in the position where we're partners with them and not just take handouts from Ottawa. No, they don't dictate to us what projects we put on the ground, but we work with them. That's good leadership, good government. We work with them as an Assembly, and when I say Assembly, I mean all 19 of us because a lot of the decisions we make here through our...

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have to make a correction. I said "during this Assembly." I actually meant during this sitting of the 18th Legislative Assembly, so we will ensure we have that tabled. The Member's second question there, I will commit to having a review of this. The Member is correct, solecourse contract limits raising, I think it would be an ideal time for us to have a look at how we provide oversight to these contracts, so I will commit to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As Members are aware, we have a very extensive mandate that requires a lot of investment. To meet that goal, we had looked at $150 million. I did speak during the O and M budget session four months ago that it was going to be some short term pain for a longer term gain, and I did commit that the exercise would be over two years, even though there might be a residual effect in years three and four. But could we meet? We would need to have further investment, and we work very closely with our counterparts in Ottawa to try to get further investments. The better position we are in financially, we...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today for a personal matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said before, I recognize that the $150 million was removed from our mandate, but our fiscal responsibility still stands. As to what the savings might be used for, we still have to make that decision as an Assembly. We go through our Capital Plan and our Business Plan, we will have our discussions with committee as to where we can make those future investments through the budget planning process for both capital and O and M.