Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I can't commit to meeting for the technical team. I can commit to working with the technical team or communicating with them that there is an interest to have some further discussion with them, and, if they come back with a positive, then we will let committee know. I do commit to working with the technical team and seeing what their availability is for further meetings with the Regular Members or others that may be interested. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, according to the NWT Nunavut Spills Working Agreement, all spills or potential spills must be reported in a timely fashion to the 24hour spill line. In the case of a ship that runs aground, Canada Coast Guard, as I said before, is the lead agency for response component on behalf of the Government of Canada, and Transport Canada is responsible for the management and governance of Canada's marine oil spills preparedness. ENR will be involved in communicating critical aspects of the incident, and we can provide assistance when Canada's agencies request it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The federal government has given an indication that any carbon pricing mechanism used, the money would actually stay in the jurisdiction where it is generated. So there could be opportunities there for some investment in infrastructure, and in our meetings with the federal minister we talked about the fact that we have 22 of our 33 communities on diesel. We need to get them off diesel. There are opportunities there for some federal investments through the green infrastructure and any other pots of money that we may be able to access to help us reduce our emissions. So we are looking at all...

We recognize that the proposed carbon pricing is going to have an effect on people across the Northwest Territories. Having said that, we are going to undertake our regional public engagements this fall to inform the development of both the new energy strategy, get some feedback from residents, and I believe it's starting on October 25th and 26th.

There will be a schedule that would be made public, if it's not already. Also we have an on-line survey on the Department of ENR's website to get some public feedback. But we are having five regional workshops, regional public engagements, and we will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize my wife, Judy, who's had to put up with me for 37 years so you all know that she's extremely strong. I would also like to recognize a constituent from Inuvik and my official agent, Mr. Denny Rodgers, and seated next to him is Jiri Raska, I think, with Inuvialuit Development Corporation or Regional Corporation. Welcome to the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m not sure what the consequences are, maybe there’s an empty seat here, I don’t know. I will have a conversation with my officials, I’m sure we’ve met the requirements to the Fiscal Responsibility Policy, because I’m sure if we hadn’t then we’d be called onto the carpet for that, but I will confirm that and I will have a conversation with my officials.

The public accounts, I believe, is a tabled document. If we are going to put together a plain language summary, then we would also make that as a tabled document, put it on our website and let people that are interested in a plainer version of the public account document to be able to access it, and hopefully we can understand it a bit better.

Mr. Speaker, we will work with the new council and mayor once they’re elected if that is a priority of the community to change their water source and then we will look at that. We’ve had a number of communities across the Northwest Territories take advantage of the water treatment plant program and we can work with the community if it’s a desire of theirs. Because I take the Member’s point and I think I’ve heard from the community as well that I think there is a distance to drive to get water to the community, so we’ll explore that option with the new mayor and council when they get sworn in...

Mr. Speaker, we are not interested in getting things back to the way they used to be because the way things used to be was they had a huge deficit in the community, and we are not interested in getting back into that situation. The adjustments that were made to the water rates in the community reflected the cost of doing business in the community. We had heard, when we had made the adjustment, that there was some concern with the elders’ rates, so we adjusted that. My understanding was the rates were adjusted again on April 1st. I think they may have even come down. But I will confirm that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise the Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend the address to Parliament by President Obama in Ottawa, Ontario. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.