Robert Villeneuve

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the fact that this government doesn’t want to negotiate all the dollars away. The point I want to make is that when the federal and territorial governments are negotiating resource revenue sharing and the aboriginal governments want their direct fiscal benefits coming from the federal level right to the aboriginal government in their respective regions, why is that an issue with this government if they want to help their aboriginal people who have been deprived of education, health, housing and help those aboriginal governments, bring those people up...

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. A good point you raised on the Dene K’onia future. My questions here today are to our Premier with respect to devolution negotiations that are going on and the current resource revenue sharing negotiations that are going on with the federal government alongside with the Aboriginal Summit in tow. One of the big barriers to the negotiation process, I guess, seems to be hindered by the lack of recognition by this government to legitimately or formally recognize the aboriginal governments in the NWT as legitimate public developing governments and new public governments as...

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I thank the Minister for making that commitment to the community that, yes, they are going to look at the option of definitely moving them out of the community. I know that the community has some grave concerns with regard to the water quality and the bringing in of some mice from down south that are suddenly coming in with all the hay and the food that they are using to feed the bison, and some health concerns related to that. Also, just with respect to the health of the herd itself, the confines that they are in are pretty small in comparison to where the...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, the Minister has made my office aware that June 20th is the big day that these tests are supposed to come back and are going to determine the fate of the Hook Lake bison recovery project. Either way I am trying to let the community know that either way the bison are going to go, come positive or negative results from the lab. So I just want to make sure that the department is actually prepared to move should the tests come back negative for tuberculosis or whatever bison diseases they are looking for, and would the department be in there within a timely manner...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I can understand the Premier’s point that the resource revenue is going to go to the government that delivers the service. But if the service that they’re delivering is not meeting the needs of these communities and these regions that are going to be operating under their own self-government, why is it an issue for this government to say well, yes, we’re delivering the base issues of every service, we deliver that, but it just doesn’t meet the community needs? That’s what we’ve been told here for the last few months by all the communities in all the outlying...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Premier, for that reply. I’ll just rephrase that question. I guess the point I was trying to make is the territorial government just doesn’t seem to be too enthusiastic about the whole devolution process as far as aboriginal governments that are going to be coming on stream here in the next 10 years. It seems like the bureaucracy of the GNWT is really digging their heels in when it comes to passing down or devolving a little bit of authority down to the community level, and to the regional level, and to the future aboriginal governments that are...

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, at my last constituency meeting in my Tu Nedhe community of Deninu Kue earlier this month, I’m glad to say the meeting went really well and that the 25 to 30 people who attended the constituency meeting raised a lot of concerns. Many of these concerns are ongoing issues related to government programs and delivery of those programs.

Madam Speaker, the majority of concerns raised by my constituents are related to housing and Municipal and Community Affairs and, more specifically, on issues of fairness and responsiveness. The issue of fairness and the delivery...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I understand the Minister’s point of view that all communities are going to be affected to some degree with pipeline construction. I guess all I’m really concerned about is the fact that a lot of these communities don’t have housing markets, they don’t have a lot of infrastructure, they don’t have a lot of the amenities that a lot of these other 11 communities probably have, like Hay River and Fort Smith and a couple of these larger centres.

With that being said, you know, I just don’t know how we can say who’s going to be really impacted and who isn’t going to...

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, today I’d like to speak about some of the recent negative developments that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board has been experiencing over the past couple of months. The federal government, as we are all aware, Madam Speaker, made a chair appointment without the consent of northerners and this government. Last April, the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board raised the issue of conflict of interest of the chair and in rebuttal the chair suspended the board operations, which could and has resulted in serious repercussions to mineral explorations in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of concerns with Minister’s Statement 5-15(4) by the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs with respect to the $1.3 million that is going to be provided to the NWT for the assessment of the impacts of the proposed Mackenzie gas project. I guess just looking at the numbers and seeing that the 21 communities that are going to be affected will be directly affected or more affected, I should say, with pipeline development which equates to around $50,000 for each one of those communities. With probably more funding available through some of the...