Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is not only Valentine’s Day, as evidenced by my colleague Mr. Dolynny, but it is also the 15th anniversary of V-Day.

V-Day is an organized response against violence towards women. Today is also the launch of a new campaign, the One Billion Rising Campaign. One Billion Rising invites one billion people, representing the number of women on the planet who have been raped or beaten, to walk out of their jobs, schools, homes, and dance. I won’t be dancing today, but maybe next year we’ll all be dancing.

The One Billion Rising Campaign can be a catalyst. It can unify and...

My brain automatically said, so why not all communities? But I totally understand why we’re not doing them all.

I guess my next question would be, in relation to the plans, if the assessments have been done, presumably the department is assisting communities to develop a plan to reduce risk if there is any. Are plans being implemented in the communities where these wildfire risk assessments have been done?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m sorry if I missed the question earlier. If you’ve already covered that, my apologies.

My next question would be, there is some interest, I believe, in the Sahtu of potentially developing a wood pellet industry there. If the inventory hasn’t been completed in an area where somebody wants to develop a pellet industry, is that something that the department has the resources to do within a short period of time, to try and encourage a business to get established? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to thank Mr. Bromley and Mr. Yakeleya, the mover and the seconder of the motion, for bringing this motion forward for a second time.

We had great debate at committee about this last fall, and we have had debate about it, not quite so much debate in the last week or so. Members have received evidence of considerable public support for this motion since the motion was given notice of on Tuesday.

I rise in support of this motion again, as I did in the fall. I support the motion because I am still – my views have not changed – gravely concerned with the...

I thank the Minister for the explanation, and I guess I would encourage Members who feel they have a community that wants a child and family service committee to get in touch with their community leadership and have them, with the Member perhaps, get in touch with the Minister, because I know there are at least one or two communities where I have heard that Members want to get a child and family service committee started.

A lot of the recommendations that are in the report require money, and that was accepted in the 16th Assembly by the committee, that there was a need to put money into budgets...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to ask the Minister a few questions in and around the Child and Family Services Act review that was done by the Standing Committee on Social Programs in the 16th Assembly. It was a great deal of work. The Minister is well aware because he was chair of the committee at the time that we did that work.

This is the report that was tabled in the House. It has many recommendations, 73 to be exact. It was tabled on October of 2010. I have to say that I feel, at this point, that we haven’t...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to say that I agree with this motion and I agree with my colleague who’s spoken already. I have been struggling with the energy initiatives as presented to us for the ‘13-14 budget. They do not make a serious inroad into reducing our energy costs. There are a number of them, but some of them, I think, are minimal enough that we can put the money into a better project and I think this is one such project.

The Arctic Energy Alliance, in their proposal, which I think Mr. Bromley mentioned, estimates that there’s about 1,000 electric hot water heaters in thermal...

Thanks to the Minister for that; it gives me some comfort. I have read some articles over the last year or so that reference oil companies not wanting to disclose the elements, the contents of the fluid that they’re using. In terms of the guidelines that the Minister is referencing, two things: Will they be public so that people can see what it is we’re considering and provide some input into it? Secondly, will the guidelines reference the contents of the fracturing fluid and minimize the cost to our environment? I gather some fluids are really toxic. Thank you.

To the Minister, if there are sites following devolution that have not been catalogued, what’s the recourse for us as a government? If it’s a site that was on federal land when it was developed and it’s been left behind and remediation is required, do we have any recourse with the federal government for funding or do we have to eat that ourselves? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I think I heard the Minister say that they’re going to look at things, but I guess my last question to him would be: Recognizing that there’s a need for more public housing in Yellowknife, what plans does the Housing Corporation have to try and increase the number of units in the public housing inventory here in the city? Thank you.