Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Item 8, written questions.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a comment here. I’d like to thank the department and commend the department and their staff for the work that was done on the city of Yellowknife by-pass road. It’s a huge improvement in terms of city safety. We have another access to get in and out of the city. I just would like to express my appreciation for the fact that this is basically completed. Thanks for the work.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked the Minister what the plan was that exists. I don’t think I have heard an answer to that. But I appreciate the offer, which I think I heard in that answer and the previous one, of looking at the process. I really think that is something we absolutely have to do. It is not fair right now. There is not an opportunity to assist communities in achieving their end goals; not the government’s goals, the communities’ goals. As this government revises the Greenhouse Gas Strategy, would this idea of an NWT green fund be able to be considered under the revision of that...

Okay. Thanks to the Minister for that. I’d like to know whether or not this government has a policy relative to recreational facilities which are on Commissioner’s land for which there are leases. Do we have a special policy or just a policy in regard to recreational leases?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions relative to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. I’d, first of all, like to talk about greenhouse gas emission targets. I know that the business plan talks about that we want to be 10 percent below 2001 levels by 2011. That target is fairly modest I guess I would say. I’d like to know from the Minister if there has been any consideration or if there’s going to be any consideration in this next fiscal year to increase the intensity of that reduction. Will we be able to set more stringent targets, I guess, for ourselves? Has that been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the offer from both Ministers to have a briefing. I think it is something that absolutely is necessary. It will certainly forestall the lack of feeling that we are being left out over here on this side of the House.

I wonder if I could ask the Minister how the response was filed without any input from Regular Members. What was the rationale for that? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little nonplussed, I guess, by the Minister’s response that he would choose to ignore the request of a standing committee. I want to quote from the letter that was sent to the Hon. Robert R. McLeod sometime in January. The date is not evident here, but from the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, and the chair said, “committee members are very interested in the recommendations made in the JRP report on the Mackenzie Gas Project and want both the opportunity to provide input in the development of a response and an opportunity to review the response before it...

So let’s try that novel idea, Mr. Speaker, the idea of working together with respect and consideration for others. We can accomplish a whole lot more together than we can if we antagonize each other. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following on the statement of the Minister of ENR, this is rather interesting. If I thought my job was depressing last week, yesterday set things up for this week to be even worse. I was aghast to discover yesterday morning that the GNWT had submitted a response to the National Energy Board regarding the recommendations in the Joint Review Panel report. I am not trying to suggest that GNWT should not respond to the JRP recommendations. No, absolutely, we should respond. But if it is the government who’s responding, Regular Members must be included in the development of...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess having asked about these two things individually I’d like to now ask the Minister how they relate to each other. Will these two projects operate or be developed in isolation of each other? I would hope not, but could he give me sort of a description, I guess, of how we’re going to set our greenhouse gas targets and also develop an NWT Climate Adaptation Plan and not do them together? Or will they be done together?