Transcript of meeting #1 for Territorial Leadership Committee in the 17th Assembly.
The winning word was work.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Bob McLeod Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the preliminary work that’s been done on devolution, how we deal with contaminated sites or environmental liabilities was something that’s been talked about and negotiated for a long time. There’s been an agreed upon process that the federal government will take responsibility for all of the contaminated sites that happened under their watch. There has been an inventory done. I think they identified 694 waste sites. I guess what we have to do is make sure that if we’re aware of any waste sites, to make sure that they’re on the list. Also, not a lot of work has been done in costing out how much it will cost to clean up all of these 694 waste sites. On a going forward basis, once the point that devolution takes place, the Government of the Northwest Territories, I guess, would be responsible for sites that occur under their watch. There’s also a process for joint payment of sites that, I guess, cross borders. I think the most important thing is to make sure that if you know of a waste site, to make sure it’s on the inventory.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think that we have to wait for devolution to find solutions to these existing waste sites. I think there’s a huge opportunity because some of them are being sponsored by our federal government now, and we have to use those in our communities to address the contaminated sites because it is about giving us jobs, jobs, jobs. I would be supportive of advancing as many cleanups of these contaminated sites as we can. Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Robert Bouchard Hay River North
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Canadian economy is obviously struggling and the Northwest Territories is no different. I would like to ask the candidates what the prerogatives are on improving the northern economy.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Bob McLeod Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We just went through this exercise in 2008 where there was a global recession that impacted on the Northwest Territories and it had real implications. I think we were protected or sheltered a certain bit because, as a government, we had already started to take some action, recognizing this eventuality was going to occur. At that time we had a lot more flexibility than we do now. We took action to provide for increased capital spending to provide a stimulus for communities.
Also the fact that the diamond mines, although they shut down for a period of time, they didn’t shut down for good or for an extended period of time. So we were able to do that. I think that we will have to go back to providing for development in every community to provide for local economies, to work with the different regions to try to protect what we have.
As a Business Development Corporation, we reduced interest rates for the clients of BDIC so their costs of operation would go down so they could ride through the recession. So those are the kinds of things we can do as a government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Minister McLeod laid out some good suggestions, but if we really want to do the structural change that is going to give us, as a territory, the levers we need in the life of this Assembly, it’s tied to devolution. But we can’t have a long-term economic strategy that’s going to allow us to control our future
unless we have the authority and responsibility collectively over land, water and resource development so that we can set up the policies to make sure that our regulatory regime is responsive, effective, does the work that Northerners want us to do, allows decisions to be made in a timely way, will allow and encourage business to come back and at the same time doing all the local and community things that Mr. McLeod mentioned.
But in the life of this Assembly we need the levers. Unless we have the levers, we will always be having this discussion, decisions still being made in a far away land. Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to say that every Legislature in Canada is preparing for a recession and they want to put in place measures. This is because of how our previous governments were behaving. I believe that stimulating the economy will provide the jobs that we need and will help reduce our cost of living.
Also, we really have to look at a mining strategy for the NWT. The regulatory reform that we talked about that people want in the Northwest Territories has to provide comfort to all people in the Northwest Territories.
In closing, so I don’t get too long-winded, Mr. Chair, I would support and lobby Ottawa for the continuation of the Canada Build Plan. Mahsi.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to congratulate all my colleagues on their election or re-election. I want to recognize Mr. Menicoche, Mr. McLeod and Mr. Miltenberger today for being willing to put their names forward as Premier.
There are serious environmental challenges and some of these like our changing climate have steadily increasing impacts on many aspects of our northern society, including government costs. Given that the cause of these issues are pervasive and often result from how we do things, what actions would you like to see us take to address these across the broad spectrum of responses required? Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I mentioned that the Government of the Northwest Territories does have a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy and it’s a great plan, like many others in our government. We must implement it. It’s not enough to say we have great plans and great strategies, but we must continue
implementing them and I would be proposing a taskforce specifically to address this issue of reducing our carbon footprint in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two key areas in this particular issue: the need to adapt to the changes that are happening that we know we won’t be able to affect for 40 years or so; the other one is to mitigate the causes of what has triggered all these changes to begin with. As we look at adaptation, we are on the move on that. We have a Climate Change Adaptation Plan. We know that we’re dealing with it already up north with piles, with permafrost, with erosion, rising water levels, those types of things. We are going to have to make sure we finalize our Greenhouse Gas Strategy as we look at mitigating and reducing our carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions so, in fact, we are not part of the problem.
So in those two areas we are going to have to continue to do the work that’s necessary. We have done things like building standards and those types of things to cut our energy consumption to make sure we are being as efficient and effective as possible. Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Bob McLeod Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a government, we’ve taken action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of all of our departments. We’ve been able to realize our targets that we had set 10 years ago to reduce greenhouse gases. We do have a new Greenhouse Gas Strategy that will allow us to continue.
We all know the effects of climate change are here. We are taking mitigating steps and adaptation to deal with it. We’ve talked to business. This came up again in questionnaires in the forums here in Yellowknife with regard to climate change. The question is how will this impact on the economy, and people talk about issues like carbon taxes and other cap and trade and so on. The big issue comes down to how does it impact on the cost of operating and how will this impact on industry.
We live in a high cost environment and a large part of the reasons for industry setting up their value- added outside the Northwest Territories is that it’s cheaper to operate in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan. But I think there are things we can do through the $60 million that government invested over the past three years. We’ve looked at all forms of alternative fuels and renewable fuels to find ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The Mackenzie Pipeline will provide natural gas,
which, compared to coal, reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
We also have to find out what the Government of Canada is doing. The Government of Canada has indicated they are not prepared to make significant changes unless they know what the United States government is doing. Those are all things we have to take into consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Norman Yakeleya Sahtu
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the Northwest Territories we have a unique style of governing ourselves through consensus style of government. It’s very unique in Canada or even in the world. From time to time we have reports in the newspapers, listen to the radio or watch TV about the interest in party politics and how that should be now our way of doing business in the North. I want to ask the candidates on that subject. What does consensus government mean to you and how will it guide you to make decisions as Premier?
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve been in this House 16 years and just re-elected for a fifth term in a system and style of government that has been staunchly defended, for the most part, in this Legislature. This building was designed for consensus government. It well suits the Northwest Territories.
The way that I have done business in the past – and I’ll point again to the Water Strategy, the Wildlife Act, the Species at Risk Act – is to collaborate to involve the Aboriginal governments. We have a unique arrangement and relationship with Aboriginal governments. We have to continue that. We have to commit ourselves to that process. We have to think very carefully about any suggested changes to the system of government that we do have.
But, for me, I have been across this country east to west, I’ve been in the House of Commons when it’s in operation, I’ve been to other jurisdictions and I always think back, without any hesitation, that this system of government that we have here is designed in the North and suits the North. Thank you.
Questions By Members
Election of the Premier
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