Mr. Speaker, when Imperial and its partners invest $7.5 billion, that's a lot of money. It's enough money to run our whole government for seven years. When they invest that much money in one project, they want to get as much comfort as possible on a bunch of fronts. One of them includes the federal government and they've been negotiating with the federal government on that and they had a letter of comfort with the federal government for some outstanding issues. They also realized that we are negotiating devolution and resource revenue sharing. We will become more province-like within the life of this pipeline if not before the pipeline. They realize that is going to happen. So they want some comfort from this current government on where do we stand. Do we have some plan to somehow levy some tax on them? We made it clear to them that this is not binding on anybody. This is not a contract. It is simply a letter of comfort to say we are responsible, we are grown up, we will be fair to you, we will be fair to everybody. We believe municipalities will be fair when they levy municipal taxes, and we believe aboriginal governments will be fair when they negotiate fees for crossing their land. Mr. Speaker, this is simply a letter of comfort. I don't understand some people who see bogeymen around every corner who are afraid that this letter of comfort is somehow...Mr. Speaker, I realize the Member who asked the question understands what this means as a letter of comfort. That's all it provides. It's not binding as a contract. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Joe Handley on Question 317-15(4): GNWT's 'letter Of Comfort' To Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Producers
In the Legislative Assembly on February 1st, 2006. See this statement in context.
Further Return To Question 317-15(4): GNWT's 'letter Of Comfort' To Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Producers
Question 317-15(4): GNWT's 'letter Of Comfort' To Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Producers
Item 6: Oral Questions
January 31st, 2006
Page 670
See context to find out what was said next.