Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills, Hon. Jackson Lafferty.

I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Range Lake, that Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill replaces the definition of “week” in the Employment Standards Act. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Bill 3 has had second reading.

Motion carried; Bill 3 read a second time and

referred to Committee of the Whole.

Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, Minister’s Statement 1-16(2), with Mr. Krutko in the chair.

I call the Committee of the Whole to order.

We have Minister’s Statement 1-16(2), Sessional Statement. What is the wish of the committee? Mrs. Groenewegen?

We would like to deal with the Premier’s sessional statement in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Is the committee agreed?

We’ll take a short recess and come back and deal with the sessional statement.

The Committee of the Whole took a short

recess.

The Committee of the Whole is now in order. Sessional statement.

I’d like to ask the Premier if he’ll be introducing any witnesses

No, Mr. Chairman, I’ll deal with it from here.

General comments. Mr. Bromley.

Mr. Chairman, there were many, many things that I liked in the sessional statement, and you know when I say that, there’s more to follow. I thought a number of things did actually reflect some of our early discussions on our priorities and vision. It was when we got to “maximizing opportunities,” and even there I was doing well. I was totally with the Premier until we reached the statement of blind support that says we can do all this with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. As a biologist in the old days, we always used to look for the one solution, too. And you know what? We never found it. It’s a complex world out there.

I’m particularly concerned with some of the costs associated with this. The first point I want to bring up…. I’ve worked on this issue outside this House, as well, as a non-government person. I’m familiar with the file, so to speak. This blind option, this open-door policy without some very rigorous oversight, is something I don't want to see us subscribing to. One of the major conditions I would want to see here is a carbon-neutral project. The days of having a project of this size, without it being carbon-neutral, are gone. Let’s take the leadership role.

Even before that, there is a lot of discussion to be had. There is some fundamental disregard for our current experience with the diamond industry, some lack of understanding, and I'd like to address that a little bit.

First of all, putting all our eggs in one basket, in the Mackenzie Valley basket, and inviting into our living room the most profitable corporation in the world — ironically, proven as the culprit actively responsible for delaying action on climate change, and one with many other human rights abuses and blemishes —

doesn't sit well with me, particularly with a “Come on in and do it to us again” sort of policy.

A profligately rich, multinational corporation that comes to the table demanding subsidies beyond what we already provide, which are major — let’s have some critical thinking here.

We know that this will only accelerate our migrant workers problem and will pipeline resources directly out of the North even faster, as opposed to capturing them here. Our health care cards will go up, and so on, with many costs associated with that. Then, of course, there are the externalized environmental costs that need to be brought in as part of the equation.

Let’s look at our current experience with mega-development in the North so far: again, a rapid doubling, and even tripling, of our greenhouse gas emissions.

People say to me on the street, “The 10 per cent of the iceberg that's above the waterline is doing super-well, but the 90 per cent below….” Although they are reporting increased dollars from diamonds and from residential schools, the real situation is that our social problems are escalating. The number of deaths associated with that, the number of addictions, family breakups and so on, is on the rise.

It’s clearly not helping people across the board, and I don't see this government really rigorously ensuring that the across-the-board benefit will come along with this.

Mr. Chairman, there is another way forward. This 16th Assembly identified quite clearly that our

priority is economic diversification. This does not mean going after one basket yet again.

We want food providers, boat builders, artists, renewable energy technicians, doctors, plumbers, lawyers, electricians, accountants, inventors and so on who support our local economies, not something that will end up raising our local costs so that local people will not be able to afford homes and taxes in their own communities.

I'd like to see us put conditions in place that ensure full and true benefits, should we go for things like this, and I don't see that that's been done. We certainly need to demand that it only go forward under carbon-neutral conditions.

I'm going to focus just on this one point, and if I can, Mr. Chairman, I'll wrap it up quickly.

I'd like to turn to page 4 of the Sessional Statement and have us read that in a way that considers the environment as a backpack. In many ways, the work we are doing now is like our elders planning for a hunting trip. We have to pack wisely for the

journey. We can load down our packs with everything we would want to have with us. Just think about the environment here. We can load down the environment with everything we want to do, in terms of economic development, but the result would be — and in this case, the result is already — a load that's too heavy to haul. Our environmental systems are breaking down before our very eyes. That weighs us down and slows down our journey.

Choosing what not to take is difficult. I grant that these are difficult economic challenges we face, but I’m looking for innovation. I’m looking for things that really support our local economies and challenge our people instead of having them line up and be automatons and, you know, Exxon’s force once again, like it’s happened throughout the world to little avail for local economies.

Choosing what not to take is difficult and may involve some compromises and hardships. I grant that. But in the end it allows us to make the journey and reach our destination. I am totally convinced we can do this in a much better way. It’s going to take some innovation. It’s going to take some realization that doing the same thing harder is not going to work.

That’s all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Premier Roland, would you like to respond?

Mr. Chairman, I could save my comments ’til Members have had a chance to speak to this, and then I can wrap up at the end — if that’s okay with the Members.

Are we agreed?

General comments. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to comment on the sessional statement. Some of what I’ve got to say today I certainly will be saying more this week and as we go towards the end of session. I think some of it needs to be done as a Members’ Statement or something to that effect or spoken about on the floor here in a formal setting. But I’m going to talk about a few things.

I wanted to start with devolution and resource revenue sharing. And I know the Premier mentions it, actually mentions a Devolution Agreement in his Sessional Statement, but there’s no mention of resource revenue sharing. In the four bullets that he talks about focusing on with the federal government, I think that’s a mistake. I think resource royalty sharing, revenue sharing, is something we can’t lose sight of because, in these

tough economic times or tough financial times — economically, things are good, but financially, things are rough — we need to go after whatever revenue streams we can. I’ve said this before; I’ll say it again today: I think we have to look at getting control of what we can.

In the past, Transportation and Health were devolved from the federal government. I think we need to focus our efforts on areas of our operation that could get us the most benefit, that we could derive the most results from. To me, oil and gas is one area we should absolutely focus on here in the next four years and try to get control of that. If we don’t do that, we’ll just keep spinning our tires like the last government did and the government before that and the government before that and the government before that with, you know, not much progress being made. So I think those are certainly some things that we would key on with the federal government.

And the other interesting thing too. When the Premier talks about discussions with the Prime Minister and with Ottawa, he doesn’t mention infrastructure. I mentioned that in my statement today in the questions I had for the Premier, the fact that Nunavut has signed a $242 million deal.

I think the Government of the Northwest Territories…. With the infrastructure deficit facing the Territory and the demands that are out there, that has to be front and centre. In any negotiations with Ottawa, any discussions Ministers are having with Ottawa, we need to make sure that we’re at the table, that we’re going to get the investment dollars from Ottawa accruing to residents here in the Northwest Territories and in the communities, whose demands are being placed upon us. So we need to do that.

The other thing I wanted to touch on and talk about is communication. I know that in the Sessional Statement, the Premier talks about, you know, laying out the approach that’s developed by cabinet and had input from caucus. That’s not entirely true, Mr. Chairman. You know, we all went through this strategic planning exercise together. And Members on this side of the House did not — did not — have an opportunity to, you know, say yea or nay to a $135 million budget reduction exercise over two years. That just didn’t include us.

As well, the Premier talks about these committees of cabinet that are going to look at the reinvestment of dollars over the next few years. That doesn’t include Regular Members. There’s no inclusion of Regular Members in those committees. To me, Mr. Chairman, if we are going to move forward together, if we are going to work together, the sooner that can happen and the more opportunities that that can happen, the better off we’ll all be. And the more the Members on this side of the House

will be able to buy in to what it is that cabinet is trying to achieve.

Again, I think you’ll hear more about that from me. I do agree with the overall mindset that the government has in going forward, in trying to…. Because I’ve said it all along: our growth is not sustainable. Our spending isn’t sustainable. And we can’t continue on the path that we’ve been on. Corrections have to be made, and I wish the government well in the reduction exercise and in trying to find out where it is in our organization that we can achieve some reductions.

I often thought that the best approach would be to go out and do the analysis first and the zero-based review, if you wanted to do a couple of departments or three departments a year — go out and do that work, and come back with exactly what you would be reducing. Because in the current scenario, we’re not really sure what’s being put on the table. It’s left up to departments. And again, we don’t have that level of detail on what departments were asked to get. We don’t know what they’ve got yet. So there’s still a lot of work to be done there, Mr. Chairman.

I do look forward to seeing that and to working with the government to achieve the end result: that is, to try to refocus government, to try to get it to operate more efficiently and effectively. I think we can achieve that. Like I said earlier, I think the communication has to be at a level where the Regular Members feel the buy-in and feel some sense of satisfaction that they are being consulted, that they are being included in the government’s plans. To date I just don’t know if that’s happened, Mr. Chairman.

Again, I do want to say to the Premier that his Sessional Statement will be a basis for where we go from here. I do look forward to working with the Premier and cabinet on trying to make the changes that are necessary to ensure the functional operation of the government going forward.

General comments, Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make a few comments on the Sessional Statement by the Premier. We talk about building our future. One of the issues that I have is the NGOs again. I would like to see them get some multi-year funding and seriously look at having regional treatment centers where there’s some after-care — help for those that are coming back from getting help, trying to beat their addictions.

We talk about housing programs and people that are eligible for them. I hear from constituents that they are both working, they’re both starting to make good money, they’re in public housing, yet they don’t qualify for some of the programs. These are the people that these programs were designed for — to get them out of public housing, to get them to stand on their own two feet — and that’s something we have to have a look at.

We talk about reducing the cost of living. I’ve spoken to it the other day when I spoke about the power rates continuing to go up. It’s affecting the services in Inuvik. I hear of a recreational complex where they are turning the heat down because it’s getting too expensive to heat. You’ve got kids skating around in a cold rink, and one reason that…. The complex was designed for them to enjoy those kinds of facilities without having to worry about dressing for the cold.

We talk about reducing the cost of living, and something we seriously have to have a look at is monitoring how they want to continue to increase their rates. I have my opinions on why I think they do it sometimes. If a “levelized” rate will help reduce the cost to some of the folks in the northern part of the Territories, then it’s something that we may have to look at.

We talk about managing this land. I spoke to it today, on the caribou. I’m concerned with what I’ve been hearing on the condition of our caribou herds. I would like to see that followed up on, and any recommendations that came out of the Caribou Summit in Inuvik, I’d like to see them acted on. This is going to have to be something that, as the Northwest Territories, we’re going to have to do together. Otherwise, I think we’ll be faced with the day — and I think that day will come — where caribou are like the buffalo on the plains, where they’re almost nonexistent. That’s cheating our

grandchildren and their children out of something we’ve been able to enjoy.

We talk about maximizing opportunities. The Mackenzie Valley pipeline, in my opinion, will be done right; it will be monitored right. There’s no possible way that the Government of the Northwest Territories, the aboriginal governments and anybody else that is going to monitor this — the development — are going to let them just come in here and just rake over our land. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’ve learned our lessons from the past, and I think this one will be done with a lot of scrutiny.

I’ve seen it firsthand, where there is some work going on down the coast, and they have environmental monitors that “don’t take nothin’ from nobody.” Everybody has to follow the rules. I could tell you a couple of stories about some of the stuff that goes on there, but they do monitor well.

There are going to be economic opportunities for all residents. I don’t think it will just be a few residents who will benefit from the business opportunities that come with a pipeline, although I did say the other day that because of the fuel situation in Inuvik and their attitude over the whole thing, it’s almost starting to change the way I’m thinking about the whole Mackenzie Valley pipeline. I hope that attitude they bring to the pipeline, if it ever goes through and they start doing the work.… There has to be a change of attitude there.

This fuel situation in Inuvik, I think, is a good case for the attitude that Esso has been showing. They need to address that we’re not just up here for anybody’s pleasure. We have to live and work here, and we will continue to make sure our Territory is well looked after.

Another thing is bringing workers up from the south. I understand there are some cases where they need to do it. The problem I have is we have a lot of people up in Beaufort-Delta who have worked in industry for a while that I feel are quite skilled. That skill is not being utilized in the mines, and that is something I find quite troubling. When you talk about the mines — and I’ve heard it said before — it’s “your” mines. And then we talk about the gas and the pipeline, and all of a sudden it’s “ours”, “our” gas, “our” pipeline.

We have to have the attitude that those are our mines too. Just because we’re living a couple thousand kilometres away doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to benefit from some of the work that goes on up there.

Talking about refocusing all aspects of the government, I believe this exercise that we’re going through now is going to be a good opportunity for us to stand back and have a good look at the programs and the money that’s being spent. I look

at a document for contracts $5,000 and over. I see the amount of dollars paid out, and it just blows me away. I see our public servants…. And we have a lot of good ones out there, especially in the front lines in the regions — good, hard-working people. They take all their direction from Yellowknife.

A lot of departments, in my opinion, are top-heavy, and they’re giving direction to the people in the regions. And these are hard working people. There are a lot of knowledgeable people within the government who could do a lot of this work that we continually contract out. I don’t want to see them become nothing more than contract administrators. I think they have the knowledge and capability to do a lot of this work. I have confidence in them, and I think it’s time we utilized them a lot more instead of coming up with an idea, and “let’s go do a study and put it out to tender and do another study.” We’re studied to death up here.

Lastly, Mr. Chair, we talk about resource revenue sharing. The key word is sharing. We share; they don’t. They take. There’s a difference, and as long as we allow them to do it, then they will. We have to get the leadership of the Northwest Territories on the same page and dealing with this issue, because we’re playing right into Ottawa’s hands by always disagreeing with each other. They just continue to take, take, take, take. They give back in transfer payments, but we’re not a welfare state. They give transfer payments, I believe, to each province, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t get ours. They believe that gives them the right to come and help themselves to anything we have up here. I found it quite interesting reading an article: “Ottawa Inviting Bids for Exploration Rights in the Beaufort-Delta.” Ottawa inviting bids.

These are issues that we have to look at. I think as the Northwest Territories, we’ve matured enough as a government. We’re 40 years old now. We should be mature at 40. I think we’re mature enough to make a lot of these decisions ourselves. I think it’s time Ottawa realized that. I think it’s time the government and the aboriginal governments across the Northwest Territories realized that. As long as we continue to disagree, we’re never going to get anywhere. That’s the truth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to say a few words on the Sessional Statement.

Next on the list I have Ms. Bisaro, Member for Frame Lake.