My questions are for the Minister of ITI — Industry, Trade and Investment.

Northerners are certainly quite concerned, as are many Canadians, about the whole issue of climate change. They are aware that we need to do business a lot differently than we have been, and that it is not necessarily easy. They are willing to shoulder their responsibilities to provide leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I’m quite concerned about this policy of not allowing support to be spent in an environmentally responsible way. Will the Minister immediately review the so-called travel policy and make the change to allow environmentally responsible travel, at least when there’s no additional costs?

I guess I just want to point out to the Member that’s he’s referring to one incident that happened some time ago. I think, as a government, we are definitely responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Certainly, if it can be shown that the purchase of carbon offsets will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we would definitely find a way to put it into place. I guess a question is…. The practice of buying carbon offsets from travel agents. Does that really reduce the emission of greenhouse gases?

I had responded to the Member in response to a previous question. At that time he had indicated he would provide me with a list of travel agents he said

were able to do exactly that. We would have to satisfy ourselves that paying an extra $20 on an airline ticket to provide for carbon offsets would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Once we were satisfied that was the case, then we would definitely bring forward a policy for the government to implement when making travel arrangements.

The Member also referenced my letter where I talked about the federal level. In a lot of our human resource practices, sometimes we look to see whether the federal government has done anything in that regard. We are definitely prepared to review that policy, and if it, in fact, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we would take forward a request.

I think the Minister misinterpreted my question. The situation was not that my constituent wanted to purchase an offset — in fact she did that, having been forced to travel by air. In this case the constituent wanted to travel by a means that would produce a lot fewer carbon emissions, because there is always the little bit of uncertainty with purchasing offsets. She wanted to travel by land at no additional cost to this government. She was not allowed to do it. She had to travel by air. We were forcing this person to be irresponsible in an environmental sense.

Let me expand on the question, here. I’m concerned that if this interpretation has been given to individuals, the same interpretation will be given to business, which is a big part of ITI’s responsibilities. I’d like to see this concern extended. I use this as a bit of a platform. Will this department review all of their policies with regard to identifying and encouraging opportunities for businesses, as well as individuals, to behave in more environmentally responsible ways at every opportunity when receiving support from this department?

I didn’t think I had misinterpreted, but with regard to the specific policy that he’s referring to — I guess it’s a travel policy — our objective is to make sure that the most economical mode of transportation is used. I’m prepared to review that policy.

With regard to further extending the reach of the government when it makes funding available, I’d be prepared to work with my colleague in implementing the Greenhouse Gas Strategy for the government.

I certainly agree with the most economical travel. This government has to be responsible economically, financially. Of course to do that we need full-cost accounting. Obviously air travel is, when it’s fully accounted for, one of the most expensive ways of travelling that’s possible in this world today. You need to account for the subsidies we give to the airports and so on.

Basically, we’ll let you do the necessary research and departmental self-education to engage in a full-cost accounting review in order to minimize our net costs and improve the health of our land and our people through a very aware full-cost accounting approach.

Yes, I’ll do the necessary research, and I’ll make sure that whatever we follow is consistent with the accounting treatments that are provided for by the Department of Finance.

Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

No supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much to the Minister for that response.

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. It gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier, where I was talking about the Nunavut government signing a $242 million dollar deal over the next seven years with the federal government for infrastructure development in the Nunavut Territory. It got me wondering. I know the Building Canada fund. We’ve had much discussion here in the House about, well, I guess, what the definition of a list is. I have my own definition; cabinet seems to have their definition of what a list is.

I’d like to ask the Premier what plans his government has to secure a long-term infrastructure funding deal with Ottawa.

Mr. Speaker, we have been working with the federal government on a very similar plan to what the Nunavut government has just announced. It’s a combination of the Building Canada Fund and the municipal gas tax rebate that’s going to communities. We’ve been negotiating, and we’ll be signing an agreement in the very near future as well.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Premier what resources are currently being deployed to secure this investment deal with the federal government. Is it the Department of Transportation, or is it the Department of Executive, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, in this government we’ve given the lead to Municipal and Community Affairs and Transportation to work jointly on this initiative as the Building Canada Fund has those aspects to it.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to request a timeline for when the Premier might have the two

departments come back to Members of this House with information pertaining to a deal with Ottawa.

Mr. Speaker, this agreement that has to be worked out has two levels of negotiations that need to be done. One is a framework agreement; following that a funding agreement. In the very near future they’ll be able to sign the framework agreement, and we’ll have an idea following that on the funding arrangement that will flow from that agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe the funding is contingent on project-specific details. I just wanted to make that clear.

I’d like to ask the Premier: is the federal government looking for project specifics on funding, or is it just blanket funding for a period of time?

Mr. Speaker, the process that we’ve been involved with to date… Initially they were looking for us to look at a number of projects that could be attached to this agreement. We’ve had further discussions preparative to signing a framework agreement. We’ve been saying it’s fairly difficult to highlight project-specific funding when the agreement still includes the federal government having a say in what the final outcome will be on any project.

Mr. Speaker, today I talked about the importance of hiring qualified, properly trained recreation staff in our communities and the struggles many of our communities are experiencing with this. My questions today are directed toward the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Geographically the North is unique in many factors, and these factors include the cost of living in each community. Taking this into account, can the Minister commit to taking the lead in developing standardized pay scales and job descriptions for recreation professionals?

Mr. Speaker, the Member’s statement regarding the challenges facing communities in hiring trained recreational workers and paying them a salary that is comparable across the board is something we’ve recognized for some time. The N.W.T. Sports and Recreation Council has recognized it. We’ve had some early discussions on it. They have been quite concerned about the level of investment that goes into the bigger events, such as our Winter Games, Canada Games, and want to have discussions about what the challenges are in the community and the possibility of redirecting finances. So my answer to the Member is: we will be entering those

discussions, and I would be glad to share that information with the Member.

Mr. Speaker, if the community is able to hire qualified, properly trained recreation professionals, that usually means the individual will be hired from outside the community, in many cases from the south. Because of this, sometimes problems can arise because of cultural differences between the new employee and a community and its residents. It would be ideal to hire local individuals who work with recreation professionals and the community. Would the Minister commit to developing standardized job descriptions and pay scales for these local recreation positions?

Over the years we have really made the attempt to enhance our investments in our communities to deal with some of the real challenging areas. Recreation, of course, has been one area that we needed to see improvements in. We’ve increased the O&M funding to all our communities across the Territories, and in some cases that has been fairly significant. However, the investments are at the community council level — sometimes recreation doesn’t come out on the top, and other priorities overcome it in terms of investment.

We have certainly tried to expand our School of Community Government programs to be able to take in training for recreation workers and people at the community level. Nunavut Arctic College, of course, has a Recreation Leaders Program. We’re still in the position where we need investment from the community. We need to be able provide support. We need to be able to take a look at the whole issue of recreation leaders, recreation workers in the communities. As I indicated earlier, I’d be willing to look at that.

At one time the Department of Municipal Affairs provided a wage subsidy to these communities for recreation programmers and facilities maintainers. But with the new funding formula for financing communities, this was done away with. Mr. Speaker, attracting and retaining good, qualified recreation staff continues to be a constant challenge for our communities.

Would the Minister commit to once again providing a wage subsidy to allow communities to have competitive wage and benefit packages for recreation professionals in communities?

I guess I should first point out that recreation workers work for the community governments and not for our government directly. We, in turn, have, through the new deal program, really tried to enhance the government funding in the communities. We also have a community recreation contribution program which all communities can apply to. We, as a government,

spend roughly $5 million in the area of sports and recreation. The N.W.T. Sport and Recreation Council spends close to the same, around $4.5 million. We have increased our money through the youth centres, the youth contribution. So there is quite a lot of support. We are moving forward to providing money for the Territorial sports organizations.

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to make a commitment here in light of all of the reviews we are doing and be able to comfortably say that we will directly increase the support through recreation board programs.

There was a dispute regarding the numbers of the caribou count in the 15th Assembly.

I would like to pose my question to the Minister of ENR today. I would like to ask him if there was a second count using local input and local knowledge, and what was the outcome of the count?

Mr. Speaker, back in 2005, as the Member indicated, there was work done, and we were asked to redo it, just to confirm it. We made sure that we used local people. We worked with various co-management boards, and they in effect confirmed that there has been, in all the herds that had been surveyed, right from Cape Bathurst to the Bluenose, west and east in Bathurst, significant decline. We have done a small amount of work with the Beverly and Dolphin caribou, and initial concerns are there as well. It is anticipated that there will be Porcupine as well that have not been surveyed for about four years or so. This will also be down at least 20 per cent.