Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like today to bring transparency to a series of issues related to the expensive practice of continued involvement of former Ministers in setting government policy through their work. The Northern Strategy Group includes the previous Minister of ITI, Brendan Bell; the previous principal secretary, Rick Bargery; the previous regional director of DIAND, Bob Overvold; and the previous Minister of INAC, Robert Nault.
While we were paying the Northern Strategy Group $1,500 per day plus expenses to work for the Premier liaising with federal Ministers, I have been told that Mr. Bell, and perhaps others, were also working for the federal government. I will be asking if this is true and whether the Premier was aware of this.
It’s come to my attention that Mr. Bell is a registered lobbyist for northern corporations such as Discovery Air, Norterra, Mackenzie Aboriginal Corporation and Harry Winston Diamonds. During late fall/early winter 2008 and later, two of these corporations -- one successfully -- applied for substantial government loans from the GNWT’s Opportunities Fund.
This fall the Northern Strategy Group staged a two-day, $2,000-per-seat infrastructure conference bringing together, among others, the current and former Ministers of DIAND and leaders of northern business and industry, including those for which Mr. Bell is a lobbyist, raising the question: have we been paying lobbyists to organize industry to lobby ourselves? This during a year when we are already spending a record $426 million on northern infrastructure.
The Northern Strategy Group got a GNWT contribution for the conference, plus $2,000
registration fees for registrants, I’m told, totalling about $31,000 in support. When you also consider that our previous Premier, Mr. Handley, began working for ATCON six months after his term ended, this after granting a negotiated contract worth $160 million just before leaving office to that firm, and that Mr. Todd has been a registered lobbyist for ATCO, a company proposing to buy into our publicly owned Power Corporation, it is clear that there are questions to be asked of Cabinet and the due diligence employed in granting sole-sourced contracts.
Yesterday I tabled a written question asking for the details of just what our contract money bought us and with whom.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.