Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’m not aware of this particular issue that’s before us within another jurisdiction, but surely we can have our department look into that information in the B.C. jurisdiction. Mahsi.

I appreciate that openness on the part of the Minister. I did find out about this from a concerned resident and I’d be happy to forward that information to his system with that.

Can the Minister outline for me how the department does keep parents directly informed of good child care and rearing practices in general? Thank you.

Through education awareness within the schools or the child care development programs, the facilities, we do have various qualified caregivers. Not only that, we do have coordinators at the community level and even at the regional level that can surely share that type of information. Whether it be pertaining to children under the age of two or over the age of two, there are all kinds of programming that is out there.

So that information is shared broadly throughout the Northwest Territories. So we continue to depend on our workers at that level, at the community and regional level. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

That’s sufficient for now. I’ll look forward to further work on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources and are in follow-up to my Member’s statement from earlier today.

In December, the Minister responsible for ENR and the Premier will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference. This is a significant conference, with potential to keep the 2012 Kyoto protocols, which are to prevent climate change and global warming, on line and possibly develop new more reasonable climate protocols. In light of this, will the GNWT lead by example and establish more aggressive targets for greenhouse gas emissions throughout the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would argue that as a government and as a Legislature we are leading by example with the $60 million Alternative Energy Program

that we’ve committed to, with the work with biomass and hydro and wind. And we, as well, through our Joint Climate Change Committee, already agreed and will be bringing back the current Greenhouse Gas Strategy for review in anticipation of looking at the next iteration of that document with an eye towards internal targets, as well as we’re going to double-check the legal authority we do have for any kind of decisions that could possibly be made outside of the community boundaries. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that response. In my statement I did mention that in many ways we are leading by example. Currently the GNWT has placed a 10 percent reduction on greenhouse gas emissions for internal operations, yet the GNWT does not have emission reduction targets for the NWT as a whole. There is some reference to controlling emissions, but without significant measurable reduction targets, there is no incentive for non-government interest to meet any targets. Would the Minister commit to updating the existing Greenhouse Gas Strategy and establish strong science-based targets for the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In my previous answer I indicated that the Joint Climate Change Committee had identified that as a priority and we’re going to be bringing back the current Greenhouse Gas Strategy and taking a look at it and start putting the process and pieces in place to look at developing what is going to be the next edition of the updated Greenhouse Gas Strategy. Thank you.

Once again I’d like to thank the Minister for that. I look forward to seeing that document when it comes forward.

As we move forward...

I have talked to some constituents and other interested parties who have suggested that the GNWT’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations by 10 percent below the 2001 levels by 2011 lacks some ambition. That we’ve pretty much actually attained these reductions and suggests that the lack of ambition reductions -- which, you know, ambitious reductions I mean challenging reductions -- limit the long-term value of the Greenhouse Strategy itself. Would the Minister commit to review the internal reductions targets that we currently have and establish more ambitious internal targets which demonstrate a significant commitment to reducing emissions within the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, everything we do that takes us from where we are to greater reductions is a step forward. It may not be as great as some people would like, but we have

made significant strides. I’ll point again to the $60 million we’re committing to alternative energy. We did a presentation where the Public Works folks laid out a long list of government facilities across the land that are going to be converted to biomass, with the thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas reductions. We’ve committed, as well, and I have done it now with the last two questions, that we’re going to be looking at revising and updating the Greenhouse Gas Strategy that’s currently in place, recognizing that a lot has happened since 2006. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary. Thank you. Honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For as long as I’ve been in Hay River, and I’m sure for many years before I got there, there have been very strong ties between what was called the Hay River Reserve, the K’atlodeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River. These two communities are located on the east and west sides of the Hay River. Mr. Speaker, there has never been a permanent link between these two communities and when there is no ice road in the wintertime, it requires the residents to travel many miles, clock many miles to travel back and forth between these communities. People from across, as we fondly refer to it, attend school, they attend church, they have family, we have families that live on both sides of the river and yet there has never been a permanent link to make the distance between these two communities more affordable and, I guess, easier to get between.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation, to his knowledge, has there ever been a study or a costing done of what it would take to put a permanent bridge between the communities of the K'atlodeeche First Nation and the town of Hay River? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I believe, and I’d have to check with my colleague from MACA, but I believe the municipality did a costing and an assessment of putting a bridge between the two communities. Thank you.

And the costing was done.

---Interjection

Yeah, a bridge would be helpful. I’m not too sure, thinking back to whether or not there was always political agreement about whether such a bridge would impact the residents of the Hay River Reserve in a way that they wanted at the time. So I’d like to ask, when was the last time that question was posed to the people of Hay River and the K'atlodeeche First Nation? Thank you.

The Member is talking about a community in my riding, so I guess I’d have to say it’s been posed a number of times directly to me as the MLA for that community. I don’t believe the Department of Transportation has ever done an assessment of what it costs to build a bridge between the two communities. It’s viewed as a municipal piece of infrastructure at this point. I’d have to confirm that, of course, but I have not seen any information aside from the discussion we had some time ago when I was first elected as an MLA to the Deh Cho, that I’ve seen some documents I believe were put together by the municipality who paid for...the Town of Hay River, I should say, that paid for the research. Thank you.

So what would it take to get such a bridge back onto the agenda? I guess if you’re saying it’s not a piece of GNWT infrastructure, obviously it’s not something that the taxpayers of the two communities could take on. What options are there open to investigate further the idea of building this link between these two communities with traditional and very longstanding ties to each other? Thank you.