Thank you, Mr. Chair. Myself, I’d like to also speak in regard to the Joint Review Panel’s recommendations and, more importantly, what we heard as the MLAs and, more importantly, what we heard from our communities, our constituents and our municipalities to ensure that they do have their voices heard. And I believe their voices were heard during the Joint Review Panel consultation. More importantly, for ourselves, this government, to stick up to the fundamental principle of good governance to ensure that we listen to our constituency, but, more importantly, follow up with the wishes of our constituents when it comes to ensuring that we do have safe, secure and stable communities and that we do benefit from major developments that happen in our homeland.

Mr. Chair, I think it’s important to realize that the recommendations in regard to the Joint Review Panel heard the communities in regard to their concerns and issues dealing with alcohol and drug abuse, the problems associated with the location of camps, of what’s going to happen in regard to the community infrastructure, in regard to disposal of hazardous waste, the use of gravel sources so that communities will be able to have their own gravel sources going forward and that they don’t exploit the communities and leave them with the costs associated with having to pay for a lot of the public infrastructure that we, as taxpayers and as community residents, have to ensure that we also have the capacity to carry on after these major developments take place.

I think, also, it’s very important to realize that the resources of the Northwest Territories are the resources of the people of the Northwest Territories. I think for far too long we have allowed the federal government and industry to dictate what happens to our resources. An illustration of that is the amount of federal infrastructure dollars or federal taxpayer dollars that was expended back in the ‘70s and ‘80s on the famous program called PIP, in which 90 percent of capital infrastructure dollars were paid for by the federal government and which a lot of significant discoveries were made using taxpayers’ dollars, but yet they remained sitting in the ground. I think, as Northerners, there has to be a statement that you either use it or lose it. I think, what we’ve seen in regard to other jurisdictions in Canada, regardless if it’s Newfoundland or Alaska, that they have basically made it clear to industry that you develop the resources in a timely manner and you ensure that the benefits flow to the residents of those areas, regardless if it’s Newfoundland or Alaska. I think, ourselves, as Northerners, don’t expect anything less.

I think we also have to realize the importance of sustainable public infrastructure, regardless if it’s pipeline, transmission line, that it has to ensure that the benefits flow to Northerners, regardless if it’s dealing with the gas, dealing with power transmission. That we have to benefit one way or the other, regardless if it’s we’re hooking the gas into our communities to gasify communities to bring down the cost of living, or ensuring ways that industry has to use a more feasible means of energy by way of green energy and use the natural resources we have by way of hydro or even by converting in regard to a more green means of public infrastructure such as pipelines.

Again, I think it’s important that the biggest thing we heard from our communities prior to the reviews was the fair factor, the social and economic impacts that development leaves by way of alcoholism, drug abuse, homelessness, and the effects it has on the social fabric of our communities. We have to ensure that we have the capacity, we have the resources, and we have the infrastructure in place to take care of our residents when they need those resources, regardless if it’s alcohol and treatment programs, regardless if it’s technical programs such as technical trades, and ensuring that we do have the infrastructure and the resources to carry out those social responsibilities and not only leave it up to government but also ensure that we work along with industry to find these preventative measures to that we can ensure the well-being of the people of the Northwest Territories and also that we do have developments that are win-win for everyone.

Mr. Chair, I think it’s also important that we do realize that we have to have a voice for the people that put us here. I think it’s important that we do have to ensure that whatever comes forward in regard to the NEB, after they’ve had an opportunity to review these recommendations, we take a close look at exactly what defines the NEB in regards to these recommendations but, more importantly, how are they going to implement these recommendations, especially the ones that have a direct affect on the residents of the Northwest Territories, communities in the Northwest Territories and people of the Northwest Territories so that we do win from this one of the largest projects in Northern Canada.

I think it is also important to realize that we do have to tie other types of public infrastructure such as the Mackenzie Highway into this type of project regardless if there is an alternative area of doing it, if we are able to bring down the cost of the pipeline by building our highways, regardless if it is the road from Wrigley to Tuk or dealing with sections so that we can connect communities to the different facilities regardless if it is dealing with the facilities in regards to the refining system or compressor stations and have that infrastructure built permanently and not look at the cheapest way of doing it and at the end of the day, we have no public infrastructure built because of the way that we allow a system to be built with no win-win situation for our communities.

I think that the Mackenzie Highway has the potential of being the win-win for everybody. I think that we do have to continue to pressure the federal government and industry to make them realize the importance of such a piece of public infrastructure in regards to this particular project and work with the aboriginal groups regardless if it is the Mackenzie Aboriginal Corporation or community groups, regardless if it is the Deh Cho, the Sahtu, the Inuvialuit and the Gwich’in.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I think it is also important that we do file our own report as the government and the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories to ensure that we do oversee this project as any government should and as any Legislature should, to ensure that we at the end of the day are the benefactors of this arrangement and again, more importantly, the section that my colleague quoted in regards to section 50 and 11 which talks about resource revenues and ensuring that we do have some means of benefitting from this project in the interim until we receive resource revenue sharing or have some means of benefitting from resource development and formulating some sort of trust regardless if it is a heritage trust or having some resources put aside for a rainy day so once this project has come and gone 30 years later we are not sitting with a pipe in the ground which basically has served its purpose and it is now going to diminish its willingness to continue to benefit not only industry but people of the Northwest Territories. So, with that, Mr. Chairman, those are my comments. Thank you.