Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about a lack of response to a constituent’s concern. At issue for my constituent was the very long time that he would have had to wait to see a specialist doctor. In the end he never did see a specialist; his injury healed itself, fortunately. But that does not address the problem of long wait times that NWT residents are faced with. The original reason for his e-mail was the problem of a long wait time, and that was in October of 2008. So my question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I understand that we have different specialists within the NWT, and different specialties, of course, will have more people attending to them than others, but I’d like to know from the Minister how long a person should have to wait to see a specialist doctor. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the Member, but that was quite a scathing statement talking about how unresponsive I am, which makes me wonder what kind of a Member is she to wait for 18 months before she brings up an issue about her constituent.

Mr. Speaker, we work on the same floor; we work in the same building; my BlackBerry is on 24 hours a day. She knows that a simple phone call or an e-mail could have given her an update. Mr. Speaker, at the same time, her scandalous headline, she did answer her own question in that…

I want to answer the question about being responsive to constituents. We take this job very seriously. We have 2,500 people working in the department who work hard to respond, and the Member did state that this person was contacted by a staff. When they contact my office they don’t always get a direct answer from me. We respond as a system.

Mr. Speaker, wait times, without knowing the details, I can’t answer the question. I’ll take the question as notice and get the details and get back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today my Member’s statement was on the Mackenzie Gas Project and my questions today are for the Minister of ITI. Is the Minister of ITI working with Esso and other producers to get this Mackenzie Gas Project restarted to avoid the two-year delay that producers have announced? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have worked with Mackenzie Valley Pipeline proponents and also the Aboriginal Pipeline Group in the past to determine some of the information requirements that were required for the pipeline. The Joint Review Panel has recently filed the report. Until such time as the responsible Ministers and the various governments respond, we will continue to participate through providing a government response and also continuing to intervene and participate in the different hearings as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the MGP slowdown in the offshore activity moving over to Alaska and the Chukchi Sea with Shell and the communities in the Beaufort-Delta and Nunakput communities that I represent, there is a drill chip in

the Mckinley Bay 60 miles away from Tuk. People could be working. The two-year delay such as this really puts a damper on everything because the projects that we do have going on in Tuk, the access road is starting to slow down, it is near completion. Mr. Speaker, what will the Minister of ITI be doing with the federal Ministers to get this project restarted to avoid the further delay and is he working to get the offshore activity restarted? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I think there are a couple of pieces of information that I need to emphasize. First of all, Imperial Oil recently announced that the decision to construct would be made in 2013. The earliest if gas would flow would be in 2018 if it was a positive decision. The reasons they gave for the delay was the long delay caused by the regulatory process and also the lack of a fiscal arrangement with the federal government.

In the recent federal throne speech and the recent federal budget, the federal government had indicated that they support the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline as long as it was commercially viable and that it met all of the regulatory requirements that the governments would respond to.

We will continue to do our part to focus on dealing with the response from the Joint Review Panel report and also the fiscal arrangements is the most important thing. Proponents have indicated that would be the main rush now for making a positive decision to construction. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the road to the gravel source is nearing completion, the Minister working with any other businesses, communities in the Mackenzie Delta and down the valley on the downturn of the delay of the business activity, has he found a way to continue stimulus funding for additional projects such as that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have been continuing to get our message out about the very negative impact that not only caused by economic slowdown but also by the lack of economic development in the region. We have been working through the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline office. We have been working with the communities and also with local businesses to try to identify the kinds of assistance that could be looked at so that we could get through this difficult period. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask the Minister if he could, I guess, send a letter to the producers groups and the Joint Review Panel, but producers groups in urging them to see if they could get this project restarted and try to hold back on the two-year delay, because people in the

communities and down the valley need employment. The businesses that are suffering up and down the valley need this project to go sooner rather than later. I ask the Minister if he could send a letter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I guess if it gives the Member any comfort, the Alaska Pipeline have indicated that their project be pushed back to probably 2020. I guess a large part of the delays there is with, for example in the Chukchi Sea, there have been a lot of court cases with regards to whales and other marine mammals. That is an issue that Americans have to face as well. We will continue to work through the regulatory process and we will be working on filing our government response. We will be participating in the hearings as they go along as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The options for us, there are a number of things that could be developed and the Member has put the idea of the Opportunities Fund as part of a solution that could be looked at paying out a debt early. The situation that we would have to look for is, for example, the Opportunities Fund has a time amount once borrowed that it has to be paid back. The concession agreement and the agreement with the lenders that stands is already built into our fiscal strategy for the 35 years. There will come a time as interest rates go up and real bonds and the real bond market, we could weigh the possibilities of paying out the debt early and still be ahead of the game with the… I don’t know if we call it a penalty clause at that point, but the early payout would cost us some money so we would have to weigh those things out. Again, that is building into assumptions in the future. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, if we leave the Deh Cho Bridge debt on the books long term and that becomes part of our borrowing limit for the long haul, does the Premier not see that as really tying the hands of this government since it does not affect our fiscal capacity and does not affect our ability to deliver programs and services, it doesn’t anticipate anything unforeseen and it limits our borrowing ability? Does the Premier not see that as affecting our fiscal situation?

As this scenario developed and as we went to Members highlighting the concerns that we had, by not taking any action there would be immediate impact on the Government of the Northwest Territories when it comes to our debt wall. By taking the steps we have and getting confirmation from the federal Minister of Finance, Minister Flaherty, to work with us in dealing with this debt around this project short-term relief we’ve been able to work through this scenario where there will not be an immediate impact.

As I was responding earlier to Member Bromley, there would be an impact in a sense of our available borrowing capacity being impacted as we go forward as the Government of the Northwest Territories. That’s always a consideration that governments face. That is why, for example, we went outside to the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation who structured this project as it was. The Taltson project is structured as purely a business case because we realize that the Government of the

Northwest Territories is unable to take on projects of that magnitude on its own.

I’d like to ask the Premier, since he brings up the Taltson hydro expansion, how is having our debt card full going to affect our ability to guarantee any loan to do the Taltson expansion?

Regardless of our debt situation as the Government of the Northwest Territories, even the bridge project aside, we are unable to, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, guarantee the debt of the Taltson. With drawing this down and bringing it into our books does not impact us that way. We’re going to have to find partners out there or have the federal government make an investment. There are a couple of funds that we have made application to try to help offset some of those costs.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, dumb question there. I forgot the Taltson was $700 million and I guess that is a bit outside of our debt limit. What do we do -- this is a hypothetical question -- I was going to say what do we do if something unforeseen comes up that’s in the millions of dollars? If we had brought the Deh Cho Bridge onto our books through a normal process similar to the Inuvik school, if we had brought that money onto our books in a similar fashion, this would be three or four years’ worth of our capital budget. Is there any possibility that we could still do that, understanding that the lenders would have to agree to allow us to do that? Has that been analyzed or looked at?