We’ve made a number of commitments in this House to provide information and briefings. We will continue to honour that. Once we get all the pieces of this project confirmed and the plans laid out, we will commit to doing that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, when might that be? Are we talking a week? Are we talking a month? Are we talking three months, Mr. Speaker? I’m wondering if the Minister could be a little bit more specific when the government is going to have all the pieces wrapped up so that they can go to the local media with the financial situation that is at play with the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Thank you.

We don’t have a date scheduled for a briefing of that nature, but I would expect it to be by the end March that we would have provisions and be ready to provide that kind of detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ENR. I want to ask the Minister regarding the deal with the Yellowknives First Nation on the caribou issue. The Minister did indicate to the House that there was an offer and I want to know if the offer was taken. Is there a deal or no deal?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That process is underway. In fact, I’ve been involved in some communications this afternoon about that very issue and there’s been contact with the Yellowknives and the deputy. I am hopeful there will be a re-engagement and we’ll be able to show some progress here in the near future. Thank you.

In terms of showing some progress in the near future, is there a time frame between the two parties and seeing if we can come to an arrangement that is satisfactory that would put this issue to rest until a long-term solution is found?

I’m hopeful at this juncture that there will be a discussion between the Yellowknives, Chief Sangris, and the deputy

minister and we’ll see if we can come to a meeting of the minds.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The time for question period has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition dealing with the matter of dentistry services in Nahendeh.

Mr. Speaker, the petition contains 150 signatures of Nahendeh residents and, Mr. Speaker, the petitioners request that the Department of Health and Social Services take the steps necessary to establish a full-time dentist position in the community of Fort Simpson. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document titled NWT Power Corporation Report of the NTPC Review Panel, January 2010. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s Nutrition Month and I think it’s a good idea to piggyback a boost to nutrition onto a great new green initiative and I want to start by saying I really appreciate adding milk containers to the Waste Reduction Program. It’s something that’s been called for by our public and this is good of the government to respond.

The unintended side effect, though, Mr. Speaker, is to tax nutrition and that is one unintended result, because there is a price spread between the amount of deposits paid on milk containers and the amount refunded. Milk or equivalent products is the single most nutrient for our children and one that we do not want to become less accessible than it already is in our communities.

We heard in my colleague Mr. Menicoche’s statement this morning about dental health and how that’s related to other health issues, that we do have programs out there that are directly addressed by accessible milk for families.

By the government’s figures detailing the revenues, rates of returns and operating costs, the total cost of closing this price gap would be about $70,000 to $75,000. We don’t want to tax nutrition and we don’t have to if we assign the funds already approved to eliminate this effect.

In the recent budget, we approved an additional $400,000 towards food programs in ECE. So the money is there and can be assigned to meet this comparatively minor cost, I suspect, in any department.

The government wants the commitment made in the Environment Fund for programs to be revenue neutral. This is a good goal which, overall, I think we all support and I certainly do, but we also have a record and a precedence of subsidizing costs through programs like the Wastepaper Product Recycling Program. There is an initiative there where we support the development of recycling and reusing those products and keeping them out of the waste stream. So we are on good record of having a precedent here.

Mr. Speaker, we have the funds approved for enhancing nutrition, we have the precedence of the Wastepaper Program, we have the opportunity to apply approved resources directly to ensuring nutrition and preventing the added cost of basic living for our families, basic and healthy living for our families. So thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be closely following any further debate.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I will go to the seconder of the motion, Mr. Yakeleya, Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank Mr. Bromley for bringing this motion to the floor. I certainly will be supporting it. I would like to speak about the elimination of handling fees for the

collection of milk containers under the NWT Beverage Container Program, Mr. Speaker.

Under the existing NWT Beverage Container Program, when residents return their beverage containers, they receive a refund. Their refund is only about 60 percent of the amount the resident paid for the container. Some of the remaining funds go to support environmental issues.

We know that drinking pop is bad for our population. The sugar in pop leads to cavities and in some cases the need for dental surgery has been noted.

Also, the sugar leads to sugar diabetes, which is prevalent in our communities. It offers no nutrition, while contributing to obesity. Thus I have no problem with the surcharge for drinking pop, especially since the money goes to an Environmental Fund.

Milk has been added to the list of refundable beverage containers and when returned they should reduce the cost of milk a bit. Milk is the single most important nutrition to healthy development and the benefits of our youth in the communities. It is of great importance to the adults and seniors to maintain their healthy bones. Northerners should not be required to pay any type of surcharge for milk, especially in the small communities of the Northwest Territories.

In Tulita, two litres of milk costs $5.75. I hate to list the cost in Ulukhaktok or Colville Lake or any other small community. I do not support any increase to the cost of milk anywhere and I do support any reduction to costs that recycling milk cartons will provide in the Sahtu and other communities in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to compliment the Department of ENR on their campaign to encourage people to recycle milk beverage containers. I think it’s very catchy. I think it’s Wash and Squash. There are very colourful ads all over the place encouraging our people in the Northwest Territories to add these beverage containers to the list of containers that we pay a deposit on and then receive a refund on when we take them back. It is very catchy and I think it’s catching the eye of people.

However, I want to thank the Member for Weledeh for bringing forward this motion, because I think it is consistent with a message that he has been very clear about in this since he came here. That is the importance of milk in the diet of children in the Northwest Territories and particularly in the remote communities where transportation plays a part in making the affordability of milk products very, very high. We want those to be the beverage of choice

for people with young families. Anything we can do as a government to make that more affordable, I think this is a very small thing, a small gesture, a small token. But I think that when you look at the overall impact of it, it’s very positive.

I come from Hay River where we have a Dental Surgery Program in our hospital and how many times we have seen people come there to receive dental surgery with their little children who are being put under general anaesthetic to have all their teeth removed. We have seen this over and over again. How many times have I, as a mother, been at functions where I have seen people put everything from Coffee Mate mixed with water, to pop in babies bottles? These are the more affordable things. So anything that we can do to send a message from this government to encourage people to buy and feed their children milk products is something.

Although this won’t cost us a lot of money, it will go a long ways and I thank the Member for bringing forward this motion and I support it 100 percent.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the outset I would like to say that I support this motion and I’d like to thank Mr. Bromley for bringing it forward. I also want to say that I support the recycling efforts of this government and the Minister of Environment and the program that he is monitoring and expanding over the years. Anything that we can do to increase the recycling within our Territories is a good thing.

That said, I don’t support an increase in the price of milk. I think that this motion is a halfway point between recycling containers but also not causing it to be an increase in the cost for our residents.

I think it’s well known that I support milk. I’ve supported the idea of a milk subsidy over the last couple of years. I totally agree with the comments made by my colleagues about the importance of milk in the development of a child, and through the young years of children for their healthy growth and development it’s extremely important.

One of the things that this government has put in place is a Healthy Foods Initiative and part of that Healthy Foods Initiative is the policy that milk is a good healthy food. It’s an integral component of a program that we have, but at the same time through the recycling we’re saying yes, this is very important and we want to try to keep the costs down for people and encourage them to eat healthy foods and use healthy foods, but we’re adding to the cost of that healthy food. That doesn’t do anything for the general cost of living. That again is an initiative that this government keeps saying we are working on. In order to do something about the

cost of living but also and to the recycling, we have to have a different way of approaching this particular problem.

I think what we can do, as Mr. Bromley has suggested, is look at a different way of funding. There’s going to be a certain loss of revenue in this particular program. It’s going to be anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000, I think, at the most. That’s not very much money. There already is a fund of $400,000 identified in the Department of ECE budget. It’s easy to transfer some money out of there.

I have another suggestion for the Minister and for the department. I think what we can do to recoup that $75,000 is to add an extra non-refundable recycling fee to our pop bottles and pop cans and liquor bottles. We have added to sin taxes in the last year or so, so I think I consider those somewhat sinful. Certainly liquor is sinful. I think if we want to recoup that $75,000, let’s add five or 10 cents to every pop can and liquor bottle. I think that would go a long way and would certainly offset the revenue that’s going to be lost by giving the full costs back to people that are recycling milk containers.

That said, I am in full support of the motion and I encourage all my colleagues to vote in support as well.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.