Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank my colleagues for their thoughtful comments and feedback. I would like to start by just trying to bring a number of pieces together here. There were questions and concerns raised about what’s happening to the environmental landscape around us with the changes at the federal level and what that means to us. What are we doing to fill in? How are we going to manage our affairs in spite of that?

At the same time, we are working on devolution to take over land, water and resource development.

Then there is the concern raised about transboundary waters, water in general and why we are spending money or that amount of money when we don’t have legal responsibility, which is a bit of a contradiction to the early concern. I would just like to say this: We are very close to devolution, looking at taking over land, water and resource development.

The 15th Assembly, when it comes to water, made a

decision and passed a unanimous motion in this House, saying that water was a fundamental human right. That motion was the basis for the 16th and 17th Assemblies to go forward and build the

Water Strategy, look at internal implementation of that climate in the territory and, at the same time, move towards negotiating the transboundary water agreements which were required to be done back in 1997, when we signed on to the Mackenzie River Basin Transboundary Master Agreement, and was never followed up on.

So what are we doing now to protect our interests and why are we spending so much money on water are two linked questions. We made a decision in the 15th Assembly, going on six, seven years ago

now, that has led to a significant investment in the development of the Water Strategy. It has led to our ability to develop a transboundary negotiating team that is at the table with Alberta. It has allowed us to build an exemplary community-based water monitoring system in the Northwest Territories that folks have told us they wanted to see so that they could have assurances that the water they were drinking was safe, and as the Member for Sahtu asked about the substantially unaltered language in the land claims.

So why did we do this if we had no legal responsibility? It has been clear for the last seven years that we are moving towards devolution, and we were operating on the political and moral authority of this Assembly and of the North to prepare itself and take over its responsibilities. And water, we were told by everybody in the Northwest Territories, was a fundamental issue that they wanted us to take care of.

The investment in water, we should be clear, is not going to stop. Once we negotiate agreements, there’s going to be a requirement to do ongoing monitoring. We’re going to have to be vigilant. We’re going to have to commit and invest the same way Mr. Bromley asked us how we’re going to offset the cuts and the changes and the downsizing the federal government is going through. Well, we are making investments that we think, as an Assembly and as a territory, are critical to the well-being of the Northwest Territories.

When we concluded transboundary negotiations with Alberta, we have to go then to BC and

Saskatchewan. Thirdly, we have to go back to the Yukon and renegotiate that one, because that one was done in 1997, and if you look at that agreement compared to the awareness of water now, and the complexities that people now recognize, it is a feel good bureaucratic agreement that has no substance. We have to redo that so we can, in fact, talk about the Peel Watershed as well.

We have to be prepared to continue to invest in those critical issues. I’m not here to defend the federal government whatsoever. We recognize that they’re making decisions that they think are in their best interests. As the Premier indicated, they didn’t consult with us, they didn’t ask us. We have to be prepared to live with that reality and protect our own interests. It’s those type of investments that are going to allow us to protect those interests.

As we approach devolution, I would suggest to you that if we hadn’t invested six or seven years of work in getting ready on water, people would be justifiably concerned if we were not ready, that our thinking wasn’t clear. If we hadn’t done all the work we’ve done on the Wildlife Act and all the other related issues with the species at risk, I would suggest to you, people would be saying, my goodness, our thinking is not really clear here and are we ready. I’m here to tell you that we’ve made those investments and we are ready.

We are going to continue to invest in those areas. There is money in the budget for solar. I’m just going to pick through some of the concerns. Within that context, I’d like to address some of these specific issues.

There was a concern raised about the Land Use and Sustainability Framework. What does that do and how will that help us? The Land Use and Sustainability Framework is a framing document that outlines our thinking as it pertains to land use in the Northwest Territories and what do we mean by sustainability. It captures the principles that are in the existing sustainability framework and it’s going to lay out, on a go-forward basis, what our thoughts are about land use planning, so that we can go now to the table and finalize the agreements with the Dehcho, for example. That framing document, that Land Use and Sustainability Framework captures and has within it some other subsidiary strategies: the Water Strategy, the Economic Development Strategy, the Mineral Resource Strategy and the Energy Strategy. All those are critical linked strategies guided by the principles of the Land Use and Sustainability Framework.

We need, as a government, to have our thinking clear. That is why we’re investing time and effort in all these different areas. It’s going to help us make the right decisions with the Dehcho. There are bilateral arrangements that have been set up with the Dehcho. The Protected Areas Strategy is not in

jeopardy. What we are doing is consolidating the work on the five candidate areas, on Edehzhie we are going to come to the table, or we are at the table with the Dehcho and we will reach an agreement. That is clear. We want to reach an agreement, as well, on the broader Land Use Plan. That commitment by the government is clear. So that work is underway.

As it pertains to the environmental assessment process and involvement and how we’re going to do that, we’re going to commit resources as we have them and as it is required. In the Sahtu, if it proves up, we know there will be greater impacts and we will collectively, as a Legislature and as a government, have to put our heads together to see how we manage those.

The budget for implementing solar comes through the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee. The Power Corporation is moving ahead with a commitment, for example, and we’re focusing on Colville. A small community where we’re going to look at solar, batteries and diesel, and how much penetration can we make with solar. We’re going to do one other community on top of that.

As it pertains to some of the other energy issues, the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake raised the concern about the gas situation. As a government, we’ve been looking seriously at liquid natural gas as an alternative. It has a small carbon footprint, a cheaper alternative, a better alternative than diesel. We’re looking not only at its application in Inuvik, but we believe there’s going to be a significant opportunity and application in other thermal communities like Liard and Simpson and Wrigley; all the ones that are accessible as we work our way north on the road system. We expect to be able to stand up in this House in the next couple weeks or so, as I mentioned to the Member today, to hopefully make some specific announcements about where that LNG work is taking us next.

We are also going to be standing up as we talk about energy in the other communities. We’ve talked about solar, there’s a commitment to biomass. With all due respect to Member Hawkins, solar does make sense. It’s been proven around the world. If you do it right, and I would suggest to you, if you looked at all the fixed costs tied to diesel, at the end of the day they are going to be very, very close and growing in favour of solar. The good thing about solar is the energy itself is free, and the technology is getting cheaper every day. Our ability to blend it with, like they do in Colville Lake, batteries and diesel, will allow us to increase our reliance on alternative energy, still have a backup, smooth out the relationship between solar and diesel, getting us to the smart group technology that would be applicable in every community in the Northwest Territories.

Madam Chair, our commitment to biomass is significant as a government. We have one of the best biomass strategies in the country, I believe, and we’re implementing it. Is there enough inventory to sustain the work? Yes, there is. We have to manage it properly. We have to work with the Aboriginal governments and the communities. We’re investing money in inventory work, forest management agreements in the South and North Slave, so that we can proceed with biomass. A pellet plant is being proposed. Our plan as a Legislature was always clear: Build the market and then you can build an industry. We have built the market and are continuing to build the market. Now we are working hard and we have a private investor, with all his own money, looking at building an industry that we believe will have, as Mr. Nadli pointed out, significant economic benefits to the communities that are going to be involved as equity partners, return on investment, employment opportunities. All those good things are going to be there. So we are very committed to that.

The issue of fracking, there are guidelines. We anticipate we are going to have guidelines by this coming fall. We have been working with the committees, the Minister of ITI and myself, the appropriate deputies committee. Cabinet has put out instructions. There is work being done and there are guidelines. Our job is to make sure, as has been pointed out around this table, that we have this balance between protecting the environment and economic development; in this case, hydraulic fracturing. That work, committee has been briefed on and they will continue to be briefed on as we move forward. We anticipate that we will be able to come to an agreement on a way to manage this one.

Energy use, replace fossil fuels is more than just a slogan. I made a note of that; that was Mr. Dolynny. I think, from the amount of money we spend and actual work on the ground, we can demonstrate that we are leading the country in some areas in terms of replacing fossil fuels and we are continuing to do that in increasingly progressive ways.

The baseline information that we need to gather, we are focusing in the Sahtu. We have $200,000 in the budget. We are going to leverage that, working with this environmental study and research fund that is funded by industry that is going to allow us to put hundreds more or thousands of dollars to work in the Sahtu to focus on a baseline information on groundwater, surface water and wildlife concerns raised by the people of the Sahtu through their Sahtu Land and Water Board. We have committed to working with the federal government, National Energy Board and all the appropriate groups and governments in the Sahtu to get that work done.

The Wildlife Act is a culmination of nearly a decade of work that is coming up. It will come into this

House probably in early March for us to give first and second reading to, so that committee can then decide the extent of their consultation that they think is necessary and be able to report that bill back to this House if not in the May-June session, then in the fall session. Then we can have the very great pleasure, I am hoping, of voting on third reading that will put in place, once again I think, a very progressive piece of legislation that has set the bar not only for content but how that legislation was drafted in partnership with multiple hands on the pen with the Aboriginal governments and the territorial government, same as we did with the Species at Risk Act.

If you give me one second, I want to make sure I cover as much of this as I can.

The issue about caribou, we have about $1 million in the budget. There is another $400,000 that they are using for biophysical work. We put that money into the base a number of years ago, when we realized very clearly that we can’t just be doing surveys on an ad hoc basis, that we needed to commit, especially when we had the Bathurst crash and all the other herds in distress. So that money is in the budget and it is there for that very reason, that we can monitor that. What we are working towards over time is a system – with all credit being given to the Porcupine Caribou Management Board – that they have come to that sets predetermined triggers in terms of herd numbers and if the numbers, hit a certain level, certain actions are taken. There is no surprise. There is no debate. There is no politics. It is just based on the Aboriginal governments and all of the territorial government and all the folks on the board coming up with a good, smart, knowledge-based decision. I think that is what we have to work for across the territory.

As it pertains to the resident harvest in the North and South Slave, there is, and I have indicated this previously, we are doing the work, both as it relates to the Bluenose-East and Ahiak Beverly, to work through the appropriate processes so that we will hopefully be in a situation of reinstating resident harvest by the time the fall season rolls around in 2013, so that we can all benefit from the sacrifices we have collectively made to try to rebuild the herd numbers. That will be addressed as well.

I apologize if I missed anybody’s specific concerns, but I do thank you for the comments. I look forward to the detailed discussion.