Mr. Dolynny, your time for your Member’s statement is concluded.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

…charge to ward off a Member of this government the right to get answers to simple questions and to protect the public purse.

Strangely enough, this is a recurrent theme that I as a Member see all too often when I assist constituents who want to gain access to information from this government. It almost appears that this government has a history of document dumping and fee shock to scare off would-be inquiries. This now appears to be the tactics used on an elected Member of this House.

I will be tabling, later today, my bill from the Department of Public Works and Services. Yes, I will have a few questions for the Minister later today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is World Environment Day. It is the biggest and most widely celebrated day for positive environmental action. It is perhaps fitting that this day we chose to vote on a motion to support devolution on the management of public lands and resources from Canada to this government. I hope that this is a

sign of our strong determination to respect our land and environment.

We Dene people are part of the land, the land is part of us, it is integral to our lives. We thank the moose or caribou, it gives us life to feed us, to keep us strong and healthy. We thank the land for feeding the animals and for our safe travels on it. This is what the elders teach. The elders have also prophesized that the land would change, that the deer will come back, that water will be valuable, that the sun will get hotter. We have seen all of this happening.

In our lifetimes, the weather has turned much warmer, there is more rain, the pattern of caribou migrations have changed, and permafrost is melting. I guess it’s not permanent. We must be aware of all of these things as responsible stewards of the land. The elders teach us to be observant when we are out on the land. It is key to our survival and to the health of the land.

There are many pressures on our land today. We’re building roads to new mines; we have oil and gas development and pipelines; we’ve been called upon to allow fracking to spur the flow of oil and gas to the surface. We have to balance consultation and resource development. We have to make some hard decisions. We have to base them on good scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge. It is the only way we will succeed.

In the Deh Cho this has always been the goal of our land use plan. Twelve years ago and $6 million later, we should have more results. It is not easy to balance the wishes of industry and the elders’ advice for a sound, effective management system. If governments were more serious about it, we’d soon be able to implement a land use plan we could all be proud of.

On this World Environment Day, we should celebrate the good work we have done, but also recognize that we have much more to do. Our world’s environment depends on what we do every day. That is what the elders teach. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. I recognize Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to rise on a point of order based on rules of debate 23, subsections (h) and (i) with respect to the statement made by Mr. Dolynny.

Mr. Dolynny made reference to the fact that the department has encouraged him to submit an ATIPP request and has then filed or suggested that he’d have to pay some fees to get the information that he has.

Mr. Speaker, as MLAs and as Ministers we have to balance the rights to privacy versus the release of

information. In this particular case, the Member has been seeking, through the House and during debate in Committee of the Whole, a copy of a contract. We have an obligation to protect the rights of third-party interests in all situations, but in this particular situation, before information on a contract can be released, we would need to go to a third party to seek that additional information. We’ve encouraged the Member to do that. To date, we actually do not have a letter or an application from the MLA requesting this information.

Do you have a point of order?

We do. The point of order is that the Member for Range Lake has suggested that we are impeding his ability to get detailed information to do his job. The fact is, we have encouraged the Member to submit an ATIPP request. The Member has not submitted an ATIPP request. We only have one ATIPP request on this information and it’s from a third party, from an individual who hasn’t identified himself to be working in any capacity with the MLA, and it has been from a home address, not a government address.

I’m concerned, Mr. Speaker, that the Member is suggesting that we are intentionally trying to keep information from him, which is not the case. We have rules, we have procedures, and I’ve encouraged the Member to follow them. I am waiting for the Member to follow them, and when the Member follows them, we will deal with them accordingly.

As far as fines as according to ATIPP, any person can ask to have the fees waived, and in this case nobody has asked for any fees to be waived. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. At this time I’m going to allow a little bit of debate on this point of order. Mr. Dolynny, would you like to respond to that point of order? Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in defence of this point of order. The allegation that this request, this ATIPP request did not come from the office of Range Lake is absolutely absurd. Mr. Grant Pryznyk is a constituency assistant of mine and I think everyone in this House knows he is a constituency assistant of mine. He is the one who submitted the ATIPP request.

So the fact remains that this came from the office of Range Lake and the Minister is clearly aware of this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I will allow a little bit of discussion on the point of order. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in defence along the lines of Mr. Dolynny’s request.

As we all know, two truths or two perspectives can lie before the House and both can be equally correct. They may not necessarily share the same view.

In order for Mr. Dolynny to discharge the duties and functions of his job, as highlighted under privilege under Beauchesne’s on page 11, this is part of the essence of getting to the facts and the details necessary for dialogue and discussion.

No documentation of this nature should be hidden from Members without confidential reasons. That alone should stand on its own merit and use at the most finest opportunity ever to defend why we don’t release things because of that.

So, Mr. Speaker, in short, I think there is no point of order on this one. Mr. Dolynny is executing his job, as I certainly understand he is. He’s reaching out under privilege in his ability to do his job. I think Beauchesne’s stands clearly on the record and says he has to execute that duty, and by asking for information denied by the Department of Public Works, even fettered by Public Works or delayed by Public Works, whatever the circumstances are, it’s stopping him from fulfilling that.

So I say Mr. Abernethy doesn’t have a point of order. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Menicoche, to the point of order.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In speaking with Mr. Dolynny this morning and yesterday, he did show me documentation that actually was a response to his request, in fact asking him for money to get that information that we as MLAs are privileged to get. I don’t know what’s going on with our Legislature, but we should not be paying to get information from the Cabinet side. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Miltenberger, to the point of order. Mr. Miltenberger has the floor.

Mr. Speaker, the issue is the Minister has risen on a point of order where he’s said the Member opposite was imputing motive contrary to our rules of order. We’re engaging in a debate over material not before the House, so the Speaker is going to be required to use all his skill to sort through what has transpired. The information we’ve seen was that the documents filed were by private individuals that didn’t identify themselves.

It’s a busy day today. Today is important for other things. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we do our normal good work and carry on with the business of the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. At this time, I will close on this point of order and take

it under advisement and report back to the House tomorrow. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since 2008, that was the last time we saw any significant amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act. Five years later, so many more problems come forward, and we need, once again, to take a look at this serious issue.

I’ve stood on a few occasions to talk about my concerns about affordable rent protection and even enforcement from the rentals office and implement an order that they provide. As we all know, there are no rent controls in the Northwest Territories. To be clear, I’m not in favour of supporting the idea of rent controls per se, but I have spoken at length and continue to support reasonable rent accommodations, and I’d also say tenants need protection.

There’s a necessity to go back and look at this particular problem as well as several other issues under the Residential Tenancies Act. Living somewhere is not a luxury; it is a necessity. If the everyday working family is priced out of the market, something is wrong.

I think there’s an occasion here before us to open up and have some good discussion both with landlords and tenants to find out what’s working. I’ve spoken previously about setting up a framework where we set limits of what they can continue to raise, and if they need more money – the landlord that is – then they come back and have a dialogue. It could work something like the PUB right now.

Other issues I’ve raised, and I continue to see problems here, is some landlords have bad tenants and they cannot evict them, and the process seems to stall while these tenants don’t pay rent and cause further problems. Again, that’s only one side. That’s not the whole picture, but I think reviewing the Residential Tenancies Act is a chance to get both sides into the issue, create fairness and ensure that we are listening.

The last issue I want to raise about problems under the Residential Tenancies Act that need to be looked at is the fact that, look, we had problems with the rental office. They can issue an order but it has no teeth. We saw that last year, and we have a situation, is the big guy, or the landlord, may be fully funded to be able to go fight these with lawyers, but the little guy who’s trying to defend what they perceive as an injustice, it’s almost like mounting a hopeless cause some day. Then when you do get an order issued by the rentals and tenancies office, nothing happens because the big guy can ignore it.

In short, I think the Residential Tenancies Act needs to be reviewed, and I will be asking the Minister of Justice to look at this very matter in detail later today.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along with my colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake, I want to stand today to recognize the 29th anniversary of the Inuvialuit land claim. The signing of the land claim was a historic moment back in 1984, and I think we owe our gratitude to the people that negotiated, the Committee of Original Peoples Entitlement, or COPE as it was called back in the day. They did a lot of good work in leading up to this.

Since the signing of the agreement, the Inuvialuit have worked hard to play a very important role in the economy, and I think there’s no better example than when you go through the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation office in Inuvik and you see all the folks that are employed along with many of the subsidiary companies that many, many of the people there are employed. It was a good first step to self-sufficiency and it gave us a better ability to control what goes on in the Inuvialuit land.

The Inuvialuit land claim covers thousands of square kilometres. I don’t know what people realize, but what I just learned lately is that much of this, a good portion of this is put aside for conservation, and if there’s any industry or any work to be done on the land, then the Inuvialuit have the deciding factor in whether work is going to happen on there or not, which I think is huge. It’s not going to be decided for us.

They’re also in the process of negotiating a self-government agreement. I was just texted some pictures from up in Inuvik, and it’s wet and it’s snowing up there, but they’re still having a great celebration out on the main road. Nothing dampens the spirits of the people of Inuvik and the Inuvialuit. They’ll dance through any kind of weather.

I would like to pass on my personal congratulations to the Inuvialuit. Like many of the people up in the Beau-Del that are both Inuvialuit and Gwich’in, I think we’re all very proud of our heritage, and we look forward to the good work that these folks are going to be doing in the future, and we look forward to being the beneficiaries of that good work. I think we owe a great deal of gratitude to all the people that came before us, paved the way for much of the Inuvialuit-Gwich’in leadership today.

With that, I want to pass along my personal congratulations. [English translation not provided.]

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to congratulate a few people on the Premier’s Awards that were given out this morning in the Great Hall, people that originate from Tu Nedhe: Danny Beaulieu – my brother, actually – and Heather Beck for their work in the anthrax breakout; Felix Lockhart for his work in the residential school impacts; and also Justin Bailey and Everett McQueen for their work with young people.

I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate Jonas and Violet Beaulieu of Fort Resolution who celebrated their 60th anniversary on May 19th in Fort

Resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.