Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. During my fall constituency tour, residents and communities are very concerned about the potential changes to the structure of our Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Rumour has it that the Minister and the Department of Health and Social Services are contemplating major changes since the health board was not reappointed in March of

this year. The plan, we hear, is to have a new CEO appointed in Hay River, and then this individual would then run both the Hay River Health Board and the Deh Cho Health Board. This is incredible.

Communities and regions want more autonomy, not less. My leaders and constituency are asking for information and consultations on this. When Health was devolved in 1988, it was the worst of all Aboriginal communities for authority and autonomy. Hence, the creation of our health boards; and this has worked very well up to this date.

In fact, I as the MLA have never been officially briefed on this plan. Now that I have heard from my constituency, I stand here and let the Minister of Health know that I unilaterally oppose this plan.

This change makes no sense. We cannot continually strip responsibilities and authorities away from our communities and send it to a community that has no idea how small communities operate.

I know, as a seasoned MLA, how government operates. If this was allowed to go through, it won’t be much longer and they would want to centralize more responsibilities, which means my region and communities will be losing jobs.

I cannot imagine the infinite wisdom that went into this plan. A constituent of mine said there is no hope that this is the right thing for taking care of our health needs in the Deh Cho. You cannot and will not take this responsibility away from my communities.

Later today I will be asking the Minister of Health – as my colleague Mr. Dolynny said, the man with the plan – when will he put an end to this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize and welcome the Deputy Consul-General, Mr. Zengfeng Wan; and Economic Commercial Consul, Mr. Lei Jianzhong, both from the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Calgary. We continue to welcome China’s interest in our territory and look forward to a positive and prosperous relationship for both our peoples. Enjoy the rest of your stay in Yellowknife, and best wishes to the Chinese community here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to recognize my parents, Dick and Loretta Abernethy, in the gallery. Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize a couple of constituents of Frame Lake who are in the gallery today. Ms. Barb Wyness is hopefully still up there – there she is – public relations and research officer for the Union of Northern Workers. Mr. Jeff Coradetti is president of the NWT Liberal Party, a new political organization that is just emerging. I think has she just left, but I wanted to recognize Ms. Lydia Bardak, the executive director of the John Howard Society. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the opportunity to welcome our Chinese delegation, our deputy consul as well as his colleagues, so I would like to say to him… [English translation not provided.] Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dolynny.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and through you no stranger to the House who is here on many occasions, and that’s our protocol officer, Ms. Carmen Moore, who is also a resident of Range Lake. So, Carmen, welcome to the House. I would also like to welcome our

delegates from the Chinese community. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to also recognize Tony Whitford, if he’s still here. I don’t know if Mayor Mark Heyck is still here. I’d also like to recognize – again I can’t see them – Dick and Loretta Abernethy, both residents of Weledeh. Hi up there. Finally, Sophie Clark, a resident of Weledeh and one of our Pages today. Thanks very much for all the service the Pages are providing us. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 7, acknowledgements. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to acknowledge the passing of respected elder Michel Paper of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.

Just two weeks away from his 100th birthday,

Michel loved sharing stories about the incredible changes he had lived through. From pre-contact times to trading with the Hudson’s Bay Company, seeing an airplane for the first time, even colour TV in Detah, his experience spanned generations.

Michel was a man of faith and generous spirit. Every time we talked, he would say how he appreciated my work and that he was praying for me. This is just the kind of person he was.

I know all Members of this House join me in sending our thoughts and sympathies to Michel’s family and the community who knew him and celebrate him today. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 8, oral questions. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement was a little all over the map today, I just had so much to talk about, I’m trying to get it all out there in the first day, but I’m going to try to cut back a little bit and just be a little more methodical about this now.

I’d like to ask the Premier – he’s talked about devolution, we’ve talked a lot about devolution. We’ve talked a lot about devolution in terms of jobs

and the resource revenue proceeds from the resources that leave the Northwest Territories. The bigger picture has got to come to play in the fact that we will have more control, but people need to understand what more control means.

Let’s use the Taltson Hydro Dam expansion as an example. How will devolution, after it is implemented, help us move projects like that ahead that benefit regions of the Northwest Territories like the South Slave? We’ve talked about it for so long, but how will that be a real benefit for us when devolution is in place? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are obviously very much looking forward to devolution, because as we’ve said many times, it will bring control and decision-making into our hands. Obviously, energy and our hydro development are first and foremost in our minds. We’ve been working very hard in putting together our Energy Plan, and also our NWT Power Corporation is working on a Hydro Development Strategy that we hope to be rolling out very soon.

When the Prime Minister was in Hay River I talked to him very specifically about hydro development and about the fact that even with devolution we still will be hampered or hamstrung by a borrowing limit imposed on our government. In order to be able to achieve our lofty visions of increasing our transmission lines, tying in all of our hydro energy together, we need to find a way so that the borrowing limit is not a hindrance. We’re so confident in our plans and our vision that we think we can do it using our own resources, as long as we’re not restricted.

Minister Miltenberger was in Hay River last week when he was doing a tour on how resource revenues would be spent, and he talked about it at that time. So we’re very bullish. We think hydro is a very good investment, especially developing the Taltson to its full potential. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier speaks of our borrowing limit and how that sometimes restrains us. In the past when we talked about projects like the Taltson Hydro expansion, we also talked about public funds combined with private investment, to see something like this go ahead. I was involved in those discussions. It seemed like a lot of that expansion kind of got all mixed in with transmission lines over the East Arm of Great Slave Lake and transmitting hydro to the diamond mines and so on. There was a real interest from the private sector in investing in the expansion of the Taltson Dam and I would like to know if that’s still on the radar. Thank you.

Thank you. I think our thinking is becoming very clear. We are going to

focus on expansion of transmission lines. Also, we feel we need the benefit of some of the businesspeople in the Northwest Territories, some of the people that have been around, very experienced businesspeople that we can work with and that can give us some advice on innovative ways to be able to finance and develop the hydro potential.

Also, when we talked to the Prime Minister he didn’t say no, which we thought was a very good response, but he did indicate that we needed to have a very clear business case and also that we needed to have a very well-developed plan. We will be investing so that we can do both of those things. I think that as we go forward, we expect to have a very good plan and strategy that we’ll be rolling out in the next few months. Thank you.

Again, not so many years ago we did have a business in Alberta that is very informed with respect to the development of energy and hydro, and we could never seem to advance that discussion as far as we wanted to. We had an unsolicited proposal from ATCO, out of Alberta, to partner with us to expand the Taltson. They’ve got money; they’ve got experience. One of the concerns at the time was that we didn’t have the capacity on our side of the table to negotiate something that people thought would be fair for the Northwest Territories.

Do we have that capacity now and could we still be looking at some kind of a joint venture that would bring that kind of financial resource to a project like this so that we could get it off the ground? My comment at the time always was as the Northwest Territories we can own 100 percent of nothing or we can own 50 percent of something. Thank you.