As for the contract awarded to the successful proponent, 55.1 percent of the work is going to be done by local people in Inuvik and 3.2 percent is going to be done by NWT outside of Inuvik. I will confirm to get some additional numbers to the Member, but I can confirm to the Member that there are 50 local Gwich’in residents who started the training required for the Hazmat removal. Of those, 30 local individuals in Inuvik were hired to actually do the Hazmat removal. Most of those remained employed until recently, as the Hazmat removal has actually come to a conclusion to get ready to drop the building. So 30 of the 50 people that were trained did actually obtain employment.

As far as the other numbers, we will get those numbers from the successful proponent and I will share those with you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are a follow-up to my Member’s statement earlier to the Minister of ENR regarding fracking activities in the Sahtu and the permitting process. This Assembly has approached this new and controversial form of development on both sides of the House, to achieve better understanding of what fracking means for the NWT. EDI’s recommendations report clearly indicated the need for development of policy and regulatory framework, assembly of data, having thorough information and control before potentially damaging decisions are made.

Is the Minister committed to heeding this advice, living up to his own statements that fracking must be environmentally sustainable in ensuring vital monitoring and management plans are in place before fracking goes ahead? Mahsi.

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

Mr. Speaker, the government is hard at work, along with working with community members, on the whole issue to do with fracking. We have been doing work now for the last six months or so. We have come up with a

draft. It is a best practices policy paper which is being shared within governments and is being shared with the regulators. It is going to come back and be shared with committee. It identifies a lot of the critical best practices across industry. We believe that if they are complied with and they are clear, unequivocal and understandable, we will be able to manage and protect the interests and the balance of economic development of this particular practice. Thank you.

Thank you to the Minister for that response. I am happy to hear that things are progressing on that front, and hopefully they will be coming to committee soon. I guess it won’t be until the fall, but it will be after these decisions are being made.

Last fall the Sahtu Land and Water Board referred an MGM Energy proposal for a fracking test well program to environmental review, citing significant outstanding concerns meriting detailed resolution before work went ahead. Today the board is receiving final submissions on whether that same still valid logic should be applied to the proposal by ConocoPhillips. The Minister has said repeatedly that fracking must be sustainable and based on sound environmental information and regulatory controls.

Does the Minister support the ConocoPhillips application to environmental review and has he communicated his position to the board?

Mr. Speaker, I think we should make the distinction between the two applications, the MGM Energy one and the ConocoPhillips one. The ConocoPhillips application is very comprehensive. It covers a whole host of areas, which is one of the reasons there was a different decision made by the Sahtu Land and Water Board when they looked at the MGM Energy proposal. It didn’t have the same depth and level of comprehensiveness as the ConocoPhillips one does.

The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources has coordinated a response to the Government of the Northwest Territories and there has been review by all of the appropriate departments, Education, Social Services, Health, and Environment and Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the best practices that we are using as our guide, when we look at what ConocoPhillips has put in their application, there is a great linkage there. We are of the opinion that if in fact ConocoPhillips complies with everything that they promised plus the extensive list of mitigating measures put forward by the Government of the Northwest Territories, that this project could proceed, in our mind, without any further requirements, other than meeting those commitments by ConocoPhillips and addressing the

concerns raised that we have supplied to the Sahtu Land and Water Board. Thank you.

I will take that as a no, despite our Minister reporting being environmentally responsible, and that we do not have policies in place and that we have no decisions made on monitoring and follow-up.

There is nothing in their application on greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation management. We are going to support that going ahead without review. I am very disappointed to hear that.

As I pointed out, we have yet to set goals and limits on cumulative environmental impacts and thresholds. Regulatory mechanisms don’t exist. Unfortunately, adaptive management processes on which to base permits and management have not been developed, and there are no plans for detailed monitoring or mitigation of the greenhouse gas aspect of the proposal.

In keeping with his stated commitment, will the Minister recommit to these requirements and the recommendations of the fracking report as minimum first steps before any exploratory or test permit application is approved? Please reconsider.

Mr. Speaker, as a government, we have to balance many things, and we need to balance the environment and economic development and resource development. We have taken the appropriate steps to ensure we have the policy base that work is underway. We are, at the same time, recognizing that the world is not going to stand still and we need to maintain that balance as we catch up with our policy work. We are going to do that. We have looked very carefully, very thoroughly at the ConocoPhillips application and we are, once again, confident of what ConocoPhillips have put in their application in terms of commitments and if they address the concerns, extensive concerns we’ve put forward to the land and water board that this project is safe to proceed, recognizing that there is still work to be done, that this is a whole area that is new and we are doing a lot of the further detailed work to catch up that is going to allow them to more effectively address some of the concerns the Member has raised.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

I guess I’ll just leave it at this. This government is obviously open for business at any cost. We are always in favour of development and we always fail to protect our people and our land. I think that’s a pretty consistent record. So maybe I could just get the Minister to define for me what he sees as balance. Mahsi.

The Member has made a harsh condemnation of the House and, by extension, the Legislature. He’s made some sweeping, universal condemnation of this

government and the position we take on the balance, the priorities of the 17th Legislative

Assembly, the balance between protecting the environment and at the same time balancing that with the need to be able to look at having an economy that is resource-based in this case.

We are doing that. When you look at the work we’re doing across the board as a government on water, on the tools devolution will give us, when you look at the work we’re doing on wildlife, on dealing with caribou, when you look at the work we’re doing on developing comprehensive policies for fracking that I believe we have demonstrated and will continue to demonstrate our commitment. Alternate energy, the Greenhouse Gas Strategy, we are thoroughly committed and this has been imbedded in our approach as a government. So there is that quest for balance. It’s a constant quest, but the Member’s sweeping condemnation is harsh. A sweeping condemnation of the government I think is clearly unwarranted. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services. What is the status of the Harriet Gladu Health Centre in Tulita?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The planning study for the new health centre in Tulita will be completed this fiscal year, the ’13-14 fiscal year. The hope is that after the planning study is completed that it will be included into the ’15-16 capital acquisition plan. Thank you.

Will the Minister reconsider bumping up the construction of the Harriet Gladu Health Centre earlier than ’15-16 into the capital? That means that this health centre, the way he explained it, will not probably be built until ‘17, ‘18 or ‘19. Can the Minister consider bumping up the inclusion of the health centre into earlier dates than ’15-16?

The decision on where the capital… Like, this lands on the overall infrastructure capital plan; it’s not mine. That decision is made by the House as a whole. What I can do is tell the Members that I will ensure that the planning study is completed this fiscal year and that the department will put the planning study into the capital acquisition plan for inclusion as quickly as possible. Thank you.

I certainly look forward to the Minister’s effort and support to finish off the

planning study for the Harriet Gladu Health Centre. I’ve also asked him, too, because he is a Cabinet Minister and that has a little more weight in terms of what type of infrastructure gets put into the overall capital infrastructure on behalf of his department. I’m asking that. I know we’re up against some other significant health care facilities; however, the need for the Harriet Gladu Health Centre could possibly rank as one that needs to be put into an earlier date for construction.

I would ask the Minister if he will work with his colleagues and give this commitment to the people in Tulita and the Sahtu that he would do his darndest effort to put that into an earlier date than ’15-16.

As I indicated, we would do the planning study this fiscal year, and recognizing that the health centre in Tulita is about half the size it should be to accommodate the needs of the community will be a factor when we move this capital plan into the capital allocation process. That’s something that we’re going to indicate loud and clear, that this centre is inadequate for providing all of the services necessary to that community at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the Trout Lake School and the need to also advance that project.

I was doing my recent spring visit to Trout Lake, and the community, of course, raised it once again. The principal also showed me the facilities. As I said, the renovations I don’t think were properly completed. But there is still a need to upgrade that school and even build us a new school in Trout Lake, so I would like to know if the Education, Culture and Employment Minister has updated the forecast for the number of students in Trout Lake as people have returned to the community and the population continues to grow.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We’ve been closely monitoring Trout Lake, the population and the number of students in the school, as well, along with other schools that are in a similar calibre. Currently, we have approximately 19 students. That’s 58 percent being utilized in the school.

Those are just some of the numbers that we have in play. But we are in the process of visiting the community, and I want my staff to be in the community to look for themselves, because they are a part of the capital planning process, then I

think that will make a difference. We are planning to visit the community within the next couple of weeks.