Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use my Member’s statement to talk about the facts, so here they are: In 2009 the NWT Community Housing Survey said that 19 percent of Northerners are in core need of housing. What matters little more than your health and your family than housing? Everything starts at home. While we continue to talk about revitalizing our declining population here in the Northwest Territories, we have communities suffering the negative effects of

population leaving. But where do we start? Well, if there are no places to access housing, be it in Yellowknife, be it Paulatuk, be it Fort Good Hope, what do people do? People move to larger centres. What happens there? Their communities get smaller. Connect the dots – I hope the Finance Minister is – we have a declining population.

How do we get a teacher in a community that has no housing options? We’ve heard that complaint in Liard. We’ve heard that complaint in other small towns. How do we get a tradesperson in Norman Wells because they have nowhere to live? What about Tuktoyaktuk? What about even sometimes in Inuvik? These are real issues.

While this government continues to curl itself up with pipe dreams or focus in on its individual mining or fracking projects, it continues to forget about what matters to Northerners. We have to start at home. That’s where family is built and that is certainly where opportunities are built. In my view, what matters more than that? We want healthy families. We want housing options. They help families to be happy. They will have a better outlook. There have been many studies and many discussions over the years about family violence declines when suitable housing is there for people. These are all things that should be heralded by this government as job number one, but, again, focused in on the pipe dreams, mines and fracking, and other opportunities.

When they say they’re open for business, I ask, where? Because no business will come if they’ve got nowhere to live. I’ve heard from many people across the territory that they’d like to go to a small community but they don’t have the options. If you look at the average of this government right now, as I see in some scribbled notes in the backrooms, I see they’re going to implement less than one house, new house, across every community across the Northwest Territories.

What I’m saying is we have 33 communities in this territory, and we’re putting less than 33 new housing options on the ground in the North. Can we do better? I think we could do a lot better, because if we want to grow our population, as our Finance Minister says, if we want to get more investment from corporate and personal income tax, we’ve got to have people here, and those are the people who will help revitalize our North. Let’s get it done.

I’ll have questions, certainly, for the Minister of Housing to find out what he’s going to do.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For years this government has professed support for renewable energy and concern about cost of living. While enjoying reduced costs from converting our own infrastructure to renewables, we’ve hung communities out to dry. Soaring power costs to ratepayers and drains on tax revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies have been the result.

A sad case in point was the Fort Liard Geothermal Project. The Fort Liard Geothermal Project was led by private developer, Borealis GeoPower in partnership with the Acho Dene Koe First Nation of Fort Liard. The federal role was a commitment of $7.9 million, provided that investors could be found to finance the other half.

A third-party review confirmed that the project was technically feasible. Feasibility was again confirmed when the company rigorously and successfully met every regulatory and financial obligation required for a Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board permit in less than a year. Based on this, a line-up of investors was prepared to fund the other 50 percent of the project, requiring only the customary power purchase agreement from our 100 percent owned Power Corporation.

NTPC and GNWT were aware of the timing and of the existence of the sunset clauses related to the federal funding as well as subsequent timelines required to confirm investment. As a result of NTPC’s procrastination and failure to provide the signed power purchase agreement needed, the federal funding lapsed and the Fort Liard Geothermal Project folded.

To be clear, what was lost here was a 20-year contract for power to be provided at one-half to two-thirds of the cost of the day, a huge savings to the people of Liard, to the NWT power system and to the environment and the loss of local jobs that were to be generated. This travesty was the result of a philosophy of monopoly for power generation and distribution in the Northwest Territories for NTPC with an endorsement by this government, leaving accelerating costs of power accruing to the public.

Is this government serious about exploring renewable energy sources for community benefit, as opposed to just our own government benefit? Where was the direction to this wholly owned corporation to provide a timely power purchase agreement?

Clearly, and shamefully, despite backing by the community, by regulators and investors, by the federal government, the buck stopped with us and we failed our people. How often has this happened across the NWT before without it being profiled in the House? What other opportunities to actually reduce cost have we passed over, choosing instead to remove motivations and spend our millions on hollow subsidies while costs soar?

Borealis Geothermal remains convinced of this project’s feasibility and committed to the Liard project and claims investors are still interested, even without the federal subsidy. Does this government have what it takes to pursue this opportunity?

I will have questions. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize and welcome from the Status of Women Council of the Northwest Territories, Lorraine Phaneuf, executive director; Annemieke Mulders, programs and research manager; Samantha Thomas, community development coordinator. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m very happy to recognize my partner, Lucyanne Kendo, in the gallery this week, and also my stepdaughter, Brittany Jewel, who’s showing off her haircut to the whole of the Northwest Territories today. Welcome.

Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to make mention of several Yellowknife Centre constituents. I’ll start on the end with the NWT

Status of Women. We have Annemieke Mulders, Lorraine Phaneuf and I believe Samantha Thomas also lives downtown. She’s shaking her head, but I’ll take her anyway. Sitting next to them is the lovely Ms. Katherine Robinson. She’s devoted many great years of service here at the Premier’s office and to help many Members here, and she’s done a wonderful job. So, thank you very much for each and every one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two young Pages we have here with us this week: Mr. James Beaulieu and Austin Cayen, and also their chaperone, my own constituency assistant, Myrtle Graham. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I’d like to welcome everybody here in the public gallery today. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to acknowledge and congratulate Weledeh constituent Zhalaani Drygeese-Yelle on her recognition as Top Young Trapper in the North Slave region under the Genuine Mackenzie Fur program.

---Applause

It’s excellent to see her here in the gallery. Apologies for not recognizing Zhalaani. Perhaps her family is here too.

Zhalaani, a resident of Detah and in Grade 12, will graduate this year, but she is also learning about the traditional skills of her culture from her parents. Zhalaani’s parents believe in teaching their children both traditional and modern skills. A member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, she went on her first caribou hunt when she was nine and is now being recognized for her excellence in trapping muskrat and beaver. Obviously, her proud parents, Bertha Drygeese and Gerry Yelle, were successful and have much to pass on.

Mr. Speaker, I invite you and all Members to congratulate Zhalaani on her achievement and wish her well as she pursues her two paths of excellence. Well done, Zhalaani!

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I go back to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery?

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wish to acknowledge my constituency assistant, Josh Campbell. Lorraine Bezha, as you know, has gone to get her education and career in Fort Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to congratulate our Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on being named the president of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region and all the work that his department is doing with the geoscience office in undertaking of forming of the office of the regulator of the oil and gas operations in the Northwest Territories.

I want to ask the Minister of ITI to update the House briefly as to where his office is at in adopting and creating new policies and guidelines as the regulator.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the decisions that the government made was to regulate the oil and gas industry ourselves here in the Northwest Territories and grow the capacity here in the NWT, and we’ve done that. We’ve got an office set up separate from the Department of ITI, the office of the oil and gas regulator. It’s got an executive director; we’ve got staff in place at that office, and we’re looking forward to regulating the industry. We don’t have a lot of activity taking place currently, but we’re looking to see some more activity in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to say that we have a saying in the Sahtu: If you shoot a moose right the first time, you’ll have enough meat and hide and you’ll feed the family.

As the regulator, we’re setting up this office now in the Northwest Territories. Is the Minister in this

fashion, are we learning the hard way or are we learning the amazing and fast way? Can the Minister guarantee that we’ll be engaged in shaping the new regulation body, which stems directly and philosophically from the 17th Assembly priorities of

their positions and goals? Thank you.

What we have is an opportunity here, an opportunity to get things right, and it is our belief that we can regulate the industry ourselves. We have put the pieces in place that are going to allow us to regulate the industry here in the Northwest Territories, and we feel very competent that who best to regulate the industry than Northerners. We’re very proud of the decisions we’ve made to date and we’re proud of the opportunities that we have going forward and certainly look forward to working with Regular Members as we continue to strive to get the best regulatory system in place here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.