Thank you, Mr. Speaker.As I mentioned last week, we are going to take more time with the process that we have underway.

Again, every application is scrutinized by arm’s-length regulatory boards that hear directly from the public and make decisions and set requirements for every single project based on the specifics of each proposal, recognized best practices, current science and public views. Ruling out one particular technique is like telling a doctor they can only ever use general anesthetic for a procedure, when local anesthetic or even an aspirin might be more appropriate. It is more responsible to use the best approach for each job and make sure we, as a government, have created the best rules to manage that, and that is what we are trying to do here. Thank you.

I take it that’s a no to the moratorium. We all know that the people called for a halt to economic analysis of the last application, yet the government approved it, despite having the power to call for that environmental review.

Of more than 400 peer reviewed publications on the impacts of shale gas development, 75 percent of which we published in 2013, 96 percent indicate adverse health outcomes, 92 percent indicate elevated air pollution and 73 percent warn of water pollution because of fracking. Tight oil fracking starts after that, so the research is behind, but it’s coming out completely in parallel with this. Yet the Minister continues to assert that despite evidence worldwide to the contrary, we in the NWT will be able to beat the odds and do it safely.

On what basis does the Minister feel that he alone is right and the scientists of the world are wrong?

Again, Northerners have the ability to provide input into the assessment of every application at many stages of the process that we have in place here in the NWT, through intervening in the process, through submitting comments on the public record, to making comments at public hearings.

I have every confidence in our NWT regulatory system. Thank you.

I would just remind the Minister that the NWT has been blanketed with motions and resolutions from every Aboriginal government across the Nahendeh part of the NWT, requesting

just that, a moratorium, a ban, or a comprehensive review.

As I was saying, the science is clear. The oil under the ground in the NWT must stay there, according to science, if human civilization is to continue as we know it. Renewable energy options are environmentally and economically attractive, virtually limitless and promise provision of more clean and affordable energy than we need.

Will the Minister commit to removing perverse subsidies and misguided support to fossil fuel extraction and shift them to building renewable energy systems that serve people, communities and our living earth? Mahsi.

I respect the Member and I respect his point of view, but when we got together after the 17th Legislative Assembly was

elected in 2011, we came together, we formed a vision, we came up with our goals, and I’ll list them off here: a strong independent North built on partnerships; an environment that will sustain present and future generations; healthy, educated people free from poverty; a diversified economy that provides all communities and regions with opportunities and choices; sustainable, vibrant communities; and effective and efficient government.

Mr. Speaker, we have a region of the Northwest Territories that has high unemployment levels, people looking for work, looking for opportunities. We need to balance protecting the environment and creating the right economic conditions where people can have jobs, we can graduate children from high school who will have a future and will have a job. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also support our goals and vision totally. We are now talking about the interpretation of those. I would note that clearly, for a million dollars of investment, the jobs are there for renewable energy far and beyond, half an order of magnitude beyond oil and gas.

We are fortunate in having alternatives to fossil fuel extraction and its form of tremendous renewable energy options in every community. The technology is here now and getting better by the day. The United States is planning a complete switch to renewable energy in the next 30 years.

My question: What aggressive policies is the Minister pursuing for recommendation to the 18th Assembly for this required shift from destructive energy policies to ones that give us hopefulness for the future? This is not an optional thing, unless the Minister knows something I don’t. I am listening to the scientists. Mahsi.

We are doing both. That work is underway for the transition to the 18th Legislative Assembly. But our priorities, when we talk about our goals, the priorities that stem from those goals are increasing employment opportunities where they are needed most. In a region like the Sahtu, that is where we need the economic opportunities the most. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Colleagues, before we go on today, I would like to draw your attention to the gallery, to His Worship Mayor of Niagara Falls, Mr. Jim Diodati and his daughter, Olivia, who is visiting us here today from Niagara Falls. Welcome to the House.

Also, Norman’s CA, who is assisting him, Ms. Natasha Pryznyk.

Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will continue on with my Member’s statement here, but I will ask questions to the Minister of ENR, mainly around some of the monitoring and some of the public disclosure of how we are regulating our wastewater.

I know that our government just signed a transboundary water agreement with Alberta just recently. I know we have one with BC and the Yukon as well. As I mentioned earlier in my Member’s statement, last year we had on record one of our lowest water levels throughout the Northwest Territories, and this year you heard some of that in Great Slave Lake as well as you are probably going to see it again on the Mackenzie River.

I want to ask the Minister or ENR, during our transboundary water agreements, were the water levels and monitoring of water levels an issue? As I mentioned, Alberta and BC both do hydraulic fracturing, and whether the amount of water they are using for hydraulic fracturing was discussed in these transboundary water agreements? It eventually might affect our water levels here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The transboundary water agreement with Alberta definitely looked at quantity issues. We are blessed with significant flows into the Northwest Territories and on through into the Mackenzie and into the Arctic Ocean.

The amount of water coming in the Slave River has been negotiated at about 1.9 percent of the water is

available for extraction between Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The other basically 98 percent stays in the river to feed the river and aquatic ecosystems and the Mackenzie Basin to make sure it stays healthy. It gives you a sense of the volume of the water that is going north. That 1.9 percent represents five times what Alberta’s most aggressive development needs were calculated to be. They looked at everything they had on their schedule and they multiplied that amount by five times. So there is an enormous cushion there in terms of the overall flows.

However, the issue of concern is quality, as well, and monitoring. It looks at not only flows but quality issues. We have built in requirements for quality, sharing information with Alberta, with the Northwest Territories, with the federal government what we are measuring for. We have spent millions of dollars within the Northwest Territories for community-based water monitoring, as well, up and down the Mackenzie River, to make sure that we work with communities so that they can have a certain degree of comfort that the water they are drinking is coming down to them is in prime, pristine condition as possible. Thank you.

I thank the Minister for the update on some of the information around the transboundary water agreement. What the Minister did say was the flow from Alberta down to the Northwest Territories, and that becomes a concern, as well, in terms of monitoring. It becomes a concern with wastewater and also becomes a concern with some of the fracking chemicals that might, if possible, if there’s a chance that it does get leaked into the water system and then comes down here.

I want to ask the Minister, in one of our areas where we talked about the four new regulations that we got with fracking, one of them is public disclosure. I want to ask the Minister in terms of the public disclosure of fracking chemicals, what percentage of chemicals do companies have to publically disclose to Alberta but also to the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

They are encouraged to disclose them all. What the discussion is, as we have heard around the table, is that they need to have the best practices possible. The issue of moving away from voluntary disclosure to mandatory full disclosure so that it is clear that we have the best practices, that is one of the things that we’re discussing and we’ve been talking about that industry knows is coming. In more and more jurisdictions in the United States, it is becoming a given, as well, that it’s not optional anymore. That issue is a very important one and it has been flagged by the government as we looked at these changes. Thank you.

The Minister mentioned the voluntary disclosure practice that is currently being

used, and I am sure it is being used worldwide in terms of what companies have to disclose in their fracking ingredients when they’re doing the practice. He also mentioned it’s on the radar for the government to make it mandatory. It has been a concern heard in Inuvik at the public engagement session.

Can I ask the Minister, is there a timeline or does the government intend to make the voluntary disclosure practice mandatory so that we know all chemicals that are going into the fracking ingredients?

The goal with devolution was devolve and evolve, knowing that we’re going to have to look at amendments to various pieces of legislation and change things to better suit the requirements of the Northwest Territories. That issue is on the table for discussion, as the Minister of ITI has laid out, and we’re very well aware of the strong trends to mandatory reporting, and that is going to be a clear, I believe, expectation from Northerners as we talk about proceeding.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in my Member’s statement the shale potential in the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, the Sahtu region, and the Liard Basin. Should hydraulic fracturing get the green light and go ahead? Does the government foresee or has created or are they currently in existence of wastewater disposal sites, and if so, how many?

There is work being done on waste disposal, wastewater. The long-term goal is to manage it very effectively, treat it, if possible, and reclaim it, if possible, in the Northwest Territories. Those regulations and practices are also being reviewed. Right now every project in the past would have their own separate wastewater disposal requirements. There is an economic economy that I know has already been discussed and talked about in the Sahtu about if we’re going to do this in a coordinated way, having a state-of-the-art facility like that in Norman Wells as development occurs, again, to make sure that we can do the best job possible.

Right now there is no active fracking or drilling going on in the Sahtu to the ones that are there, and I don’t have the number at my fingertips, are relatively small and there are no new ones on the horizon because there is no activity currently in the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The discussion about the borrowing limit, the opportunities presented by that borrowing limit, the responsibilities that go with that opportunity are there to be discussed. The most imminent part of our financial cycle that is now coming due, of course, is the capital planning process. That has been underway for some months. The main estimates, the capital estimates will be released and we’ll be sharing them with committee based on all the work that we’ve done over the winter and spring. There is going to be the initiation of the business planning process that comes forward through its normal cycle, knowing that we’re going to have a cycle that is out of sync because of the extended date for the election. There will be discussions there. There is going to be a fiscal update as part of the transition plan. We’ve indicated that there is going to be a requirement to keep expenditures and revenues in sync, and our expenditures are increasing faster than our revenues and that we’re going to have to do the things necessary to make sure that we bring those two key variables in line. That is going to take place.

All of this to say that that process is going to capture what financial decisions have to be made and will be made. This government, our job is to get the levers and the tools for the subsequent Assemblies to have as much flexibility as possible. We would be happy to meet with committee about this issue, but there are no active plans of any kind other than those processes when it comes to looking at how we are going to manage our fiscal planning on a go-forward basis. How we’re going to do it to get us through the rest of this Assembly is

laid out, as is the transition plan, and the 18th Assembly will pick up the reins at that juncture. Thank you.

To the Minister: I think the statement that there are no active plans simply reinforces Mrs. Groenewegen’s statement from earlier today.

Regular Members have had no exchanges, no meetings with the Minister, and he admitted to that, but we are now two days away from the end of this session, and we will then have four months when Members do not meet. Cabinet will meet quite regularly, as I am sure they do during the summer, so there is some concern on the part of Members on this side of the House that we won’t have an opportunity for input, looking at a budget. A capital budget, once it is done, is far different from having input on the front end.

In the Minister’s statement last week he also stated, “We have begun planning on potential projects.” My second question to the Minister would be to explain to me what he means by “they have begun planning on potential projects.”