Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing this motion forward. Obviously, it has been a big issue, and we did have a little bit of a theme day on this during this sitting.

On April 9th, during my Member’s statement that I made in the House on the community engagement that I attended in Inuvik, I mentioned there was a lot of participation. There were over 30, as I mentioned. But we also had a lot of leaders from the communities come and show their concerns. A lot of it, as you heard from my colleague Mr. Blake, was concern over downstream, should there be spillage or something happen that these fracking chemicals get into the water and eventually come down to our neck of the woods and possibly cause some serious damage.

I also wanted to discuss some of these transboundary water agreements and how much water is being used to do this hydraulic fracturing in Alberta and BC and how it’s affecting our water levels. If we do go ahead and do this hydraulic fracturing, how much of the water is going to be taken away from our water resources? That will impact our water levels throughout the North at the same time.

However, we’re debating this motion in the House right now and there’s no activity going on. There’s no fracking going on. I believe, and I said in committee this morning, that it’s premature to call for such a motion while the government is in the middle of doing a public consultation and public engagement. It criticizes government before for not consulting on various subjects and various matters, and now they’re going out and doing their due diligence and we’re trying to put a motion in this House and pit Members against Members and put a Member’s decision-making forward or not and using it as a piece of an election topic.

Let’s have that discussion when election time comes. However, there’s nothing going on right now. We’re debating a motion on a moratorium of an activity that’s not even taking place, you know? Let’s wait and see if the department can come up with this comprehensive, transparent public review of the cumulative, environmental, social and economic risks and benefits of this process.

All these big companies that come through the Sahtu said they’re not going to be looking at doing any work until 2016-17. If we put this moratorium in place for the two years that they’re expecting, well, what we’re doing is tying the hands of the 18th Legislative Assembly on the tail end of what we think is important. And it is important. I agree on that. But we’re making a decision for Members coming in who would have to make the big decisions, looking at our debt, looking at our programs and services and looking at how we do business for residents of the Northwest Territories.

When is the economy going to pick up? Who knows? Yet we’re going to be tying the hands of the decision-makers in the next government on a process that’s not even happening right now.

I understand the case. Let’s wait to see if the government can give us those reports. Once we get them, then we’ll have this debate, then let’s make this decision. And if what we get from them we don’t agree with, then let’s put this moratorium in place. But right now I think we’re debating a motion on something that’s not even happening and it’s putting us in a very awkward position to discuss something that’s not even happening in the Northwest Territories right now. It might not even happen in the 18th Assembly. So let’s look at it in that sense.

These public engagements are going to put a moratorium in place. You’ll hear it from my constituents and hear it from people across the North. Sure, there are a lot of people who are uneducated on hydraulic fracturing. These public engagements can actually educate our residents and tell them the process of what’s actually happening. In these public engagements, and as I mentioned during my Member’s statement, there are whole new requirements to meet northern priorities. As we said, devolution came down the pipes. We’ve taken on this decision-making, and under that, our government has decided to put four new requirements to meet northern priorities on the proposed regulations that we have right now: baseline surface and groundwater information. Companies are doing that right now. While they’re not looking at drilling, they’re going out and doing that work right now.

I think the big thing that I heard about public disclosure is that they want to make the voluntary disclosure practice mandatory. Tell us everything that’s in your fracking ingredients. Then there are also measures to address air quality and also enhanced supporting. I think it was ConocoPhillips that just released their report recently. It’s a big document and I haven’t had a chance to read it, but that’s the reporting that we need to make a decision on something that we’re discussing right now. How many Members have read that report? I haven’t. We’re trying to make decisions on it and yet there’s a report out there that’s discussing this. Has the Standing Committing on Economic Development and Infrastructure read it? You know, those are questions we have to ask ourselves. Trying to make decisions without the facts is a big concern of mine. We have to start making decisions based on facts and consultations.

As I said earlier, one of the big things, one question I brought up was why are we going to go ahead with hydraulic fracturing when we don’t even have buy-in from all the groups? That’s where the education comes in.

Last year I saw it through a lot of media. Husky and Conoco both declared plans on any type of drilling exploration actually be demobilized out of the communities, and we see the economic impact that had on the Sahtu. You know, you went from 36 local companies down to, what, six? That’s people with jobs. The income assistance went down. There were a lot of benefits and that’s what we need.

You’re going to hear it from Members on this side also. You know, debates and calls for jobs in our communities. You’ve heard here in the House before that we have the highest unemployment rates in the small communities. Right now throughout the world you have a slump in oil prices. We’re not the only jurisdiction that has seen a downturn in the economy and that has no jobs; it’s right across the world. Yet we’re making it even harder to try to get those jobs.

With doing this on the tail end… The response of the Energy Charrette report was just tabled in the House today. We don’t even know what’s in that. You don’t even know what’s coming out of it. What’s the action plan? There might be a better action plan in that Energy Charrette that we can work with what’s going on now, but we’re putting on a moratorium to stop moving forward. Plus the Transportation Strategy.

Mr. Speaker, as I’m trying to make my comments, I’m hearing a little bit of sidebar here, or comments.