I agree with the Minister there. Would the Minister agree that comprehensive planning can help mitigate what the costs will be without planning?

We’re spending now $50 million over the last 12 months and planning for the next eight or ten months so that people that could experience high power rates would be protected from those. The latest information shows that we’re talking billions of dollars for public infrastructure and damages over the next 15 years. Then we have private, commercial and institutional infrastructure. Are we planning on bailing out all of those to protect our public from the costs of climate change in this manner?

Just for perspective here, would the Minister agree we’d be talking probably in the tens of millions of dollars for that exercise?

I’m disappointed that we, as a government, are not on top of that equation, and we should have been for the last several years. We heard just a month or so ago about the storm surges and whatnot in Tuktoyaktuk that left some government buildings hanging over the water, oil tanks suspended or lost into the sea and so on. We’re losing, in some areas, 10 metres of coastline per year there. I’d say the writing is on the wall for that community.

We’re looking at $22 million here on top of the $32 million for the fire suppression this year. Have we estimated the cost? Are we planning on what to do or what it’s going to take to move the community of Tuktoyaktuk? The writing is clearly on the wall there. I would think the Minister would recognize that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up a little bit on Ms. Bisaro’s comments. This is primarily motivated by low water which is causing the need for diesel power generation in lieu of not having any other green energy generation capability at this moment in time. I guess I’ll start by saying this is shameful to me, given that the same thing happened last year.

I spoke very clearly on this, both in the media and in the House and to the Minister, and yet, exactly the same thing happened again this year.

I am happy that committee is now committed to beginning work on this, albeit belatedly and modestly. But, again, just to follow up with Ms. Bisaro’s comments about the need to bring this into our fiscal planning and so on. Just with a couple of minutes of thinking, looking at the costs of climate change, and these are impacts that are consistent with climate change, extreme events that we have not seen before. Last year we had $60 million for fire suppression costs, through the roof. We had the Inuvik Airport, Hay River Airport, we had Highway No. 3, the Dempster. We had power generating costs of $20 million, or $15 million actually. Five million dollars went into this fiscal year and now we’re proposing another $22 million for this fiscal year, so that would $27 million.

Really, we’re talking now about hundreds of millions of dollars, and I know it’s affecting our fiscal planning. We can’t have those sorts of unplanned for costs without that. It’s exacerbated, of course, because of our low net fiscal benefit compared to our predictions during the devolution negotiations.

I’m wondering: has the Minister sat down to try and summarize and collect and do a financial accounting of impacts that are pretty directly related to climate change in the last few years.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, October 8, 2015, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories develop a comprehensive and long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation plan in anticipation of the projected effects of climate change;

And further, that this action plan include a strategy for shifting the Northwest Territories from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, including targets recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent from by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050, each from 1990 levels;

And furthermore, that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion to the 18thLegislative Assembly by June 2016. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. So, when will consultations start here? When will we see midwifery here and what the heck is the NWT Advisory Committee on Midwifery? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. Yellowknife had a midwife before we embarked on a territory-wide program. Now we don’t, but we now have two coordinator positions apparently with a goal of developing a territorial Midwifery Program based in Yellowknife and expanding into areas such as the Deh Cho and Behchoko.

I’m wondering: how does this affect the future of having practicing midwives in Yellowknife for Yellowknife, Ndilo, Detah and this region given the need for program delivery staff who support the territorial model. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister for providing that clarification. The original midwifery report, NWT report, identified Inuvik as one of the four locations of interest, but Health has now decided to support doctors with obstetric skills instead, plus the one position. I am hearing concern about lack of consultation leading up to this decision in the Beaufort-Delta. It seems prudent to ask the public for their opinion before opting for a very different model that does not include midwives.

I ask the Minister who was consulted in the Beau-Del and what public engagement was conducted before the decision to scrap the midwife program in that region. Mahsi.