Sorry, Madam Chair. I couldn’t hear that. To clarify my question here for just opening comments here, is the in-house cost of doing IT services more cost effective than doing it in a TSC environment?

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is obviously for the delegation here for Justice here, to maybe give some clarity to some of the expenses regarding to IT here. More specifically, from what I see here and have done some research and have been provided, we have I believe it was called a courts information system and an offender management system. One of the notes of question, I notice that I’m not sure if any of these are being hosted within our TSC

environment, and if so, why, and is it done cheaper outside that environment?

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is the wish of the committee to continue with Tabled Document 2-17(1), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2012-2013. We’d like to commence with the departments of Human Resources and Justice and, if time permits, MACA.

Our real mission should be to deal with the economic realities of options in dealing with climate change and rewarding those who take the positive steps of change. In the end we all want the same thing. Maybe in the process we can reach the NWT’s true climate goals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past couple of days my fellow colleague Mr. Bromley, who is well respected among his peers and the citizens of the Northwest Territories on his views on climate change, was cited on the use of strong language to describe the seriousness of his thoughts. Although I tend to agree his choice of words may have been used in the wrong context, I do agree that his passion for making our government more accountable for our carbon footprint is dead on accurate and for that I do thank him.

It would be ill advised for me to stand before you and attempt to mimic or regurgitate statistical data or convince you of my green ambition to save the planet. This is not my intention here today. I do wish to inform the House that we all have an important obligation to perform, not only for our constituents but for our families and for our children. I would hate to tell my future grandchildren that I had an opportunity to make positive changes for our climate and I chose the easy road. That, Mr. Speaker, will not happen.

I think many here have seen and heard Mr. Al Gore throughout his Inconvenient Truth crusade, yet many have not seen or heard of Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It economic approach to climate change, where Mr. Lomborg clearly claims that there has been much hype and exaggeration of global warming solely to root much needed research dollars.

Now, my intention here is not to split hairs about the economics of climate change, science, or Hollywood drama. My intention here today is to disseminate that there are different points of view when it comes to global warming and the realities of scale. This is especially true when our government is forced into accepting unrealistic climate targets based on science that is equally being questioned.

So what is one to do? One of the principles that always served me well in the business world was catching people doing something right. It was much more productive for the performance and success of a resolve than trying to be punitive or restrictive. The same basic principle can be easily introduced throughout the Northwest Territories when it comes to positive affect in our climate in the North.

In simple terms, providing tax incentives or financial credits for businesses or individuals doing good behavior is an easy and affordable step in the road to climate recovery. I say with conviction, let’s do away with unattainable targets and unrealistic goals set by so-called purveyors of catastrophic thinking

and let’s embrace a cleaner delivery model of our everyday footprint on our environment. Our real mission should be to deal with the economic realities of options.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

I can understand the Minister indicating that this is a definite “no” from the federal Minister. However, everyone knows that to leverage

our assets is critical in order to remove that off our borrowing limit. Is this a dead issue or is this something that can be revisited here?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today the honourable Minister of Finance, Michael Miltenberger, gave us a summary here regarding the borrowing limit. Being a businessperson of mind, it’s important to always have a strong balance sheet. I think that’s very agreeable. I think the Government of the Northwest Territories does have a very strong balance sheet in place. The Minister also uses terms like “economic levers,” and I’ve heard him speak many times about it and leveraging those economic levers. One such lever is our very own Crown corporation, the Power Corporation. Unfortunately, the Crown corporation rests on the government balance sheet as a liability, which is going against the borrowing limit. Can the Minister discuss how, if and when were negotiations ever achieved with the Minister of Finance federally about removing this liability from our borrowing limit?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to inform the people of the Northwest Territories of a GNWT launch of “My Voice, My Choice,” a youth drug and alcohol prevention campaign. This launch is occurring on Thursday, December 15th , here at

the Great Hall of the Legislative Assembly at 11:00 a.m. It is important that we encourage our northern youth and have them express their voice on this important topic. The campaign will use a similar well-known setup like Speakers Corner to gather video camera responses to questions pertaining to addictions and messages for youth. The video clips will be edited and placed on the Department of Health and Social Services’ You Tube channel.

I strongly encourage all Members of this Assembly to participate with this initiative and to help send a supportive message to our youth about drug and alcohol addictions throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Looks like one of our final general comments. Mr. Moses.