Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me the deputy minister, Mr. Ernie Campbell; and Ms. Susan Craig, the director of finance and admin.

I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Memorandum of Agreement Between the GNWT and the Government of Nunavut on the Northern Employee Benefits Services Pension Plan Acts.”

Mr. Speaker, we’ve put this document forward for consultation and we’ve extended the consultation period to, I believe, October 19th , at which time we will put it in a box,

basically, and we’ll include it with the transition document for consideration in the 18th Assembly,

which will include all the feedback we get.

This document is basically post-devolution. The Northwest Territories has taken over the Protected Areas Strategy and has rebranded it and packaged it and is putting is out as a Northern Conservation Action Plan. There is a process that we’re going to continue on with from the Protected Areas Strategy, and has been since 1999, a working group that includes representatives from all the different sectors of the economy and the territory, industry and business and communities, environmental groups, that type of thing that are part of the process and will continue to be part of that process as we move forward to provide oversight and work on the various areas that have been designated, some of them for literally decades now. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, what is permanent will depend on the circumstances of the particular area. It has to be appropriate, depending on what kind of conservation designation there is outside of the protected area designation. But it does include all the areas on the map.

The Member stated, for example, 1999 Protected Areas Strategy. All the land that’s on that map that is designated to be protected is all the land that is projected to have any kind of conservation designation far into the future. There’s no new land on there. There’s land that’s been identified now since 1999. Some of it is yet to be determined, the final designation, but we know some, like the Ramparts or Edhzhie, the request is that there be a

park there, a protected area. The others will have a range of different kinds of designations. It could be a cultural area; it could be a wildlife area; it could be just an area of some significance that has some designation. If there is some activity that’s found within that area, then we will collectively look at what it is and how does it fit, what kind of community support there is, but the door would be open to have that kind of discussion. Unlike Nahanni National Park or Edaezhe, once it’s fully withdrawn, or the Thaidene Nene footprint area.

I would also point out, as we talk about this land, we have a very, very significant piece of land

- 44,000 square kilometres of land

– that has been under

interim protection for decades, tied up in land claims. As we commit ourselves to concluding land claims, when we do that will free up very, very high potential areas for potential development that could be contemplated by Aboriginal governments, industry and the territorial government. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the core protected or protected areas are those areas that would be permanently withdrawn from industrial

commercial

development,

like

the

proposed Thaidene Nene area for the federal and territorial footprints of Nahanni Park, part of Wood Buffalo that’s there, Edaezhe and the Ramparts and those types of things. That number all in is at 14 percent.

The other lands where there’s conservation designation, we have a Parks Act, for example, that has six levels of park. Five of those levels of park permit activity, commercial activity, permanent activity, so could include industrial development. That would account for the relating percentages. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can give the Member a number for all the land that is current and proposed, including Thaidene Nene and areas that have been worked on

since 1999, keeping in mind that the proposed areas in all probability will end up shrinking as the final footprint is determined, but that percentage is 14 percent of the land mass. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of cost of living and the role of the territorial government and the importance of our capital program, I agree with the Member’s comments about that, about the value and the role they play.

I appreciate his comments on the fibre link as well as the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. We will move that project to completion. We will sort through things that need sorting and we will continue on with that. Airport road is in bundle two of the Build Canada Fund. The runway study, there is work being done, I believe, in conjunction with the federal government to look at lengthening it for use that interests the federal government.

Investing in daycare is one of those issues that’s tied up in available funds that aren’t already subscribed to and our limitations.

We’ve had a lot of discussions about Stanton and the issue of its impact and the need for local opportunity. Not wanting to repeat all my comments in regard to Mr. Dolynny’s same question, we are very live to that issue and we intend to see the maximum benefit that can be under this project in terms of local opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to the red flag lists, what has happened, the amount of money in the capital plan is varied and we went, most recently, from one hundred and twenty-five back down to seventy-five, which meant that things on the list had to be re- prioritized. You can only do a certain number with $75 million, which is a very small amount of money when you have an overall budget of $1.8 billion and we do have input throughout this process with Regular Members and one of the things where we could point to is the ratio over the money for the Build Canada Plan was switched to put a few more dollars

into

the

communities

instead

of

transportation. Transportation initially got most of the money, they still got most of the money but I think it’s now 85 percent. It could be argued that it should be more, but there was a move of another 5 percent to make sure that we tried to put some more money into the communities.

The issue of the local business, it is a priority as was pointed out by Mr. Kalgutkar. There is a clause in the contract that we could hold the proponent accountable for that’s going to allow us to keep track of that. There are checks and balances. There’s going to be oversight required, and as we indicated, if you have names of business that are experiencing difficulty, if you could give them to us we would follow up with the businesses and the proponent to see what can be done.

The issue of re-profiling the current Stanton. There are a number of options as we discussed yesterday. What use may be available, some of it may have an impact on the market as that work is fleshed out that particular market impact variable will be dealt with.

I appreciate once again the comments and commendation to the parks folks.

I’ll let Mr. Dolynny

pursue the issue of the parks opening with the Minister of ITI.

As well, the issue of the long-term care beds aging in place, are there going to be enough. We have a very big proposal on the table in Yellowknife plus we have to as well figure out the home of the extended care piece that is being moved out of Stanton. So I anticipate, as the Member said, when health comes up he would be asking those specific questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.