Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about a subject that I’ve been seeing difficulties with over my term as MLA. We as MLAs get concerns from all kinds of industry, all kinds of individuals, all kinds of groups, but some individuals come to us with a concern. I’ll talk to you about some of the income assistance clients that I’ve seen over the last year who have come to me and talked to me about an injustice.

These income assistance individuals receive some sort of small payment – a GST cheque, income from RWED for fur – and these are small amounts of dollars. We’re talking about $40, or $80. Because they receive this amount of money and they don’t declare that money, then their income assistance for that month is docked. They lose all the income for their family for that whole month.

I’ve brought it to the attention of the department and staff. Normally, staff are able to help me out and say, “Yes, there’s flexibility here. Maybe we could deal with it this way.” But they said, “The act is clear; this act doesn’t allow us to just deduct that amount from the next payment,” so that that family has income for the month, they don’t have to beg or borrow money to survive for that month.

We need to change this act that allows us, as a government, to be responsive to our citizens and say, “Yes, you received a $40 GST cheque and we understand you didn’t recognize it. We’re going to just deduct that from your next income.” That’s a reasonable approach.

The unreasonable approach is that we remove all that income from that family for the whole month. I’ve discussed it with the Minister today, and we may not have questions today because of time, but I know the Minister here is listening and I know the Minister has committed to me to looking into changing inequality in our system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make a couple of quick comments. Obviously, this bill is very important to Hay River. Hay River is the anomaly in the process. Our employees are not GNWT employees and that became a big issue with this bill, and obviously I’d like to commend the Minister and his staff for getting us as much information there so that we give some comfort to those people, I guess. The question is still out there about how it’s going to look when it’s all said and done, but I think the department is committed to that process and committed to communicating with the staff at the Hay River Health Authority.

Obviously, some of them are still tandem on how it’s going to work, how they will be affected for

leave. Even as of last week I ran into some people and they were still asking me questions on how they thought it was going to work. I said, “Well, I think the details have to be worked out still.” But I know when it did get tense there for the first little while, the Minister provided me with a bunch of information that I could provide to the employees, to the union to reassure them that this is the process. We had a constituency meeting that basically got held up by all these concerned citizens. Obviously, we were able to give them the information.

So I think moving forward we obviously want to keep an eye on how this goes, and obviously the union and the employees will tell us how they feel about the new process once they become GNWT employees.

In general, I think some of the other issues that are out there, and I think people are in support of, is this new health authority will give areas like Hay River an ability to have more context by creating feedback, ways of communicating with the public. Right now we have just the public administrator, but I think through some of these councils and the regional representation we’re going to be able to get some of that feedback from multiple users, and it’s not just feedback to the public administrator. If you didn’t know that public administrator or you didn’t feel comfortable communicating with them, there are other avenues now with this authority. I think that has been something that Hay River has been asking for, so I think they are really supportive of that.

Those are just my general comments. I’d like to thank the committee that did all the work. Obviously, they travelled around with a couple of bills. I was able to help them out in Hay River to make sure everybody showed up, but that wasn’t a tough sell with people being concerned about where they were. Again, the Minister came down for a separate meeting to talk to the employees right at the hospital, so I think most of their concerns have been alleviated for now until we start working out the details with their union and how all that stuff works out. The proof will be in the pudding on that, I guess, but we need this bill to move forward in order for that to happen.

I give notice that on Thursday, June 4, 2015, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that the following persons be recommended to the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories for appointment to the NWT Honours Advisory Council, effective immediately for a term of three years:

Ms. Grace Blake of Tsiigehtchic;

Ms. Sabrina Broadhead of Hay River;

Mr. Paul Delorey of Hay River;

Mr. Danny Gaudet of Deline; and

Ms. Anne Peters of Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just wondering if the Minister could look into some of the opportunities that we could get some feedback from the general public. Maybe have a third party do a polling of some of the communities where they are not going in for public consultation to get some feedback. You know, whether you support fracking, if you require more information on it, just to get an indication of where the general public sits on those two topics. Thank you.

My next question is the Minister was talking about the commitment of August. I am just wondering if the Minister will actually extend that to the next session period in September/October to make sure that the Regular Members have the opportunity over the summer to talk to their constituents and give that feedback in the September sitting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know they can’t go to all the communities, so I am wondering if the department is looking at another step in this process of consultation on hydraulic fracturing.

Is the department looking at any kind of conference or fracking charrette that we can have members who are interested to participate throughout the Northwest Territories come to a common area to have that discussion? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement on fracking, as well I have questions for the Minister of ITI. The first question today is, I know the Minister has indicated they’re continuing to do some consultation with the public. Has the department changed any of its presentation? Have they started to include more information on actual hydraulic fracturing and what it does, what it is? Because that’s been one of the questions we’ve been getting from people and the concerns of if we’re getting the information out to people. Not just the regulations, but are we now presenting that to the public? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to speak about hydraulic fracturing, fracking, as it’s called by most people. I’m a member of the Economic Development and Infrastructure committee and we’ve been working to learn more about this over the last two or three years.

Hydraulic fracturing has been approved in the Northwest Territories in the past by the federal government and the National Energy Board. April 1st last year, we took over control of our lands and

resources. We are now in control. We need to control how the regulations of this industry and this particular process are being done in the Northwest Territories. We need to have a Northwest Territories approach to this. We need to make sure that the regulations in this area are the strongest in the world, Mr. Speaker. I think nobody in the world is more interested in the land and resources than the Northwest Territories people. We’ve heard that in most of the discussions on regulations.

This is not development at any cost. We need to look at how we can make these regulations northern and make sure that they’re being implemented, that they’re being controlled, that we are making sure that we are not affecting the land and the resources in the Northwest Territories.

We are not the only jurisdiction looking at this. We know our neighbours in the Yukon have been looking at it for the past two years and have spent a lot of money. They’re still undecided. Mr. Woods, yesterday, from Australia, indicated that they had done the Hawke Report and indicated that they didn’t have any indication on what they were going to do.

We’re still looking at this process, but we need to set up the regulations. We can’t deny that there’s a potential opportunity here for people, an opportunity for jobs. We need to look at the revenue that can be generated. We have lots of pressures. We have lots of expenses that are going up in our health, education, housing, and all our programs are demanding more and more. We need to look at how we can do this northern, make sure the regulations are enforced, but we need to take it nice and slow. We need to lengthen out the process. This government can’t rush through it. We have some time. There is a natural moratorium. Industry has indicated that they’re not doing anything, so we need to look at this sooner than later. Thank you very much.

I guess I want this House and the Minister to understand that I don’t disagree with the fact that… I see the information before us that we probably had less than other jurisdictions in

these areas. I’m concerned about the GNWT positions overall. I’ve had those concerns before. The question I have in this House is whether we allow this to continue. They may have a valid point for these positions. My point is we really haven’t had an in-depth discussion here and had that discussion with Regular Members because this came to us a week ago, less than a week ago probably. I am having trouble swallowing this expenditure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.