Finance committee  Thank you very much. I'll start right away. Again, thanks to all of you for inviting me to this committee meeting. When this committee first thought of inviting territorial premiers to speak to you, it was to consult us ahead of the federal government's 2017 budget. Of course,

Finance committee  It's very difficult because at this point during our discussions on the pan-Canadian climate change framework, we had indicated on many occasions that Nunavut's unique, the Arctic is unique. In Nunavut, we don't have any alternative sources to turn to when it comes to cleaner ene

Finance committee  Absolutely. I mentioned in my presentation the Grays Bay road and port project. I also mentioned a little bit about devolution and the moratorium on oil and gas. Of course, any kind of construction investment that the federal government has for Nunavut also benefits all other sou

Finance committee  Yes. That's the approximate cost. As a territorial government we partnered with Kitikmeot Inuit Association, and that's at Grays Bay. As you know, there are Inuit-owned lands, and part of the project goes through their lands. At the end of the day, that infrastructure will hope

Finance committee  Devolution is long term. It's forever. Having that potential there, going into the future, certainly.... At the end of the day, there's the potential that the territory can become self-sustaining. Again, it has to be done responsibly. As Inuit, we care for our environment. Whate

Finance committee  It's going to be very difficult. That's why we asked for assistance from the technical folks in the federal department. We pay 80% of the cost of power generation in Nunavut. We have 25 small communities. Again, when it comes to public units, we pay a major part of that. The O

Finance committee  Yes. You are absolutely correct. It's already very difficult to attract investors to our territory, and more taxes being levied to industry just compounds the problem. At the same time, we're trying to make it attractive to industry to invest in our territory. In fact, in Canada,

Finance committee  Supposedly. That's why it's very difficult. We're asking for the technical fellows to give us some pointers. We're even asking industry to help us out in trying to figure out exactly what their situation is going to be. As I indicated, if a developer is going to be paying an ext

Finance committee  One of the things we want to do is develop our territory. As you know, Nunavut is one-fifth the size of Canada, but at this point I do believe we have more protected lands and marine sanctuaries than the rest of Canada put together. We have national parks, territorial parks, mana

Finance committee  One of the things I've indicated is that for any kind of investment that's made by the federal government for construction and infrastructure building, especially housing units and other smaller infrastructure things that we request from Ottawa, everything has to be shipped up fr

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. When I became premier I made education our number one priority. It's very difficult when you have small, isolated communities, and we do want to have better living conditions, like housing. We have one of the most notorious health records in the nation because

Finance committee  I'll have to get back to you but we know for a fact that the graduation rates are going up and attendance rates are going up. I don't have the specific numbers but I can speak to a small community in the middle of Canada, Baker Lake, where there is actual mining extraction taking

Finance committee  Our population is very small and we have seasonal employment that all of a sudden brings the number of unemployed down. As a government we do have a land claims agreement where, in article 23, we have to try to meet the 85% Inuit content in our territorial government, including s

Finance committee  I don't have those numbers in front of me.

Finance committee  Probably five months out of the year.