Mahsi, Mr. Sebert. First I'll turn it over to Mr. Abernethy, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. The Power Corp is the people's corporation. It is a corporation of the people of the Northwest Territories responsible for providing power. As a result, we must listen to the people who are saying we need to find other alternatives for energy supply and production.

We need to consider going into our short-term borrowing in order to put in new technologies that allow us to generate power during the low water levels. Nobody wants to be in a situation where we actually have to take money out of our borrowings just to cover the high cost of diesel. We need to be creative about that. We need to explore other partners who are willing to provide some power. I understand the Power Corp has recently gone out seeking some RFPs to create power in using renewable technologies.

This is what we need to do. We need to find new ways of generating power, distributing power, and in an affordable means in order to help control costs to people of the Northwest Territories, so that we're not hit by the peaks and valleys of low water years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Bob McLeod, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Speaker-elect. The NWT Power Corporation is a Crown corporation, as everyone knows, and it's certainly been the main distributor of energy and also producer of energy. It's very important in every community because of our cold-weather climate. We expect that it will continue to provide that service.

My vision is that it will begin to move to more alternative and renewable sources of energy generation. As one of the experts talked about in the two energy charrettes that we hosted here in Yellowknife, the 56,000 kilowatt hours of electricity that we generate is the most complicated 56,000 kilowatt hours than anywhere else.

So, there are a lot of issues when you're generating electricity. You have to produce for redundancy so that if the power generators break down, that we can maintain or put in alternative sources immediately. So, I see the Power Corporation as looking at changing the way we deliver.

We're starting to use a lot of solar. We have moved to LNG in Inuvik, and we are looking at the potential, perhaps, to use more LNG in communities that are on the highway system.

Here in Yellowknife, we're pretty well maxed out on electricity generation, and we're looking at opportunities, perhaps, to do more on the LNG front. We're looking at wind; we're looking at solar.

I'm very excited about what they're doing in Colville Lake, where they have not only wind, they have solar and they have diesel and storage capacity so that they have all forms.

On the energy conservation side and making people more independent, perhaps generating more of their own electricity, working with this Assembly, I'd like to look at what we can do as a government to increase investment in energy efficiency and energy conservation so that people in their own homes can convert to these different forms of electricity and reduce their demand on electricity generation. But I still see the Power Corporation as continuing to have an important role.

Reading the Liberal platform, they are indicating that they're prepared to have green funds. They have green bonds and they're prepared to invest in different energy technologies. So, we need to examine those to see if we can access those programs as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. McLeod. I have next on my list, Mr. Nakimayak from Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. Congratulations. My question is on housing. First of all, thank you both for standing up so much this morning. I know it's a long day. We're pounding you with questions.

But my question to the both of you is: Are you open to restructuring housing in the GNWT; as well, looking at different models for single dwellings, multi dwellings and families in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. Nakimayak. Mr. McLeod, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. I think housing is probably one of the most critical areas in the North. If you have suitable housing, affording housing, it really changes your quality of life. I think, as a government, with the fact that CMHC housing money is continuing to reduce on an annual basis and eventually running out in 2038, I think that certainly we can look at different models, different approaches.

I know, even myself, although I don't have much of a housing background, we get approached by people who have all kinds of different ideas on how to have cheaper housing. I don't mean cheaper, but that they can provide housing at a lower cost. The question always is: Can it be adapted to a northern environment?

We have invested in housing. We have housing programs so that we can retrofit houses and make them last longer.

Again, when we wrote to the Prime Minister, he wrote back and said that the federal government was going to resume their leadership role in housing. So I think there's an opportunity here to look at different approaches, perhaps even go as far as to have them reinstate CMHC funding. Who knows?

Obviously, we need to be innovative. We need to look at different ways on how to deal with housing.

Private ownership of housing I believe is the best way to go, and if we can find a way to have people own their own houses, I think they take better care of their houses if they own them. So, I would certainly be prepared to look at different opportunities for providing housing in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. McLeod. I'll turn it over to Mr. Abernethy, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. Obviously, we need to work with our federal partner to work on this like CMHC, as well as any other opportunities for money to come in. But to me the question was more about what are we going to do with our communities with respect to housing stock in our individual communities.

I've had an opportunity to travel to every community in the Northwest Territories and talk to residents from across the Northwest Territories. When you do travel to communities, one of the things that often comes up is housing. There are a number of really great programs in the NWT Housing Corp right now, and there have been significant changes over the last two Assemblies to things like rent scale. Even though that's happened, people are still frustrated. Some people still don't know what programs exist, or they know programs exist but they don't know how to access them and they don't understand what the requirements of them are, or worse, the programs are so strict or rigid that they're unable to access them, and they might be individuals who would be perfect candidates, with a little bit more flexibility in the program.

They've also told me that they don't usually see people from the Housing Corp out there talking to them and helping to customize programs to meet the needs of individual communities. There are different realities in every community through the Northwest Territories. Yes, we have to have some general guidelines, but we have to be willing to be flexible in order to meet the unique realities of different communities through the Northwest Territories and the different needs of communities through the Northwest Territories.

If I'm Premier, what I want to do is see the Ministers and the bureaucrats get out to the communities, talk to the individuals in the communities about the programs that are being delivered. Programs like housing. How can we change the way we're providing housing in a community like Paulatuk in order to truly meet the needs of the people? We need to do that by getting out and talking to people, not just working out of a Yellowknife office and looking at stats and reports. Good information, but get out and talk to the people and find out what's really going to make a difference for the people. Does that mean more duplexes? I expect that it might. Does it mean changing the layout of homes? It could. But you know who's going to be the best people to tell us that, Mr. Speaker-elect? The people in the communities. I'm going to encourage and require the departments to get out and talk to people throughout the Northwest Territories, to make sure that our programs meet the needs of people in all the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Abernethy. Next on my list, Ms. Green, Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. As we can see in this room, only two of us were elected as women in this 18^th Assembly, yet representation of women at the federal level is closer to one-third. Obviously, we have a lot of catching up to do.

So, my question for both of the candidates is: What is your plan to foster the participation of women in publicly elected positions in the NWT? Thank you.

Mahsi, Ms. Green. I'll turn it over to Mr. Abernethy, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. During the last Assembly, actually participating in the campaign school I thought was a good way for me to share some of the knowledge I have about how to campaign in the Northwest Territories, for women who might be interested in campaigning. That's something I think more of us, as Members, need to consider doing and encourage people to run.

But more importantly, what things we can do within this Legislative Assembly is, as Premier, I can actually look at our senior management staff and try to bring more equity into the senior management staff to make sure that there's better representation, or more equal representation of women and Aboriginal peoples at a senior management level.

I also, and I indicated it earlier, would like to incorporate an equity-based analysis as part of the training that all policy and program development staff are required to take. This will give them the skills they need to design programs that meet the needs of all of our residents and the diversity of the residents across the Northwest Territories. I think these types of things will help us start evolving our programs, get more involvement of individuals who are not adequately or appropriately represented in government as well as in politics.

We also need to look at things like child care. I talked to a number of different women who were looking at running, and they're final decision for not running was: “I still have to take care of my family. I don't have the time. I don't have the resources. If we had better, more affordable daycare, I may have been able to run.” So there are a number of different things we can do.

But as you probably noticed, Mr. Speaker-elect, I'm not a woman, I am a man, and I truly cannot understand what it is like to be a woman. So, I need to work closely with my colleagues on the other side of the House to find real solutions to make change here in the Northwest Territories, and I'm looking forward to that relationship and trying to find ways to improve our representation in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. Abernethy. I'll turn it over to Mr. McLeod, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. I believe that the best way to get more women into the Legislative Assembly is to find ways to have more women running for office. I believe that it was very encouraging to see an increase in the number of women who ran in this most recent election. I, as the Minister responsible for Women in the last Assembly, worked to have election forums so that we could show women what is involved in running for office, and there was quite a turnout. I believe that we need to start earlier, rather than the last year of a term of a government. We should start right away and continue to do work on an annual basis, perhaps, and find the funding. When we did it, we were criticized because we only did it here in Yellowknife, and women outside of Yellowknife, if they wanted to participate, had to pay their own way to participate in the election forum. So, perhaps we can move it around and have it in more centres, more regional centres, more communities, so that other women can have access to it.

I believe that, looking at our government, we've been able to increase our deputy minister cadre, so at least 50 percent of the deputy ministers are women, and our workforce is 65 percent women. Our senior management is improving. One area where we need to improve is the number of indigenous women who are senior managers. We need to improve in that area.

But we have to keep working at it. I think that with the benefit of a lot of women who have run for office, we will continue to improve in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. McLeod. [Translation] The next speaker will be Tom Beaulieu, Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh Member.

Mahsi cho, Speaker-elect. The cost of living in small communities is very high. Often, as governments, we have looked at ways to reduce costs, but I think the answer is in jobs, in giving people an income to be able to afford food.

As Premier, what would you do to increase employment rates in small communities? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Beaulieu. [Translation] The person that will be responding to that question is Bob McLeod, Premier candidate.

We believe that one of the ways to increase jobs is to work with people in the communities, to give them some capacity so that they can do a lot of the work that's required in a community. I know that projects that come into a community, if we can find ways to have the local people do the jobs, that would be a benefit. I know in the past, the government provided negotiated contracts for local work, but we also have the Business Incentive Program. But if we can work closely with the different governments and organizations in the community so that we can identify projects and opportunities, generally if we have enough lead time, we know the work that's going to be done, the government work, we can find ways to do it. That's something that needs a lot of planning; it needs a lot of collaboration between departments and the communities. I think working with industry or small business, they can develop connections with communities so that they can hire local people when they have jobs in the communities as well. Thank you, Speaker-elect.

Mahsi, Mr. McLeod. [Translation] To respond to that question would also be Mr. Abernethy, Premier candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker-elect. As I've indicated previously, I've had an opportunity to travel around the Northwest Territories to different communities and talked to the residents of the communities. There is a lot of excitement in communities about what they can do, but they often don't feel that they're able to pull off, as with respect to small business, their opportunities.

There are great ideas in the communities. Every community is different. Farming might not be appropriate in Ulukhaktok but it might be appropriate in Fort Liard. We need to be open to what the communities see as their opportunities and work with them to actually provide training in those communities for opportunities that exist, whether it's tourism, green technology, farming, fishing and those types of things. We need to make sure that the training we're providing is focused on those opportunities that exist in the individual communities. This will allow individuals to start businesses, to start their own opportunities with their communities.

I've also heard that a lot of individuals aren't interested in travelling from their communities and working in a mine for two weeks or three weeks, so they're looking for local opportunities. We've indicated, as a government in previous Assemblies, that we do want to decentralize some jobs, and we must continue to do that, but government jobs are not going to solve all the problems. We need to find local opportunities, local businesses that people in the communities can start up and run. But we also do know that there are government jobs coming to communities. There are a large number of nursing positions throughout the Northwest Territories, and that's often done by people who are coming to the Northwest Territories rather than people who are coming from the communities. We need to focus back into the schools and start early to encourage people to pursue things like nursing, resident care aides, home support workers, so that we can get our local people into the professions that actually we do provide in communities as government.

So, a couple things: training and development for government-type jobs, supporting youth in communities to pursue education and training so that they can start their own businesses, and some supports for start-ups so that they can start businesses in communities.

Mahsi, Mr. Abernethy. [Translation] The Member for Thebacha. Mr. Sebert will be asking a question.

During the recent election there was a good deal of discussion in my riding, and perhaps some others, about the possibility of the transition of Aurora College to a university. I would like to hear the candidates' views on this possibility. Thank you.