Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise pursuant to rule 32(1) of the Rules of the Legislative Assembly on a Point of Privilege. Having provided you with written notice for at least one hour in advance of my Point of Privilege, Mr. Speaker.

Pursuant to rule 32, the honourable Member provided to the Chair a copy of her statement at 1:05 and is working within the rules. You can proceed, Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, today I want to make a Point of Privilege. I deny printed allegations made against me in an editorial in Monday's November 23 edition of News/North. I wish to clarify a misunderstanding which I believe has been created by the headlines in an article on page A-3 and by the banner headline on the front page of that same edition.

Mr. Speaker, I will deal first with the matter of the article on page A-3 which is covered by the headline "Marie-Jewell Accused of Interference" and the sub-heading which reads "Education Chairman Charges M.L.A. Tried to Save Brother's Job". The article deals with comments made by the chairperson for the South Slave Divisional Board of Education after I raised matters pertaining to the suspension of house parents at the Lutsel K'e student boarding facility in Fort Smith. The headline and sub-headline indicate that I have endeavoured to interfere in the operation of the divisional board for the purpose of trying to save my brother's job. Mr. Speaker, this is inaccurate, untrue and misleading. My brother is employed as a journeyman painter with the Department of Public Works. He takes pride in his work and he does not need anyone to save his job. I only hope that the careless journalism reflected in News/North's presentation has not caused him personal or professional embarrassment.

I would now like to clarify the basis for my own involvement in this matter. It is correct that allegations have been raised about the house parents and that there has been a temporary suspension with pay while these allegations are considered by the divisional board. It is no secret that my sister-in-law was under contract as one of the house parents and has been as such involved in this matter. However, I was not asked nor did I volunteer to look into the situation on behalf of my sister-in-law. I have made it very clear in all my correspondence and in my discussions with the Minister that my interest in this respect are on behalf of the other house parents who have been suspended. This individual is a long time resident of Fort Smith and is a constituent of mine. I believe that any resident of the Northwest Territories should be able to bring an issue of concern to their elected Member of the Legislative Assembly and to receive the attention and action to which they are due. What sort of elected official would it be who said "I am not going to help you with that one. My family is involved and I do not want to risk the political fallout." I struggled with this constituency request, Mr. Speaker, because I knew very well that it might open the door for persons embroiled in local politics to misrepresent the reasons for my involvement.

However, for me the choice was clear. Do I deny representation to a constituent because there is a potential political risk? Or do I trust that the media and the public will look at the facts and recognize that I am acting in an ethical and responsible fashion? I made the latter choice, Mr. Speaker, and I am not unhappy about that. I believe that it was my duty to raise issues that are important to the constituent who brought them to my attention.

I made this clear to the News/North reporter, Mr. Francis Thompson, when he asked me for my comments. Although my clarification is included in the last third of the article, either the reporter or his editors chose to represent the situation inaccurately in their choice of headlines.

I am also concerned about this article, Mr. Speaker, due to a quote attributed to the chairperson of the divisional board, Mr. Steven Cooper. Mr. Cooper reportedly stated that, "I think it was uncalled for to bring up this question in the House." As a member of the legal profession, Mr. Cooper should be aware that it is the privilege of Members to be able to raise any issue in this House, pursuant to the rules of the Assembly and to your rulings on procedure and convention.

If honourable Members will check pages 77 through 79 of the unedited transcript from November 19, they will see that my questions to the Honourable James Arvaluk revolved around whether appointments to the board's panel carried the sort of independence necessary for such a review. My question on pages 107 through 110 in the unedited transcript from Friday, November 20 were required only because the Minister had responded to the previous day's questions with inaccurate information about the status of the house parents' temporary suspensions with pay. In neither of these instances did I raise any matter that could have provided any specific benefit to the constituent who requested my involvement or incidentally, to my sister-in-law, other than to ensure that a fair and impartial review was held.

I also wish to emphasize that it is clearly stated within Mr. Thompson's article that I followed the protocol that should be expected of an M.L.A. who is following up on constituency concerns.

I will elaborate on that here as well. Upon first learning of this issue from my constituent, I called the Minister who was, understandably, in the east due to the Nunavut ratification vote. When I found he was absent, I contacted his Deputy Minister, Mr. Hal Gerein, who indicated that the appropriate contact person on this matter would be Mr. Cooper in his capacity as chairperson of the divisional board.

I contacted Mr. Cooper only because I was referred to him by Mr. Gerein. If the education officials now believe it is inappropriate for M.L.A.s to contact divisional board appointees, then they should work the snags out of their own referral procedures. When I contacted Mr. Cooper I made it clear to him that although my brother's family was involved I was acting at the request of the other house parent. If I should not have been talking to Mr. Cooper at that point to whom should I have been talking? The allegations that there was any abuse of authority or inappropriate protocol related to my standing as a Member of this House are totally false and misleading. Again, it is regrettable that this was not realized by either Mr. Thompson or by his editors when they are making decisions on how to present this matter to the public. Those are my comments on the matter of the article on page A-3, Mr. Speaker.

I also wish to comment on the editorial titled "Ethics A Wide Open Question for M.L.A.s" which appears on page A-7 of the same edition of News North. I will resist the temptation to comment on the overall substance of the piece which I found shallow, poorly researched and juvenile in tone. I will, however, take serious exception with the following reference: "then there is Jeannie Marie-Jewell, Fort Smith M.L.A. accused this week of influence peddling, an accusation she has faced in the past." To accuse an elected official of influence peddling is extremely serious. It implies illegal behaviour. I absolutely reject the allegation. In common usage the term "influence peddling" has been reserved for situations in which an M.L.A. has sold their ability to affect government policy or decisions in exchange for some material benefits in form of money or gifts.

Mr. Speaker, I want this House to be clear on the fact that I have never done that now or at any time in my political career. I can sleep with my conscience at night. Nor would I behave in such a fashion at any point in the future. I resent the editor's suggestion that by asking the Minister to make sure that contractor review procedures were fair and impartial I was trying to peddle or sell my political influence. That is absolutely untrue and it is an irresponsible allegation for this Yellowknife based newspaper to make.

Mr. Speaker, I realize that this is now considered to be the trend for the press to attempt to generate disrespect and suspicion about politicians. It seems to be something that is taking place at a national level and it is probably a function of the times we are presently living in. However, when the young and often inexperienced people who work for our northern media attempt to follow this trend without considering the facts, or when they go too far and use terms like "influence peddling" without realizing the implications of what they have written then I believe there is cause for all of us to become concerned. It is for that reason I chose to make this fairly detailed statement under rule 32(1) today. I would like to thank you for allowing me leave to do so, and my honourable colleagues for their attention.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, on a lighter note perhaps I should not worry too much about this. If lawyers and newspaper reporters are now both finding me intimidating, then perhaps I am doing my job effectively.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Marie-Jewell. I would like to comment that if any Member feels it necessary to rise under rule 32(1) to clarify an article or report concerning them I hope that the media will cover their explanation and their remarks with the same providence as they covered the original story. Thank you.

---Applause

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Pudlat.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a question to the Minister of Communications. I will not be talking about all the communities but they are having problems with the communications in their communities. Sometimes you can hardly hear when you are talking on the long distance telephones. Perhaps there is a problem with the satellites, or are there problems other than satellites? Perhaps this has been addressed to NorthwesTel in the past. Perhaps the Minister could clarify for me if they have identified and what kind of problem NorthwesTel is facing with their long distance equipment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am unaware of the problem. I will look into it and get back to the Member today. Thank you.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Economic Development and Tourism. In my Member's statement today I spoke about the chronic unemployment problem in the Northwest Territories and the associated problems with unemployment. I advocate the establishment of a local initiative program similar to what we had in the 1970s that was funded by Canada Manpower that would put some of our people back to work on community improvement projects and give them access to U.I.C. Could the Minister tell me if he is willing to consider the establishment of such a program that would get some of our people off social assistance and put them back to work? Thank you.

Mr. Pollard.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to look at that. I should advise the House that the Financial Management Board is expecting a paper before the end of this year with regards to looking at a guaranteed income for people in the Northwest Territories. The reason for that is the same as the concerns that the Member raises and that is that people are on social assistance many times and are not feeling they are contributing to society. They would like to work. There are rules and regulations that prevent that. There are people who wish to access those kinds of funds and take some training. Again they have difficulty. So we will take the recommendation of the Member, Mr. Speaker, and look at it seriously. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Todd.

I appreciate the Minister's statement and I am assuming that he is working with the Minister of Social Services etc. to see where the crossing of funding goes. Would the Minister also give consideration to meeting with the federal counterparts to explore the possibility of some federal cost-sharing funding of such a program as is done in other provinces or has been done in the past aside from within our existing territorial budget? Would he also look at the federal situation?

Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Speaker, we recognize that we would have to have some discussions with the federal government who would also be involved with us. This matter was brought to the attention of the western Finance Ministers at their recent meeting a month ago. There was an expression of interest from some of the western provinces. I think we would have their support in trying to make some special arrangements with the federal government to try out a new scheme in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Supplementary, Mr. Todd.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Given that the Minister has made a commitment and there is work currently going on, there is a sense of urgency in this. I am wondering if the proposal he is currently looking at, when he can tell us he will be reporting back to the House on the program so we can actually get to work at putting people back to work? For example, if I may, can we get a report or a review of what they are proposing by the February sitting?

Mr. Pollard.

We will certainly be prepared to give an update by that time, Mr. Speaker.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Nerysoo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Education whether or not he is prepared to table in this House an assessment of the recent announcement that was made by the Prime Minister regarding additional training funds that would be made available across Canada?

Mr. Arvaluk. Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been speaking at various fund raising functions across Canada with regards to new initiatives that the federal government may or may not take. I would imagine coming from the Prime Minister it is fairly certain he will move in that direction. Apparently the federal Minister of Finance will be making all these things clear to us on December 2, Mr. Speaker. It is my understanding that he is going to provide provincial and territorial finance Ministers with information regarding all aspects of this package. I would suggest, at that time, Cabinet will be aware of it and be willing to make available to the House its analysis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.