Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Government Leader. On June 16, 1992, the Government Leader announced the new initiative. Part of this new direction is to be the decentralization of several government facilities and agencies to the regions of the Northwest Territories. Since June, however, we have not heard any details about the governments plans. Our constituents are interested in knowing how and when this decentralization will take place. Can the Minister or Government Leader inform the House whether a strategy has been developed for the implementation of the new directions decentralization plan? Thank you.

Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very clear on the areas where the initiatives are being taken. I know that there is another plan to again brief the Standing Committee on Finance. The honourable Member has made an indication in his earlier remarks that he has not had the opportunity or feels that the Standing Committee on Finance does not necessarily include all Members of the Legislative Assembly. There will be a briefing while he is here and I am sure that the Standing Committee on Finance will feel it is appropriate that any Member attend because the briefing will take place while the sitting is going on. However, all the areas which we have talked about, health insurance, training program at Baker Lake for airports, science council and petroleum products is well known to the general public as well as M.L.A.s. There will be a full briefing and you can be brought up to date. All the work has been completed and the implementation plans are almost complete so the dates have been set when we expect the decentralization projects to take place. Thank you.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many years ago I was in the hospital in Fort Rae. There was no road to Fort Rae at the time. I was four years old and when I returned home I was speaking the Dogrib language as my first language. My mom said I was not her son because I was speaking Dogrib. This bothered me quite a bit. It took me about two or three years before I learned my language. When I first went to residential school I was fluent in the South Slavey dialect. Through the years I have been able to hang on to my language. However, Mr. Speaker, just last month one of my older sons who is 14 years of age visited my mother, his grandmother. She asked him in her language to put some meat downstairs in the freezer. My son took the meat and dumped it outside in the burning barrel. I really question the delivery of aboriginal programs in the school. It was not until we visited my mom that she told us this and my son was able to go out and get that meat back out of the barrel.

I would like to ask the Minister of Education whether or not the present system of education allows for any kind of evaluation on aboriginal programs. In other words, do we have people who evaluate whether the students are actually learning their aboriginal culture?

I would like to remind Members that their preamble to a question should be used to set up the question. Something longer than that is probably more appropriately put into a Member's statement. Mr. Arvaluk.

Mr. Speaker, this question is hard to answer because we have been delegating a lot of our responsibility for aboriginal languages to the divisional boards. For example, Mr. Joe Enook, Chairman of the Baffin Divisional Board sent me 150 books written in the aboriginal language from the eastern Arctic. These are used for the curriculum part of the Inuktitut language teaching material for the school.

For the other regions, I am not sure what the divisional boards use as a basis for ensuring that the aboriginal language is used in the schools. It will take time, Mr. Speaker, for me to get individual divisional boards' criteria for establishing that proper languages are being taught in the schools. For that reason, I will take the question as notice.

The question has been taken as notice. Once a question has been taken as notice, normally no more explanation is needed past that time. Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health. Mr. Speaker, we hear about poor health among native communities, we read about it also compared to other jurisdictions within the country. What attributes to this belief that is true to a degree, Mr. Speaker, the reason is simple: we the native people within the scattered parts of the N.W.T., especially in the remote communities, do not enjoy the same access to medical care, dental care and eye care. It takes about six months for doctors to come to our communities to do check ups. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister indicate to this House that future visits of doctors and medical specialists stay long enough to do the proper check up and treatment?

Mr. Patterson.

Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect to the honourable Member, I wish it was as simple as saying more frequent and longer visits from eye doctors, dentists and other medical professionals would fix the health of people in our communities. Unfortunately dentists cannot control whether children consume sugar, doctors cannot control whether people smoke and other issues such as overcrowded housing are beyond the control of this department I am responsible for. So I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that we are attempting to maximize the numbers of dollars available for the kind of professional services and professional visits the Member is referring to. There are limits on those funds and I can only do as much as is possible within the appropriations provided to my department. If there are specific complaints within the Member's region I will be happy to discuss those with him. I look forward to meeting with the Kitikmeot board of health at the earliest possible opportunity to learn more about these specific problems the Member is referring to. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the honourable Minister that doctors and specialists cannot control the amount of sugar and other impurities that are consumed by the patients. Mr. Speaker, I have seen people from my community complain that when the doctors and specialists come to the community they only see a very few people but there are other patients who wish to see doctors but are not able to see doctors and specialists because they leave the community before they can see all their patients. Would the Minister ensure that the doctors and specialists stay long enough to see all the patients who wish to see doctors and specialists? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think it would be responsible for me to look into the Member's concern before I made guarantees about what better level of service can be delivered. So I will look into the matter and respond to the Member on what improvements can be considered. Thank you.

Item 5, Oral Questions. Mr. Antoine.

Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Speaker, if we go way back to the First Ministers' conference, the very first one which was late last year, I believe. Our Premier raised with the Prime Minister and the rest of the First Ministers the importance of infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. We have a document, the transportation strategy in the Northwest Territories. That transportation strategy is the Bible that is used primarily by the Department of Transportation. I am sure that at times there are some changes made to accommodate other schedules but generally by and large that is the document that it is stuck with. I think it is important to point out that the Premier has made that known to the Prime Minister and the other First Ministers.

Over the past year there have been several proposals put out by the federal government. The first one was to increase the price of gasoline by four cents a litre and that kind of fell by the wayside, but it was a suggestion that was flying around there saying if we did that and took those taxes and put them into transportation or infrastructure development that would create a lot of jobs and get some highways built where they are currently not being built. Now we are hearing all kinds of things coming out of Ottawa as Mr. Nerysoo asked me earlier with regards to job training. I do not think the federal government in this anticipated spending has everything nailed down. Certainly the position of this government is that we have a transportation strategy for the Northwest Territories. If we get dollars given to us from Ottawa we would like to use those dollars in the best way they can be used in the Northwest Territories which sort of fits in with that transportation strategy. It has been explained to federal Ministers and provincial Ministers on a number of occasions that they talk about roads and bridges. In the Northwest Territories we talk about needing some roads, some wharves, some docking spaces and airports. That is our transportation strategy because it is such a vast country and there are not a lot of roads up here at the present time.

If I could clear up some of the confusion about when we go to the table. The latest proposal we were talking about from the federal government to the provinces and territories was a formula. So you did not have to go there and say I am going to build this airport or dig this hole for a dock, or I am going to build this wharf, they were saying based on your previous year's spending we would be prepared to match those dollars. I think what our Minister would be looking for is the flexibility with the money that would be provided by the federal government to do something that we need to be done in the Northwest Territories. Not just a strip of road from A to B, maybe a new road. Are we interested in getting some federal money? Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is no question about it. Will we fight for it diligently? We have been doing that for the past year. Our position is well known in Ottawa that we require infrastructure in the Northwest Territories, transportation infrastructure of all kinds. Are we going to rush in and sign a foolish deal with the federal government whereby they could back out five years down the road and leave us holding the bag again? No, Mr. Speaker, no.

(microphone turned off)

You have warned us on many occasions not to get into any more foolish deals. So I think just to finish off, all of the provinces and territories are concerned about making a new arrangement with Ottawa without some very, very strong assurances that the federal government is going to be there to do their part of this arrangement for a considerable period of time until the improvements are made. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Time for Oral Questions has elapsed. Item 6, Written Questions. Item 7, Returns to Written Questions. Item 8, Replies to Opening Address. Item 9, Replies to Budget Address. Item 10, Petitions. Item 11, Reports of Standing and Special Committees. Item 12, Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills. Item 13, Tabling of Documents. Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table Tabled Document 12-12(3) which is resolution number six from the fall session of the Keewatin Regional Council. I spoke about this resolution in my Member's statement earlier today. It calls for the Government of the Northwest Territories to transfer money from the Department of Social Services to municipalities for community work under programs such as the Local Initiatives Program. Thank you.

Item 13, Tabling of Documents. Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table Tabled Document 13-12(3), a letter from Dr. Earle L. Covert, Chairperson of the Board of Inquiry to myself dated November 23, 1992. Thank you.