Good afternoon. Item 2, Ministers' Statements. Mr. Kakfwi.

Ministers' Statements. Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to provide the Members of this House with copies of a new health careers book for grade eight to twelve students. The publication gives basic information on health career planning and features northerners who have succeeded as health professionals. It will be introduced into the Northwest Territories schools this month.

Other components of the department's health career promotion program include; colouring books for kindergarten to grade four students, a summer program for grade nine students, and a health career feature on the popular T.V.N.C. program "The Tube". A Northwest Territories training program for registered nurses is also being planned, predominantly for aboriginal students. Thank you.

Ministers' Statements. Mr. Allooloo.

Mr. Speaker, last week I attended the fall meeting of the Atlantic Council of Fisheries Ministers. We discussed the declining groundfish stocks in the Saint Lawrence Gulf and south of Newfoundland, and the potential impact of grey and harp seals on these fish.

As quotas for southern groundfish stocks decline, fishermen will look elsewhere for places to fish. In the north, our fishery is just starting. I emphasized to the federal government that northern groundfish quotas and licences should not be increased until we know the size and sustainable harvest levels of our northern fish stocks.

Since the market for sealskins declined, seal populations have been increasing. Many Baffin residents are worried about the increase of harp seals. In the Maritimes, Atlantic grey seals are becoming infested with parasites. The Ministers agreed to establish a working committee to make recommendations on the problems. The first meeting will be in January.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is important to participate at these meetings. In this way, we can ensure that northern concerns are heard and that our needs are reflected in decisions. Thank you.

Ministers' Statements. I would like recognize in the gallery the grade six French immersion students from J.H. Sissons Elementary School, and their instructor, Madeline Fortien.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' Statements.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Christmas is just around the corner. The Christmas holiday is a time to reflect upon special gifts, a time to be generous, a time for peace, a time for friendship, a time when one hears the laughter of joy.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the patients at the Stanton Yellowknife Hospital and on behalf of the students who have been educated through the Sir John Franklin High School, and the St. Patrick's High School, I would like to say a very special thank you to Yellowknife for providing those needs. Thank you.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' Statements. Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Members for supporting the passage of Bill 9 on Friday to allow for the manufacture of beer in the Northwest Territories. Working on this bill has not been easy. I first started working on the bill in the previous Assembly as a follow-up to the Special Committee on Northern Economy's report. I believed a small manufacturing plant could replace imported beer, which after all is more than 99 per cent water. We have an abundance of water in the Northwest Territories of excellent quality. We even have very large areas of the Northwest Territories where high quality barley could be grown. Only hops and yeast and a few other ingredients, which are cheap to transport, would need to be imported.

What is needed, however, Mr. Speaker, is a provision whereby the Liquor Commission could establish a lower pricing regime for this northern product. This would result in a slight lowering of revenue for the commission. It would be consistent with our business incentive programs so that northern manufacturers could get a break. This also could be an initiative of our own to signal to the rest of Canada that we need to establish a base for our manufacturing with some form of protection. I would also thank my counsel, Virginia Schuler, for her work, and for the assistance given to me by the staff of the Department of Justice and the Department of Safety and Public Services. Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Arngna'naaq, the Members of the Standing Committee on Legislation and staff, for their useful suggestions and advice. Thank you.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' Statements. Mr. Pudlat.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to stand up today to make a Member's statement in support of the school to be built in Apex in Iqaluit. We all support the system of education as Members. We just heard that the school burned down in Apex. I would like to encourage all the Members of the Legislative Assembly to support the building of the school in Apex as soon as possible. The Members of the east and the west are in a position to support the education system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Item 3, Members' Statements. Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Item 3, Members' Statements. Item 4, Returns to Oral Questions. Item 5, Oral Questions. Item 6, Written Questions. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a written question for the acting Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister please table the following information in the Legislative Assembly?

1. The application for funds submitted to the Workers' Compensation Board by the N.W.T. Federation of Labour to carry out a study for workers' compensation.

2. Copies of all policies, payments, directives, or other financial management instruments developed by the board regarding disbursements of funds made under the subsection 58(2) of the Workers' Compensation Act.

3. A copy of the contribution agreement contract or other undertakings arrived at between the Federation of Labour and the Workers' Compensation Board respecting the terms under which money was provided for this initiative.

4. Copies of any correspondence from the Workers' Compensation Board to the Federation of Labour which specify the board's expectations regarding;

(a) the purpose of which the funds were granted;

(b) accounting and audit requirements respecting the use of these funds;

(c) procedures for the recovery of any unspent surplus funds;

(d) the time period during which the project was to be carried out; and (e) the requirements for the development of a report for other products to be prepared within the funds provided.

5. A listing of the contact people at the Federation of Labour who were involved in this funding application. This should include the names specified on the original funding proposal as well as all names on any correspondence or documentation subsequently received from the Federation of Labour in connection with this project.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Item 6, Written Questions. Item 7, Returns to Written Questions. Mr. Clerk.

Mr. Speaker, I have Return to Written Question 11-12(3), asked by Mr. Patterson to the Minister responsible for Education, Culture, and Employment Programs, concerning the statistics on in-service training person years.

G.N.W.T. In-service training person years are made available through the Public Service Career Training Program (P.S.C.T.P.) and the G.N.W.T. In-service Apprenticeship Program.

Public Service Career Training Program (Fulltime Program) Description

The Public Career Training Program provides salaried trainee positions to train affirmative action candidates for permanent officer and management level target positions with G.N.W.T. departments, boards and agencies. It provides training, counselling, monitoring and administrative support for the development and delivery of individualized training programs of up to 3 years duration. Training programs include a combination of on-the-job training provided by an employee of the applying department, board or agency and specialized short courses of up to six weeks in length.

The number of trainee positions provided to each region is based on the percentage of the total number of public service employees that are in each region (headquarters region includes Rae-Edzo). Other determining factors include the objective of allocating at least one new position to each region. Regional Trainee PY Allocation Committees, which include the regional director, regional superintendent of advanced education and regional superintendent of Personnel, allocate available trainee positions each February. Approximately 70 trainees are supported during a fiscal year, with over 95 per cent native participation. There were 48 trainee positions being supported as of November 30, 1992. There will be an additional 22 trainee positions available for 1993-94 at the February 15, 1993, application deadline.

G.N.W.T. In-Service Apprenticeship Program Description

The G.N.W.T. In-Service Apprenticeship Program administers in-service training for approximately 55 long-term northerners leading to certification at the journeyman level. Training is provided through work experience within G.N.W.T. departments such as Public Works and Transportation, and through annual attendance at institutional apprenticeship courses. The program has over 90 per cent native participation.

Available apprenticeship positions are allocated at the beginning of the fiscal year and during the year as positions become available. Allocations take into account priority occupations and the training capability of the department requesting the position. A waiting list is established for requests that cannot be accommodated.

The number of requests received and positions allocated per region is affected by the number of G.N.W.T. journeyman positions in the region and suitability of workplaces and workloads to accommodate new apprentices.

The list of the apprentices being supported at November 30, 1992 is attached.

Item 7, Returns to Written Questions. Item 8, Replies to Opening Address. Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was arranging some notes. I appreciate that you recognized me. I have been very quiet this year, Mr. Speaker. It has given my constituents some concern since I had plenty to say during the 11th Assembly when you were a Member of this Cabinet. For four years, I used every conceivable place on the order paper to raise issues of concern to the people who elected me. One criticism I heard time and time again during the 11th Assembly from my colleagues in the Cabinet and outside of it was I talk too much. My constituents told me, on the other hand, that I did not talk enough, so I have had to compromise. At least I am here every day, and I do make some contribution from time to time. I was also told by several of my constituents that my publication, the Blade, which was used as a means of keeping in touch with my constituents, was too light-hearted and frivolous. I needed to bring weightier matters to their attention.

There are sometimes bizarre and unusual goings-on that take place in this Legislative Assembly. If I had wished, I could have published some hilarious issues in the Blade this year, Mr. Speaker, but I resisted. It has been an unusual year. It has also been the most painful of all the years I have spent in the Northwest Territories. I represent the people of Yellowknife Centre, which is an incredible mixture of people, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal. There are wealthy people who live in penthouse suites in detached homes on beautifully landscaped lots. There are single people who live in single rooms at the Gold Range with a bathroom down the hall. There are old people who have lived here all their lives and who have paid their dues, and they live at the Avens Seniors' Centre or the Mary Murphy Centre.

There are homeless people who stay at the Salvation Army. There are other homeless people who sleep in any warm doorway they can find. There are many kinds of settlers in this community, Mr. Speaker; people like myself who came to this country, were fascinated by it, raised a family, and have felt part of something very important and very special. I feel it has all been very worthwhile, a life well-spent, beginning on Baffin Island and ending up thirty years later here in the capital city. The soul of this community, however, is not government or bureaucracies. The soul of this community is mining. I grew up with mining people. They are tough, resilient people with a big sense of community and comradeship shared by all men who work under difficult and dangerous conditions. My father often told me, "you will not like it underground, son. You will meet great people down there. You will make great friends, but the roof is very heavy and there are no windows." It seems to me ironic, Mr. Speaker, that in the year that we see the destruction of the Miner's Mess at the Yellowknife Inn, we feel chaos in the mining industry which was its inspiration.

Forever etched in our memory will be the most devastating mining disaster in our history. People whose roots go back to the 1930s and 1940s and the early shacks of a gold mining town, feel that there is an industry in danger of collapsing around them. As an elected person, I have never felt so weak and so helpless in all my life. We see around us only a glimpse of what lies ahead for us as a society.

What lies ahead for the people of the Northwest Territories are problems which can only be solved by tremendous courage, intelligence and an incredible amount of hard work and dedication. What I see on the other side of this House is a handful of people working very hard but with no sense of where the people want to go. I have no doubt we have a hard working Premier. I have watched events unfold throughout the year with a sense of dread and frustration, Mr. Speaker. While much of our labour force in the mining industry is on the ropes doing its best to defend itself, our government finds itself in an almost identical position.

From what I was able to learn this weekend, the public has lost confidence in the system by which it is governed. Over the weekend, I heard the following comments:

-We should ask the federal government to step in and take it over;

-There should be an immediate general election so we can turf the whole lot of you out;

-We should start a petition so that people can really express their opinion;

-This government should go into receivership like anything else that goes belly up.

I have been quiet a long time, Mr. Speaker. The survival of public government has been my passion and my main reason for remaining in politics. The government we now have is the one we have claimed to be proud of for so long. We no longer have executive government, Mr. Speaker, what we have is consensus government, and what a nightmare it is. The Executive is just one more committee whose Members are paid a substantial amount of money to be held hostage to the majority where the most powerful and the most threatening within that majority decide which Minister should have the next week of sleepless nights.

My friend, John Ningark, summed things up best last week when he said, "our problem could be summed up in three sentences: 1) There are people like myself who are happy to serve in any way they can; 2) There are people within the Cabinet just renting space and I am not sure for how long; 3) There are others just waiting anxiously to move in as soon as a space becomes vacant."

In the 11th Assembly, we saw the need to organize ourselves as ordinary Members so that we could hold government accountable by working together. This had never happened before. There was never any feeling among this group of ordinary Members which we call Ajautit, which means to push people, that we were a government-in-waiting. We were not there to topple people over and then bet on which way they were going to fall. It simply organized itself so that we could get good government, and many of you remember that.

The 12th Assembly has seen the Ordinary Members' Committee and the Standing Committee on Finance bring the Executive Council to a complete standstill. It is no longer a matter of working to make government accountable; it is a matter of engaging in a power struggle day after day after day. There are people fighting for turf and others defending their turf.

This is supposed to be the best of all possible models of government, at least that is what we tell the rest of the country, since everyone is involved in decision making and in sharing power. Unfortunately, as everyone plainly sees, it just spells chaos. Public confidence in what we do here is rapidly disappearing. Some people believe that there is an intentional undermining of public government so that there can be a new beginning for aboriginal people. There is a strong belief that there are native people who are intent on destroying public government from the inside. By far, the majority of people I have talked to, however, believe that we are incapable of governing ourselves; aboriginal and non-aboriginal people alike.

This Assembly is only a year old, Mr. Speaker. Already, many of my constituents are sick of it. People want order in their lives. The city is in a mood of deep anxiety. The public service is demoralized. The private sector is in bad shape. Mining faces a very uncertain future.

I was not fully aware of the depth of this feeling, Mr. Speaker, until I talked with several Yellowknifers on Saturday morning. I completely lost my voice by this time and did a lot of listening. This seems to have come a long way from being a response to the Commissioner's Address, Mr. Speaker, but the Commissioner lives on my street and I know he likes his addresses, no matter how short, to be replied to.

It would be my proposal, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Ballantyne, Mr. Dent and myself be nominated from the floor on Wednesday so that Yellowknifers can at least witness, one more time, that they are correct in feeling the way they do about what they thought was their government.

I am not going to go around soliciting anybody's nomination or anybody's vote. I am talking about one quarter of the people in the Northwest Territories. People are angry and frustrated.

To end on a humorous note, Mr. Speaker, which I will try to do and I hope you will appreciate it, I could offer Ms. Cournoyea to join our Cabinet for a salary of $1 a year which she could pay me out of her own pocket. I could also give her my undated letter of completely unconditional discharge. For any western Members still breathing like a furnace to take up one of the seats of the not-so-mighty, she could then offer them my seat at the same salary. I cannot think of a more imaginative solution to the current power struggle to which I can see no end.

Mr. Speaker, for the sake of my constituents, I should also give one more explanation of why I have talked little during the past month.

A year ago, I undertook to work, once again, on a private Member's bill enabling breweries to be established in the Northwest Territories. I wanted to work on some practical project which could lead to the development of a small, environmentally friendly industry in the north. I did it because I believed it could attract investment, create jobs, and lead to a distinctive northern product.

To guide a private Member's bill through this Assembly is time-consuming and requires a lot of patience. It also means that I have to be kind and full of good will to all my colleagues. I do not know if it is un-parliamentary to say this, Mr. Speaker, but it is not my style to kiss anybody's backside for anything. Being quiet and full of good will is the closest I could get to it. I would like to thank the Members for allowing Bill 9 to proceed, for I believe that it leads to the further reduction of our dependence on our imported products.

Meanwhile, the public awaits with great cynicism the next chapter in our evolution. I hope after this week I will no longer be hearing words like "Mickey Mouse outfit", "Disney Land", "Demolition Derby Politics", or "Kamikazi Assembly". Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Item 8, Replies to Opening Address. Item 9, Petitions. Item 10, Reports of Standing and Special Committees. Item 11, Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills. Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Legislation has reviewed Bill 2 and Bill 7 and wishes to report that Bill 2 and Bill 7 are now ready for the Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.