Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs told this House in a Minister's statement that the deputy minister of her department had approached the NWT Arctic Winter Games directors to ask them to consider resigning as a sign of protest over the matter in which Inuvik was disqualified as host community in its bid for the 1998 Arctic Winter Games.
Madam Speaker, I think this action was despicable. The Arctic Winter Games board is specifically set up at arm's length from the government to avoid political interference. Having been set up this way, it was completely out of line for the Minister and her department to politicize, after the fact, the decision made by the Arctic Winter Games International Committee. Yet, Madam Speaker, she chose to do so by having the deputy minister approach our dedicated and hard-working board members who had nothing to do with the decision.