Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by sending greetings back to my wife and children back in Inuvik.

Mr. Speaker, on February 19th, Mr. Kakfwi, the Minister responsible for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development informed this House that the process to develop a Protected Area strategy would begin in Inuvik in the week of March 3rd. I would like to thank the Minister for selecting Inuvik as the site to start this historic initiative. Not only will the meeting give the town a badly needed shot in the arm, Inuvik is a wise choice for this meeting. Inuvik means the place of man. Mr. Speaker, the word man is used in the broadest sense to mean people, mankind.

Since its birth, Inuvik has been a crossroads where people of many cultures from many places have met. The community is an everyday meeting place for the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit and non-aboriginal residents. It has been and remains a centre for research. The region has been a testing ground for new technologies and ideas. Inuvik is an ideal place to bring together the many varied interests which will be needed to develop a strategy that will meet the economic, social and environmental needs of the northerners in the future.

The town of Inuvik has hosted big conferences and meetings in the past. Mr. Speaker, Inuvik always welcomes visitors. I am sure those who travel to Inuvik for the meeting on a Protected Areas Strategy will be greeted as warmly as other visitors and have a time which they will long remember. Mr. Speaker, all MLAs have been invited to attend the Inuvik gathering. I encourage my fellow Members to visit my community and participate in the deliberations on a Protected Areas Strategy. This is an opportunity to get on the ground floor of an exciting initiative that we will hear much about in the future. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I extend a welcome to those who will meet in Inuvik. We all have a responsibility to look after the land, to manage it, to use it properly and protect it to meet our needs and the needs of our future generations.

Those deliberating at the conference in Inuvik have an important role to play in our future. They face a task that can be best completed by working together. I wish the Minister and the participants the best in their deliberations. Once again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my thanks to the Minister and hope the other Ministers will follow his lead by holding conferences in Inuvik as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night on CBC North a government employee, Frances Widdowson, made some comments on her views on traditional knowledge and the spiritual beliefs of aboriginal people. For myself, I was very offended by those statements and I do not believe it is the time for a government employee to downgrade aboriginal people's beliefs, thoughts or rights to speak their minds.

-- Applause

This individual made accusations that the aboriginal traditional knowledge is not relevant nor their spiritual beliefs. Yet aboriginal people have been in the north for 10,000 or 20,000 years compared to Europeans who have come to North America in the last hundreds of years. I believe we are finally making a stride in recognizing traditional knowledge for what it is. It is knowledge which has been handed down for thousands and thousands of years by aboriginal people in one of the harshest climates in the world. For an employee of this government to make accusations that her religious beliefs are stronger than an aboriginal right to recognize their spirituality of surviving in the country long before there were Bibles, religions or things that we take as religious beliefs in the sense of the European market.

I would like to close by stating there have been hundreds, if not hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the scientific community on research regarding polar gas, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, the Norman Wells pipeline, and the mining industry by scientists who fly up here during the summer season to do their tests in a month or two month period, fly south, go to a university and analyze it over the winter and they say that information is more powerful than people who have lived here and collected this information for thousands and thousands of years. I would like to ask the appropriate Minister a question on this particular subject. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say a few words about the Affirmative Action Policy and approach. I raised some questions last year as to when this policy would be brought forward by the government to be reviewed by all the Members here. We urgently need to address this particular issue, Mr. Speaker. I am disappointed this has not been brought forward to us yet. Every day individuals apply to the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Affirmative Action Policy is in effect. People get effected by that. Every summer our students are caught up with this particular problem with their peers. Problems of this policy are not going to go away through wishful thinking, Mr. Speaker. We need to review it and we need to review this soon.

The other day I asked the Premier for some detailed statistical analysis to be done of every area of government, so we can see where the successes and the failures of this government are in relationship to the Affirmative Action Policy. We need the statistical dissection or make-up of the government and also the boards and agencies run by the various regions whose success rates are nothing to write home about. The impact of that has great impact on our overall statistics. I am not content to accept blanket statements that our present Affirmative Action Policy is only 34 percent successful without detailed analysis to back this up.

My information attributes a higher rate in certain areas. If those areas are under-represented, let us find out why. Is it because of a lack of availability of qualified people? In the course of trying to correct our problems, let us not chastise or unfairly treat our employees that serve us so well, whose only short-coming is they were non-aboriginal or long-time northerners. When we are doing analysis, it would also be beneficial for the government to address how this policy was originally crafted by our political predecessor. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In researching the original development of the Affirmative Action Policy, some questions were raised that the draft policy would exceed what the Human Rights Commission would approve. The question needs to be looked at. How did the Department of Justice and the government of the day address concerns that this policy not exceed what the Human Rights Act would normally allow in under-represented programs in specially employment areas?

Let me tell you how I feel about this whole issue. I am supportive of ensuring the makeup of this government and its civil service is reflective of its population. I truly believe there are inequities to be solved. But is the Affirmative Action Policy the answer to solve that inequity? I do not know because I have nothing to go on, no convincing detail data. There are defenders of this policy and there are detractors. The other day, Mr. Henry stated that he wanted this policy eliminated. Let us stop right now and get the government to address this issue. Have them do the research and bring forward the data. I am all for a revised approach that gets rid of the mistrust and suspicion this policy seems to create. In our jurisdiction, we are in an unique situation. We are one of four minority groups. The aboriginal people are in fact the majority of our population. While the original inhabitants of the north are the majority, they remain seriously under-represented in commerce, business and government. There is no good reason why they should remain economically and financially deprived in the north.

We have an opportunity to get the economic situations of the aboriginal peoples correct and not on welfare. The affirmative action policy needs full review and analysis. All of the stakeholders affected by that government policy need an opportunity to revisit the policy and honestly reassess its true intents. The Human Rights Act and employment equity legislation was served as our base to revamp our approach here in the north. In the north, we can do what the rest of the world could not do. We could ensure the aboriginal people become fully educated and masters of their social and cultural change processes and wealthy by all measures of their traditional and Canadian ways of life. We need to do this in a fair and equitable way to all our northern citizens. I urge all concerned Members of this House to join me in a concerted effort to become a model of true success where one jurisdiction got the health and well-being of all its people right. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to make some brief comments on the issue of division. As we see the end of the road coming with this particular budget process within the next week, it is time to turn our attention very quickly to division. We have been told and learnt in the last year and a half that we are behind schedule on the biggest initiative that is going to face this government. Mr. Speaker, we have to move ahead with the administrative plans to split the headquarters as it now exists, delineate the staff that are going to be required in the east and start putting all of those pieces in place so that people know very clearly without any more fear and uncertainty as to the direction that is going to be taken by this government and the impact that it is going to have on the people affected.

Mr. Speaker, we have an obligation as a government to do this. We have to work with our partners, the federal government, NTI and the western coalition on formula financing. As a government, from an administrative point of view, we have an obligation to start to put the pieces in place, so that come April 1, 1999, both territories can start functioning. To avoid a huge snafu where people are scrambling around, nobody knowing where the light switch is in the building to write cheques and any number of possible nightmare scenarios that can be painted. We have an obligation as a Legislature to move now and more quickly on that particular function because the administrative side is going to be critical in the first few days of each new territory after April 1, 1999. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a pleasure today to recognize the mayor of Hay River, His Worship Jack Rowe in the gallery.

-- Applause