Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the chair of the Ordinary Members' Caucus rose to give a statement critical of the meeting/planning skills of Cabinet Ministers.

-- Shame! Shame!

Recognizing the importance of dealing with issues quickly, given the short period planned for this session and, Mr. Speaker, remembering that today is Friday, I along with other Members of the Executive Council felt bound to respond to the criticism today. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ootes' statement on behalf of the Ordinary Members' Caucus made note of the short period we will be in session, that the dates have been known for at least three months and that many have made sacrifices to be here in Yellowknife for the session.

One of the "critical items" we need to discuss is the Northern Employment Strategy, according to the Ordinary Members' Caucus. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that Cabinet regrets that all Executive Council Members could not be here for the first two days of this session. As Mr. Ootes noted in his statement on behalf of the Ordinary Members' Caucus, the Premier could not have been expected to shun the other western Premiers by not attending their meeting, but OMC obviously has some concern about the meetings of other Ministers. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ootes' statement noted that only four Ministers were here on Tuesday. So, Mr. Speaker, we have asked to examine the videotapes from that day. Those of us who were here want to know what one Executive Member was doing that made them invisible. If we can figure it out, we may be better able to avoid the questions of Ordinary Members.

Cabinet agrees Mr. Speaker that the work of this House must take priority over other issues and it is only after careful consideration that ministerial travel is approved when the House is in session. In the past such travel has only occurred when issues of importance beyond the constituency level are involved, for instance, meetings with other Premiers or other provincial/territorial Cabinet Ministers or where issues of economic or social importance of wide range will be on the table. Such meetings as the meetings with oil and gas companies and land owners that Mr. Kakfwi attended in Norman Wells to discuss jobs and thereby new taxes for this government. Such meetings as those with the Baffin Regional Health and Social Services Board in Iqaluit attended by Mr. Ng to discuss devolution of responsibility for social services to one of the largest regions in the Northwest Territories and where he also met with the Canadian Police Chiefs' Association Committee on policing in aboriginal communities.

Mr. Speaker, you can imagine our surprise on finding yesterday during Committee of the Whole when we were scheduled to talk about that and I quote again that "critical item", the Northern Employment Strategy, that the business of this House had to come to a stop when some Members had to attend a previously set meeting with constituents.

-- Shame! Shame!

Mr. Speaker, we had it wrong! We would like to extend our thanks to the Ordinary Members who have reminded us that our most important function is to meet with our constituents and that they must take precedence over our business here. Mr. Speaker, you have our commitment, as of now, that Executive Council Members will only miss meetings of this House to attend meetings with constituents.

-- Bravo! Bravo!

Mr. Speaker, I wish you a good Friday!

-- Hear! Hear!

Constitution, Mr. Speaker, that is what I would like to talk about today. Yesterday, we heard from Mr. Antoine, the chairman of the Constitutional Working Group and Mr. Miltenberger who is also a member of that group. I would like to add my perspective to what has transpired on the constitutional issues. I would like to talk about some nuts and bolts and matters. I will refer to my letter that I wrote to the

Constitutional Working Group and to the western Members of the Legislative Assembly.

1. Timeframe, it was an issue by a lot of people and it has been dealt with and recognized that we should make sure that we put some brakes on. The document was flawed and it has been agreed that we should rewrite and redraft the document.

2. The need for further public consultation. Second round of consultation is scheduled for this fall. A constitutional conference has been scheduled for this spring. That is good progress, Mr. Speaker.

Now I would like to talk about an issue that I put forward and I would like to explain. I recommended that we expand the Constitutional Working Group by two members from the general public. There was concern out there about the imbalance of representation between the aboriginal and non-aboriginal representatives. No doubt some people will argue this point, but this will not satisfy those who had presented this viewpoint. What has happened since then? Mr. Kakfwi has generously and graciously given up his seat to Mr. Dent. I am sure that was not an easy decision for Mr. Kakfwi to do because he has been a proponent, a good follower and a contributor to the constitutional process over the years and an excellent participant. To further balance this inequity, Mr. Miltenberger offered to give up his seat and he offered it to myself or another Yellowknife Member, Mr. Henry. Neither of us could accept. I could not accept because, in my opinion, it was exactly the point I was making. We had Mr. Kakfwi step aside and that would have meant an area that could not be represented. Mr. Miltenberger, I felt, should continue to represent his area.

The second reason that I did not want to accept was I was pushing the idea of...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I say, my point was, I wanted to expand the membership on the committee by public representation. I am a member, an ex officio member, of the committee and I have attended in the past and will continue to attend the meetings. I was convinced and still am of the conviction that some outside membership would prove beneficial. It cannot always be a government to government process. It needs to be a people process, from the public. However, I do admit good progress has been made. There is now ad hoc representation on a more formalized basis of the women's groups, Members from the Western Caucus and the municipalities, and the meetings have now been opened to the general public.

Mr. Speaker, I do agree that good progress has been made. I would like to state that the next meeting of the working group will be June 5th and 6th in Yellowknife. Also, I would like to acknowledge that there is a full contingent of Ordinary Members here this morning, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on many occasions I have stood up in this House and spoke of fairness and of doing things equally and trying to lessen the impact on people that we serve in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, there are more concerns being raised by the employees of this government as work is being undertaken to further look at how we can achieve more orderly government when it comes to our employees. I use those words because what has been recently happening is there has been staff of this government going through two communities to do job evaluation reviews and the concern is being raised by the constituents I represent is what is this government up to at this time. Are we looking at saving more money in a different way? I believe those concerns need to be addressed and I will be asking questions later during question period to the appropriate Ministers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In this House this week two major issues have been brought up through question period and Members' statements and those are the issues of pay equity and the outstanding issue of settlement allowances that affects communities in the South Slave, mainly Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith. Mr. Speaker, these are long outstanding issues that are in dispute between the Union of Northern Workers and this government. The comments made in the House yesterday by the Minister for FMBS, Mr. Todd, indicate to me that the door seems to be open for the possibility of a negotiated resolution to these issues outside the legal process which, as we know, has dragged on for years and could drag on for years yet to come and is costly and will be protracted.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to encourage the involved parties to in fact make that extra effort to try to resolve these issues so that we can have these matters cleared up and get on to the other issues they will have to deal with that are very important and affect all of our constituents be we elected officials or UNW executive. To my mind, Mr. Speaker, the issue is very simple. These issues involve significant amounts of money. As an organization, we have to be able to put our House in order because, one way or the other, if it costs money the money is going to have to come from somewhere and we have spent two years trying to get our House in order financially. We have cut nearly 1,000 jobs and almost $200 million out of our budget.

We have to be able to resolve these issues in an affordable, efficient and effective way so that we do not end up cutting off our nose to spite our face where there will be a pirate victory where there will be no real victors because money will change hands and, at the end, it will be the people of the north that suffer because the money has to come from somewhere and that usually means program cuts or possibly, more layoffs.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to close by strongly encouraging the parties to make every effort for the benefit of not only their respective organizations but all of us to resolve these issues as soon as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause