Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The first thing I wanted to do was to congratulate the Speaker and the Clerk on being able to pave the driveway for the Legislative Assembly in one year when it was supposed to be done over the course of two years. They were able to save a considerable amount of money in doing this. Madam Chairperson, I think with all the visiting dignitaries that we have to the Legislative Assembly here, it was incumbent upon us to do this. I am glad we were able to do it in one year, as well save a considerable amount of money in doing so.

The other thing I wanted to touch on is something that Mr. Steen has already mentioned, the constituency assistants' salaries. I had an opportunity to look into it earlier and I know secretaries make more than the constituency assistants. I believe that at the time when people set the salaries for assistants, it may have been a part-time job and perhaps it still is a part-time job in some constituencies. However, Madam Chairperson, at the last election there were over 2,500 voters in my constituency and it is very, very difficult to serve that many people with a part-time assistant as well as having the person do research and helping to initiate new projects that a Member might want to do. In addition to that, when you have low pay for a good worker, good workers often will not stick around very long because there is an awful pile of better paying jobs out there. If you have a good person working then they will likely move onto another job unless they have another good paying part-time job. As I have indicated, I too, would certainly like to see something done to assist the constituency assistants get a better salary to live on so that we can do a better job and to ensure MLAs can retain good workers to maintain consistent service for their constituents. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, communication is very important in this particular forum. One area that I would like to speak to in general, if I may, is interpreting and translating. We provide interpreting and translating because we have seven or eight official languages. I think I can say on behalf of my Nunavut colleagues, Madame Thompson, Mr. Evaloarjuk, Mr. Barnabas, Mr. Enuaraq and myself, I think we are very lucky in this Assembly to have travelled throughout the Nunavut area to the three different regions during the educational process, other training and job-related travel. In essence, we were able to pick up the different dialects from different regions. A person who is confined to a community or to a region from the Kitikmeot, it would be really hard for an elder, even for the middle-aged to go to another region and be able to debate without any problem. What I am trying to say is, we have three different regions and the three different regions have different dialects. Perhaps it was partly our fault from the Nunavut area that we have not, Madam Chairperson, requested we get three different translators from Nunavut. I can almost see when Nunavut becomes a reality, there may be a need to have three interpreters even within Nunavut, one from Baffin, one from Keewatin and one from the Kitikmeot region in order to respect the different dialects.

Speaking about translating, interpreting, communication; I do not believe the people of Nunavut would want to have one unified dialect. We do understand each other because we are fortunate to have travelled throughout the Nunavut area. When the Speaker talks about division and the operation of two governments, in that respect, I hope that we will keep that in mind. You know communication is very important. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Just some opening general comments on the Legislative Assembly on the vision, goals and mission. Over the last couple of years, having been the rookie MLA and now having had an opportunity to reflect on the last two years of how this Legislative Assembly functions, I have found some very good things logistically as to how the Legislative Assembly works, the management structure and style.

I also note in the overview on page 1-3, that one of the mandates of this business plan we are about to look at, is to allow for the establishment of a fully functioning Legislative Assembly for Nunavut by April 1, 1999. That would be my major concern here.

About a month ago, when I was home in Iqaluit, I had an opportunity to look at the plans that were made initially for the temporary Legislative Assembly building. I understand that our Legislative staff have actually been working in concert with the architects designing that building. There were some flaws, for example, the library in the new building is 150 square feet, where this one is 1,500 square feet. Our Legislative Assembly staff actually picked up on that so I was very pleased to see that. I have some general questions later on, of the operations of the Legislative Assembly itself, the financial implications of the Legislative Assembly, the person-years at the Legislative Assembly and the hiring practices of the Legislative Assembly here in Yellowknife.

I would also like to compliment the Clerk, Mr. David Hamilton, on his recent appointment as the Chief Electoral Officer for all of the Northwest Territories, which was an Order-in-Council of the federal government, I believe. I would also like to say that the Assembly itself, the way it acts and reacts within its budget, has been very progressive. I would also note in my opening comments that the Legislative Assembly has tried to initiate some new ways of getting information out to the public. In this respect, the Legislative Assembly has put up a web page, which I understand is getting a lot of hits on the Internet. It is well done and very professional. I believe Mr. Sorensen is the Web Master. I have had some comments from my constituents on the web page. On that web page, they have actually put up new pictures of all the gallery, where you have people like Mr. Ningark, and yourself, Madam Chairperson, the Speaker and so on. Some of the pictures are very flattering, some have to be adjusted as I noted this morning when reviewing my own. Thank you, your honourable Member, Mr. Miltenberger. Those are just my general comments. I will have some good questions later for the staff, for the Speaker, Mr. Gargan, and his associate, Mr. Hamilton. I would also like to say, that sometimes in the Legislative Assembly, we get wrapped up in our own self-importance.

--Laughter

Madam Chairperson, that was demonstrated during the unity debate when we had this huge flag over the backdrop of the Speaker's chair when we were going to go live on TVNC, that C-PAC was going to pick us up, and everything was going to stop on Bay Street, and President Clinton was going to be tuning in, of course, none of that happened. Sometimes we get overly dramatic at the Legislative Assembly, and maybe that is something we could all take a lesson from. With that, those are my opening comments on the Legislative Assembly and I will have further questions on the fully functional Nunavut Legislative Assembly, staffing for Nunavut and other general questions on the operations and maintenance budgets of this Assembly. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. With regard to the concerns expressed by Mr. Krutko regarding the reporting of our session, we have the reporting done twice a day. One at 10:00 a.m. and one during the evening at 10:30 p.m., of either Members' statements or question period or both just to remind the Member it is being done and in all the languages. The other problem you mentioned with regard to the Languages Commissioner is that this department is under the overall operations of the government. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, I would like to know at this time, under the main estimates on page 1-6, how many positions are dedicated to Nunavut at the present time, how many we are training for the new Nunavut Legislature? How many positions are identified right now in that business plan for 1998-99? Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. There are no positions being funded from the current amount of money which are directly related to Nunavut. We do have positions, but they are being funded by other mechanisms outside the Legislative Assembly budget for positions that will eventually move to Nunavut.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, if those positions are not funded by the Legislative Assembly budget itself, it also means that, indeed, the Mentoring Program with our own staff here must be taking place with those students. I would assume those people are under NUHRDS funding. If that is the case, could that be clarified right now?

Yes, Madam Chairperson. It is under the Mentoring Program and we have two people currently. One is the clerk assistant of committees for Nunavut and the other one is a policy officer that was under the Department of Public Works who is working on a three-month attachment from Public Works in our research division.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I understand that the new clerk for the Legislative Assembly for Nunavut has either been hired or will be hired very shortly. Will that position be coming here to Yellowknife to work with Mr. Hamilton under a mentoring program and would that be funded out of this budget or would that again be out of the nearest funding or out of the office of the OIC?

I will ask David to respond.