Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Welcome back colleagues. Today I would like to make a statement on the pay equity and collective agreement impasse. Mr. Speaker, the pay equity dispute between the union and the government seems to be a case of seeing how many legal hurdles can be shoved through before settlement is reached. For the GNWT employees, three-quarters of whom are union members, this must be very demoralizing. Historically, this disagreement goes back ten years, during which time a lot has been done to thwart efforts towards solving the dispute expeditiously. What I continue to hear from the union, is that this government is inflexible to other points of view and ways of doing things.

The union says they have proposed solutions to negotiation difficulties many times. For example, they said they offered to go to arbitration to settle the question of gender neutrality of the Hay Plan. Then they offered to sign a memorandum of understanding to allow both parties to deal with the pay equity situation separate from the collective agreement, with the proviso that resolution be reached by April 1, 1999. Most recently, they have indicated their desire to work with a facilitator to get the negotiations back on track. According to the union, this government has turned down all these options. There is obviously a difference of opinion as to why we are at this stage today.

The government today is determined to proceed with the appointment of a mediator, which could potentially lead to a strike or arbitrary acceptance of the offer. A strike is not what we need at this very time in our history of the Northwest Territories, just when we are seeing a glimmer of hope on the economic front that it is improving.

The question is, where are we heading with all this Mr. Speaker? To set a new record for legal processes? It seems we are losing the art of negotiating and instead we are honing the art of legal processes. I urge you, Mr. Todd to remove the pay equity issue from the bargaining process, settle the collective agreement, deal with the pay equity issue through a memorandum of understanding with a proviso that it be settled by April 1, 1999. Let us not push this to the brink of a strike, which will be an abyss from which we will have a hard time to recover. We do not want it to become the equityville horror. Thank you.

--Applause