Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to raise the issue of Arctic 'A' airports employees. Mr. Speaker, back in 1995, this government signed an agreement with Transport Canada on dealing with the employees that were transferred from Transport Canada in those affected communities. Those effected communities were Cambridge Bay, Inuvik, Iqaluit and Norman Wells.
In that agreement -- which was signed by the Government of the Northwest Territories of the day -- there was a bridging agreement to allow Transport employees to continue with the entitlement they had under the federal government regime. That was in the area of vacation travel allowance that allowed them to have two VTAs for employees under the federal government program that were transferred over to the Northwest Territories.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been working on this issue with the Minister responsible for FMBS and to date have not managed to convince him to turn it around and allow those employees the funds they were entitled to when they came over to this government. Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with, especially in light of comments made by the Premier when he referred to employees of the Northwest Territories.
I refer to unedited Hansard, page 1417. In reference to a question asked by Mr. Miltenberger, the Premier stated:
"If we are challenged to protect and defend the rights of employees of this government, we will. There is no trying to soft peddle that. It has been my view that every employee has a right to be defended by the Ministers and the Premier of this government."
So taking that response to another question, we are dealing with government employees. I hope that the Minister responsible for FMBS will take that message now and will allow employees to receive what they were entitled to when they were transferred to this government. Thank you.