Thank you. The Member is seeking unanimous consent to return to item 13, tabling of documents. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mr. Antoine, you may table your document.

Thank you Mr. Antoine. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. Item 19, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters. Minister's Statement 1-14(2), Sessional Statement, with Mr. Krutko in the chair.

We have one item to deal with in committee of the whole. It is item 1-14(2), Minister's Statement. We will take a short break at this time.

-- Break

We have one item to deal with. The Minister's statement made by the Premier, Mr. Kakfwi, Minister's Statement 1-14(2), Sessional Statement. The floor is now open for general comments. Are there any comments on the statement? Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I put the statements made by the Premier and the Minister of Finance together, truly nobody can argue with the general sentiment expressed by the Premier. The question is how do we move ahead? What kind of specifics and comfort can we give to people with the fiscal year-end five weeks away?

With people currently preparing contracts, budgets, looking to programs and services that are going to continue on, while we search for new revenues in all the areas that the Minister touches on - on the economic side, on the social side, on the health side.

I think the key is people want more than noble sentiment. I know that Mr. Handley, the Minister of Finance, has indicated that it is going to take us possibly until June to come up with our vision and priorities, which takes us a good way through the fiscal year. So I would be interested in the Premier's comments in terms of the practical realities.

Can we step it down from the high general level to the realities of life that will be facing us in the next five weeks? Can we in fact give comfort to people in the communities that are concerned about bread and butter issues? What are we going to do as a government? I think asking people to wait until June is going to be asking a lot of people in the North, considering the election was December 6. I would hope we can give some more specific ideas and directions before that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Maybe we will just ask for some direction on process here. Would each of the Members like to respond to the statement, or would you like an answer to every Member's questions on the statement? We can either do it individually or all altogether, and then get the questions later? What is the direction of the committee? Individually? Acceptable? Okay. First the Premier, Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to think that the statement reflects, in a profound way, a willingness to address the very stark realities that we have never clearly stated before.

The fact is for a number of years now, we have been seeing very low graduation rates in our schools, considering the couple of hundred million dollars we spend on education, building schools, staffing them, keeping them running, paying the teachers. The results we get for the amount of money we pay into schools is not acceptable and it has been like that for a number of years.

But, it is time to look at stark realities like that. We have said that we have other things that we need to address - the completely unacceptable level of alcohol consumption, drugs, and smoking in our communities. The profound way in which many of our families are slowly disintegrating, the number of child apprehensions, and the abuse suffered by our women and children and elders in communities. We cannot give comfort to our communities and our people and say that it is going to be business as usual. We have to give a message that we will not continue to spend money the way the previous Legislature has because we do not have time to get specific.

So we will come up with an interim appropriation in March for this Legislature to deal with. We have made a commitment, and we tried to start that in Fort Providence, to work to the maximum extent possible with every Member of the Legislature to set the priorities and goals of this Legislature, and to define a way in which we should set out to achieve those goals. We have said that we want to be as inclusive as possible to define those priorities and goals.

We said in Fort Providence that we want to include the aboriginal leaders, the chiefs, the Metis leaders, the Inuvialuit, the representatives of our aboriginal communities and our communities across the North, to tell us how they think we should run this government. What is it we should try to set out to do? We want to ask them how they want to work with us to address the needs that we have in our communities today. How can we work together to plan to improve things in a measurable way in the next four years?

Perhaps we can begin by defining a ten-year term on how we will collectively set common goals and objectives.

That is what the intent of my statement was. It was to signal to people in the North that we want to work, but we are just not going to keep everything running the same way it has and currently is. There are some changes that need to be made. Some of those need to be made in partnership with our communities and our regions.

This government is not going to dictate the changes unilaterally. We are starting to articulate the things that we see that need to be addressed. We have not yet started to articulate how we are going to address those changes except to say that the first order of business is to invite aboriginal leaders to sit with us to discuss whether or not they agree on the work that we see ahead of us, to seek agreement with them on how to approach the work and to get consensus that the only way we can address problems at the community level, the regional level, the territorial level is by working together. Once we get that realization and that agreement, I think we can look forward to addressing some of the very fundamental needs that we have in our communities today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. General comments. Mr. Roland, the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the social statement we are looking at today outlines some very important goals as a territorial government. As we heard earlier, there is some question as to how we are going to map out these goals and how we are going to achieve some of this.

In the first page of the statement that speaks on with division behind us, we need to move quickly out of the starting gate with renewed vision and commitment. As the Premier stated in Fort Providence, they have started to work along those lines. I think, in a sense, my interpretation of what happened there is that it was in line with the New Agenda for the New North and how we are going to map that out.

As we get into the budget sessions, we will start to work on some of these issues. It does cover a lot of areas and some areas of importance that I think we need to spend more time on as a government and put some emphasis behind how we will achieve them.

Now we know most people in the Northwest Territories do not like the idea of being told their lifestyles are dysfunctional and are costing taxpayers a lot of money. We have to make sure we try to heal the families and the dysfunctional groups that are out there.

I know it is a difficult task, finding out how we try and get families to lead a more balanced lifestyle. I do believe it starts at this level, by setting the example for our children to follow. As I see it, I know a lot of the goals that we are going to outline as the 14th Assembly are not going to be ones that we can measure in one year or two years. I think it will take possibly a whole term to see some results, to see a positive impact. I think these are areas where we are going to have to put some attention to.

As the previous Minister of Health and Social Services, it is amazing the amount of dollars we spend on putting out the fires or the crises that come by day to day. So it is important that we try to put some of the limited resources we have to work at trying to focus on prevention, not putting out the fires. That will mean some serious work, as I stated earlier in my Member's statement.

We are going to have to get down to it and make some serious decisions on the future of the Northwest Territories when it comes to the impact we will have and what we will leave our children with. I believe when it comes to families and how families operate in the Northwest Territories, that will go a long way to how effective we will be in preparing the future generations. We have to set the stage for them to be able to pick up the gauntlet and carry it forward.

Another area worth getting out in the open is the area of government itself and the systems we operate under. We know there are eight tables around the Northwest Territories that include some form of self-government, whether it be community self-government or regional self-government.

For example, in the Beaufort Delta area there is a partnership motto that they have been promoting. We have the one the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs tabled today, the Dogrib, which is more a parallel system. We have very diverse interests throughout the Northwest Territories. Those diverse interests will impact on how we can deliver services and what is left of a public government system.

In light of our fiscal situation, we must inform the residents and all those groups that are at the negotiation table of the difficulties we will face if we continue to go down separate paths. When you put all the dollars together that we spend on administration versus program service delivery, that area alone can be interpreted a number of ways. For example; all the funding that goes to non-government organizations are categorized as program service delivery. In fact, just about every non-government organization out there has an executive director and an assistant or something of that form. That takes up the delivery dollars. In this day and age, can we afford to have that many groups out there doing similar work?

Some areas you have to keep separate, some areas we are going to have to see if there are enough common interests that combinations can be formed. That is an area that we have spoke of in the past, Mr. Chairman.

I believe that if we are going to be able to measure some of our work that is being done, it will be difficult to do so in the first year. For example, making these comments in this House on some of the cost drivers we find ourselves under is an important step. I must applaud the Premier for being so bold to state some of our biggest problems are those that he listed in his sessional speech.

Now the important part is how do we deliver that in a consistent and effective way? It is pretty hard medicine to swallow when people speak directly about their families. We all get defensive about issues being brought up about our own particular families. It is not easy. We have gone through, as a generation in the Northwest Territories, a lot of change in a short time. I have made statements in this House regarding the change. We can look at some of our elders today. The style of life they lived when they were young men and women growing up in the Northwest Territories is light years from how we do it today.

When my father was a young man, he traveled with a dog team. On a trip from Sachs Harbor to the Delta, that took a long time. To stop at nights was a matter of setting up snow houses. Today, we jump on a plane and it is a couple of hours. We have gone from one extreme to another. Lifestyles that used to be affordable when the first fur trading industry was strong are no longer affordable. Trying to keep your family linked to their cultural history is a difficult task, as we heard today. The language portion is disappearing on us. That is something we have to see how we can correct.

There has been some work done in the areas of transferring responsibility to communities, but again, as I stated in my Member's statement earlier, transferring those responsibilities or the idea of it is important, but how far can we go? We seem to hold the final decision-making power at the headquarter level. We are almost duplicating the work that needs to be done. Either we will transfer responsibilities and requirements to fulfill those responsibilities or maybe it is just best to keep them at headquarters and reduce the duplication.

I know myself, and speaking for residents of Inuvik, I would rather not see the regions and communities lose more in this process. We all know at the end of the day to make a big difference and set the stage for the future of our children, it is going to take a lot of hard work on our behalf. I do not envy the position that we as decision-makers face. In a sense, especially Cabinet, we see the answer for all of us to the public. This is nice to say, but we now have to convert to action. How do we do that in the short time we have and have some measurable outcomes? I think that is the $700 million dollar question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Members of the Legislature are aware that about 65 percent of our overall budget goes to the social envelope, that is to justice, health and social services, education and I believe housing.

It is true that this government is finding itself increasingly unable to provide programs and services as it used to, to the people of the Northwest Territories. This is no different from other governments across this country. It has been said that even provinces that are well financed with balanced budgets, will in a few years be unable, even with cost share commitment from the federal government, to meet the health cost demands of their citizens. This is the nature of health as we believe it will be in the future.

It brings a scenario to myself and Members of Cabinet and all Members of the Legislature; what type of population are we going to turn over to aboriginal governments when they are set up and are ready to be implemented? It is my view that we have an obligation to address the realities that we have been forced to confront in our communities today.

Should aboriginal governments be set up, no amount of money will be sufficient to address the needs of the community at the regional level, even in two years. As a government, we have been working for years now, addressing the needs of our communities with drug and alcohol programming, family violence, social workers and nurses. It is our view that unless we address it up front and we find some way to work in partnership with the chiefs, Metis leaders, Inuvialuit leaders, community leaders, the costs of providing services to our people is going to go up from 65 percent of our overall budget and keep creeping up until it consumes the entire budget.

This is not an honest way to run government. It is not an honest way to approach self-government. We have an obligation to address it, to articulate it and to find some way to prepare for the transition. This is the reality of where we are today. It is not all doom and gloom. The fact is that in many of our communities, in almost all of our communities, we have very strong leaders. We have committed frontline workers. We have whole families that are committed to working towards a better, more balanced lifestyle. People who have dealt with drug and alcohol problems are on their way to becoming healthy, recovering people. Good portions of our people in the communities are already there.

In many ways, we are in a better position than we were in the 70's and 80's, but the fact is our people need more jobs. We need to position ourselves so that we become confident, strong and capable enough to not only be defensive, but to take the offensive and say yes.

We see that the world needs more natural gas and oil. We will take the initiative and propose to build, own, and manage a pipeline.

The signal is there. Now we need to build the confidence and give them the support so they can do that. There are whole ranges of things we can do, if only we make the commitment to articulate those things and work together. It is too time consuming and disillusioning for our community leaders to see our leaders fighting and bickering, paranoid of one another and disowning and discrediting one another on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.

Just for once, perhaps we could see the chiefs, the Metis leaders and the Inuvialuit work with the Members of the Legislative Assembly, the Ministers, in getting two or three good things done for our communities.

For too many years now, and I have heard it for too many years in the Sahtu myself, that it is the government's fault. The government did this to us, they did that to us and if only the government was not there, life would be better.

It is my view that even if the Government of the Northwest Territories was not there, people would still be smoking as much as they do. They would still be inflicting the harm, hurt and damage on themselves and each other as they do now.

It is not the government that makes people do that. Perhaps there is some responsibility for it but some time or another people have to accept that no one can make life better unless each individual decides that the way we live now is not acceptable. That is what we are going to try to do.

First, quit denying that life is good and that life could be better if only the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government were gone. That life would be a utopia life, when and if we get self-government off the ground.

That is my view. I think that this renewed vision and commitment that we speak about is simply that. We see a better future, a better life for everybody and there is a way to do it. But first, as many of our communities and regions do, we are going to spend a lot of time talking and disagreeing. At the end of the day, when the decision is made, we all have to support it. We have too many detractors, too many people who see only the negative side or are absolutely convinced that nothing will go wrong but that everything will go wrong.

This is what we are talking about and I think that all Members agree that it is a matter of choice and a matter of commitment to make people face up to those choices. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Any general comments from the Members? Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, I move that we report progress.

The Member for Frame Lake has made a motion to report progress. The motion is not debatable. To the motion. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. We will report progress.

The House will come back to order. Item 20, report of the committee of the whole. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Minister's Statement 1-14(2), Sessional Statement and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the committee of the whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Is there a second for the motion? Mr. Miltenberger, the Member for Thebacha seconds the motion. The motion is in order. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. Item 21, third reading of bills. Item 22, orders of the day. Mr. Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. This House stands adjourned until Thursday, February 24, 2000 at 1:30 p.m.

-- ADJOURNMENT