We will take a short break and come back and consider Bills 6, 11 and 15.

-- Break

I will call committee of the whole back to order. We will consider Bill 6, National Aboriginal Day Act. I will call upon the Minister responsible to introduce the bill. Minister Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. At this time, I will ask the committee responsible for reviewing this bill, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight, if they have any comments. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight reviewed Bill 6, National Aboriginal Day Act at its meetings on September 10 and October 22, 2001. The committee would like to thank the Honourable Roger Allen, who appeared before the committee on October 22, 2001 on behalf of the Minister of Justice. The committee would also like to thank officials from the Department of Justice and FMBS for presenting the bill and responding to issues raised by the committee.

Mr. Chairman, the proposed legislation will designate June 21st as National Aboriginal Day. This statutory holiday will recognize the contribution of aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories and will celebrate and honour aboriginal culture. The committee was unanimous in its support for designating National Aboriginal Day as a statutory holiday.

The committee received a copy of a letter dated July 20, 2001 to Minister Antoine, written by the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce. This letter outlined a concern centered around the cost of both private and public sectors of adding a further paid holiday to the annual calendar.

Mr. Chairman, the committee supported the initiative to designate June 21st as a day to celebrate and honour aboriginal culture. In order to address concerns raised before the committee, a motion to amend the bill, which would have removed one existing statutory holiday, namely the first Monday in August, was proposed. In this fashion, it was thought the bills objectives could be achieved.

The motion to amend was not supported by the Minister and the bill was therefore presented in its original form for consideration. Members look forward to a discussion on these issues during a clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. This concludes the committee's comments on Bill 6, National Aboriginal Day Act. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Minister, would you like to bring witnesses in at this time?

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Does the committee agree?

Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses in? Mr. Minister, for the record, would you please introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. We are dealing with Bill 6, National Aboriginal Day Act. General comments. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few general comments on Bill 6, National Aboriginal Day Act. I am certainly in favour of it and I have heard from a lot of my constituents who also support the creation of this statutory holiday on June 21st. I also would like to acknowledge the work of Mr. Krutko, who was the impetus for this. He can take responsibility for this getting to the stage that it is at currently.

The one concern that was raised a few times with me, specifically with local business people, was the concern that Mr. Dent has referred to, that in fact there will be a significant public and private sector cost to adding another statutory holiday. The suggestion was made that possibly we could substitute a holiday that was not a federal holiday, such as the long weekend in August, which may not have a lot of meaning to many folks and create National Aboriginal Day on June 21st and eliminate the long weekend in August. I did make this proposal at the committee stage and proposed an amendment. It did not get past the committee stage in that forum and I do not imagine, after polling my colleagues here today, there is the willingness to move on this amendment. So I will not be making it today, Mr. Chairman.

However, I would like to say that although the public and private sector costs will be significant and I would have liked to have seen us eliminate one of the other holidays, I still think it is important to go forward with this and create National Aboriginal Day on the 21st, even if it means adding another statutory holiday. I think we are now in that process and I am glad to see that we are following it through.

Again, I would like to thank Mr. Krutko for his work in getting this going. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. General comments. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned in the official report from the committee, the support for making National Aboriginal Day a statutory holiday among the Regular Members was unanimous. I am certainly part of the group that supports making the holiday a statutory holiday.

Like Mr. Bell, I had been approached by a number of business people who outlined their concerns about the cost to their businesses, to the economy in adding a holiday. A number of them had pointed out that a day like the first Monday in August, which has no other real name other than the first Monday in August, does not recognize anything so we were not really giving anything up if we eliminated that day. We could have honoured the contribution of aboriginal people and culture to the Territories and still kept the costs the same as what it is to both the public and private sector.

I regret that the government was not willing to agree to that proposal but I do think it is important that we move forward and make National Aboriginal Day a statutory holiday. I certainly am in support of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. General comments. The Chair will go to Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as stated by those speaking previously to this bill, I as well support the initiative that has brought this forward and that we are going to see a day recognized of the people, the aboriginal people of the Northwest Territories. This is a significant move to recognize that in the Northwest Territories. I as well had some concerns and I have raised them. There has been much discussion to see if there was an appetite to do a trade of days, in a sense, to establish June 21st as the holiday but remove August 8th, trying to save the private sector some funding. They are the biggest ones out there who are going to pay for this. The government as well. There is a cost to this in the sense of a monetary issue.

Though I understand and recognize the need to move forward on this, I also know that there are a lot of small businesses out in the NWT who would have to fund this holiday. I do not think it was a thing to try to add costs but recognizing again the importance of this.

When you look at the discussions we went through in public hearings, there was almost a split in the committee as to which way to go. Then the government has decided not to concur with the amendment that was put forward. It is unfortunate in a sense for the funding situation but I, along with Members of this House, feel that it is an important enough issue to move on and have this established. Although I might not agree with some Members saying August 8th represents nothing. You will have some labour groups probably say that is an issue that they have worked hard to get recognized by government. Again, it was a big concern as to the total impact when it comes to both this government and private sector businesses.

It is something we need to put in place, but there is still some concern there of the impact to the private sector. Hopefully, in the Minister's response it will be something he will try to address and why the government or Cabinet did not want to see this move forward.

I know that when there was much debate between other Ministers of this government and committee Members on this idea of moving this date over, it was one where they defended the establishment without a trade because August long weekend is one that is in our Public Service Act and has been negotiated there and that was a concern.

A fair bit of Members have felt there was a need to still move forward with an amendment but at this stage, I think the majority of Members recognizing the importance of the issue have agreed to move forward on this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. General comments? Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a general comment in support of the intent and spirit of this bill and, as Mr. Bell mentioned earlier, there was a motion brought in our committee review process for the possibility of an amendment which would ensure the holidays in total would be equal. I missed an opportunity there to speak on that motion and I just wanted to say for the record here, I believe I stated the sentiment way back when this National Aboriginal Day legislation for the Northwest Territories came before us as a proposal.

Mr. Chairman, I believe very much that this is a very significant and historic bill and an historic act for this Assembly. Like anything else that we do, there is always a cost and consequences for our actions. I am very aware of the fact that business communities have expressed their concern about the impact this would have on their cost of doing business. We also understand that the government will be one of those employers who would have to bear extra costs.

Mr. Chairman, as a legislator, I have to balance the cost of this. I would like to state that I had the occasion to partake in the June 21st celebration at Somba K'e Park, which used to be known as Petitot Park, last June. I can tell you that even though it was a working day, the crowd that came out to celebrate there was as big as the crowd that we see on July 1st. I could just see how if that was a holiday where people could be away from work and partake in it, that we might possibly have a bigger celebration there and an opportunity for everyone in the city to come out and enjoy the festivities and treats. I think that day and its celebration could grow. For that, I think the purpose, intent and the end result we are going to have from this holiday is very significant.

The other thing about the cost is that the August 1st weekend, although it does not denote any special event, it is a very important holiday for Canadians. It is the end of the summer holiday, especially for this part of the world. The cost that I am thinking of is that if we got rid of that holiday, we would not have a holiday between the July 1st holiday until the September long weekend, which could be up to seven or eight weeks. I do not think that we want to create any possibility where there might be some resentment from those who would rather have August 1st as a holiday or the August long weekend holiday than the June 21st holiday.

I think given the importance that the recognition that this holiday is meant to be, which is to celebrate the place of aboriginal peoples in the Northwest Territories, as well as sending out the message to the rest of Canada and the world as this jurisdiction being the first one that would actually declare the day a territorial holiday.

It is important for me to put it on record that I support the intent and spirit of this bill. I appreciate the business cost of doing this, but that the meaning and importance of the action itself that is meant to be resulted from this legislative action is important enough and that we should minimize any possibility of there being any negative feelings that may result if we decided to take out one of the most enjoyable holidays in August.

I needed to put that on record. I would just like to close my comments by congratulating Mr. Krutko for introducing this and making this a public issue and the government for taking action on it. I would also like to acknowledge someone else out of this House, actually, who was part of the team that mobilized to have this reality. I believe Mr. Arnold Enge was one of the people in the group that tried to lobby us to do this. I just wanted to put that on the record and congratulate the Minister and the government for seeing this through. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, I too will be voting in favour of creation of this day. Like my colleagues, I would like to reflect on some of the issues that came up in this debate and in this discussion and give you some reflection of where they came to rest for me.

The cost was certainly the most obvious and the most tangible impact of this for our economy. I learned through it and with the assistance of the department and others that a day of production, if you will, or a regular day of work in the Northwest Territories across all sectors, government, private sector, non-government organizations, is about $8 million. That is no small change, Mr. Chairman.

It is obvious as well that June 21st comes at the height of a very busy time of year, a very busy point in the activity cycle. It is, of course, at the top of the building and construction season for outside work. It is very much an important time of the year for tourism.

I also tried to reflect on those people who, by virtue of the jobs they have or the projects they are on, would not be able to celebrate the specific day, June 21st. I also looked at the idea of the exchange with a different day, to see where the merits would be of taking one day, if you will, and reprofiling it.

As well, Mr. Chairman, I had to consider the impact on some students in the Northwest Territories and their families. As we know, this is right at the end of the high school or the school semester. For those grade 12 graduates who would be writing departmental examinations, that schedule is set to mesh with the Alberta curriculum and for some students who would be scheduled to write exams on that day, they may not be able to avoid it or other work might have to be done to reschedule things. Anyway, there is an impact there that we tried to consider.

I also looked, Mr. Chairman, at taking the value of this day but wondering whether this coming year, 2002, is the year to start it. A holiday in a non-aboriginal culture, anyway, is a day where you celebrate or commemorate something; something that is earned or achieved or already behind you. In that respect, I was wondering whether this is a holiday something like Labour Day, which was created at some point, I do not know the history of it, but there was a need and then a consensus to celebrate the achievements of labourers and workers in our society, so we have Labour Day. It might be a bit of a stretch, Mr. Chairman, but is Remembrance Day, just coming up, also something that is done in a much more somber way, of course, a much more serious way, but it celebrates and marks the end of something and an ongoing purpose.

You know, here in the Northwest Territories, we are on the verge of so many advances for aboriginal people and aboriginal rights; self-government, devolution, resource-revenue sharing, things that are barely touched in other parts of Canada. We are doing them here, though we do not yet have them in our grasp.

I was wondering, would there be some point, maybe a few years down the pipe, that when we do have a lot of these things achieved and done and implemented, is that a time then that we should really say okay, now we can celebrate it?

Within aboriginal culture itself, something that I have not heard of would be the concept of -- especially prior to European contact -- taking a day in the year to celebrate something, to have a party. Is that part of aboriginal culture itself? I have not heard much of it. It certainly is part of non-aboriginal culture.

In considering all of these aspects, I talked to a lot of people about it, especially business owners. I got the general response that this would be something that would be more appreciated among their workforce, especially at one of the best times of the year that we have. There was a readiness among employers, the few that I talked to, to do this.

I think the best advice that I got, and this is what really helped me to decide that this bill was worth supporting and supporting wholeheartedly, is that it is not about cost and it should not be about trade-offs. It is about our values in Canadian society. It is about the recognition of aboriginal cultures and what they are striving to do and what we in a consensus government are trying to do. It is about mutual respect, Mr. Chairman. I think it is about bringing cultures together.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I think it is about demonstrating leadership to the rest of Canada that this is indeed something that should be celebrated and a full holiday is an appropriate way to do it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. General comments. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to voice my support for this National Aboriginal Day and I want to commend the Premier for putting the call out there to the aboriginals and to people across the North to give an indication as to whether or not they wanted to see an aboriginal day and, of course, they came back positive.

I wanted to say that I cannot accept that a National Aboriginal Day, especially when there was a consideration to substitute it for another holiday, I do not think that is something we can consider. I want to commend the Minister, however, for looking at all the options, even the option that he quickly wrote off about looking at half a day. A national aboriginal half-day was not possible.

I do not believe that we have any alternative but to set up June 21st as a holiday. I think there is a real need that we recognize the aboriginal people of the North and across this country. I want to state that most of the communities -- I believe all the communities are celebrating National Aboriginal Day already. Most of the communities declare holidays for the band councils and for the Metis Nations, and most organizations take a holiday on that day. It is only fair that we make it apply to all people in the communities.

I want to say that it is really important to me that we have a day to respect and honour the aboriginal people for their accomplishments, for the history of this country and also honour a day to recognize and celebrate their culture and traditions. I want to say that I am supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Nitah.