Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to announce today that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has completed a project that I feel will be of interest not only to Northerners but to people around the world.

Mr. Speaker, through a web site, the Idaa Trail project will allow visitors from around the world to "virtually travel" one of three traditional NWT trails. More importantly, it will serve as an invaluable learning tool for our northern youth. It will lead visitors on a voyage of discovery about the history and culture of the NWT.

The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, working with Dogrib elders and the Dogrib Educational Council, created the Idaa heritage resource project over a three-year period. Research concentrated on the traditional birch bark canoe trail that linked Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake. The result is a web site entitled The Idaa Trail.

As visitors travel along the trail on a map, traditional knowledge items, place names and stories of the elders may be highlighted, heard and visited. Video clips of the people and area as it once existed may be viewed. The visitor may then continue their web site journey to the next point on the trail. This is a significant step in the sharing of our history.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that we will be launching this web site, the Idaa Trail, with the Edzo elders and school children from the Chief Jimmy Bruneau School in the next several weeks. We encourage those who can join us to be there as we launch the first virtual trip down this historic trail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the valuable community service provided by fire fighters across the NWT.

The important and difficult work performed by community fire fighters is not always apparent to members of the public. However, people within the fire service are well aware of the hard work and the amount of time away from family and friends that is required by those individuals who are willing to fulfill this responsibility. Therefore, as Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, I am pleased that we have established the Fire Service Awards Program to acknowledge the essential role that fire departments and fire fighters play in our communities.

Mr. Speaker, at the fire merit services awards ceremony held on October 10th, I was honoured to present individual merit awards to the following individuals who were nominated and subsequently selected for regional merit awards:

• • In the Inuvik region -- Mr. Russell Andre of Tsiigehtchic;
• • In the Deh Cho region -- Mr. Kevin McLeod of Fort Providence;
• • In the North Slave region -- Mr. Chuck Dewar of Yellowknife; and
• • In the South Slave region -- Mr. William Reimer of Fort Smith.

In addition, Mr. Reimer of the Fort Smith Fire Department was selected as the first territorial fire service merit award winner.

At the ceremony, I also invited additional nominations for the merit award for community fire departments up until the end of the calendar year. An announcement on the winners of these awards will be made before the end of March 2003. In addition, long service awards will be presented in NWT communities to fire fighters who have shown their personal commitment to fire safety and public service by working or volunteering for two, five, ten, 15 and 20 or more years. The fire service awards are intended to give much deserved recognition to fire fighters and community fire departments that demonstrate outstanding commitment, innovation or success in the fire service. I would like to commend all nominees in the individual fire service awards and look forward to showing our appreciation for community fire departments in March.

I value the strong support shown by Members of the Legislative Assembly for the fire service awards and for all our efforts to recognize fire fighters. My department will continue its work to acknowledge the contribution of fire fighters in protecting our families and our communities from fire.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure I speak for all Northerners when I say we are all very proud of the men and women who make up the fire service in the Northwest Territories and we must ensure they realize their commitment is valued and appreciated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this weekend marks the Tenth Annual Dream Catchers Conference in Edmonton and I have been invited by the youth of the Deh Cho to attend this conference along with them. I want to give notice today to my colleagues and to my constituents that I will not be in the House tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, attending this gathering will be youth from all across this country, including many from the Northwest Territories. I am proud to say that I have 22 students from the Katl'odeeche First Nation, 27 students from Fort Providence attending this conference, along with students from my riding who are attending the Western Arctic Leadership Program. These students were able to finance their travel costs to attend this conference through fundraising efforts, Mr. Speaker, and we have approximately 120 delegates and 28 chaperones from all across the NWT who are attending this conference.

Understandably, the youth are very excited about this gathering. For some, it is the chance of a lifetime. I want to thank all of the volunteers from across the North who are making this dream come true for these youth.

Mr. Speaker, the concept of a dream catcher is believed to be a safeguard for one who dreams. The good dreams flow through and the bad ones are entangled in the web until they disappear with the coming of the morning sun. In the aboriginal belief system, dreams have a significant meaning. It gives the dreamer the opportunity to choose the direction their walk of life will be. This conference is focused on the youth by introducing and rekindling different aspects of tradition, beliefs and methods of healing. The many workshops offered are tools meant to teach the participants to respect themselves, others and their culture.

Mr. Speaker, the Dream Catchers Conference began in 1992 and now has grown to one of the largest aboriginal youth gatherings in the world, with approximately 1600 youth participating. The youth and adult participants are introduced to a variety of learning and healing workshops with aboriginal culture as a key component. Many of the presenters are elders who carry the wisdom of the past and give light to the dreams of the future.

I, much like the youth, look forward to this learning experience and it will certainly give me first-hand opportunity to hear the wishes and dreams of our future leaders.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Deh Gah School of Fort Providence and the Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith for...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Deh Gah School of Fort Providence and the Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith for inviting me to participate in this conference with them. I also want to thank Mr. Roger Allen, the Minister of Youth, for his contribution to making this conference a reality. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to advise the House today, Mr. Speaker, that I have been receiving a number of calls from constituents who are concerned about their inability to get employment in the non-renewable resource sector. Mr. Speaker, by and large, these are Northerners who have training and are finding it difficult to get work at the mines mostly, in the case of my constituents. However, I have also heard the same thing the last couple of times that I have had occasion to travel to Inuvik, Mr. Speaker. We seem to have a number of southerners who are being flown up for jobs in oil fields, and certainly jobs closer to Yellowknife in the diamond mines.

Mr. Speaker, while I recognize that we do not have enough trained Northerners, I think we have to be careful not to be seen to be saying that we have no trained Northerners who could possibly take these jobs. I think at times, I have found myself guilty of talking about our lack of a trained workforce, and I know the Premier has made comments about our need to do more to ensure we have a trained workforce. At times, folks can take these comments and certainly misconstrue them and be upset when they heard them. You can imagine, Mr. Speaker, if you are spending your days pounding the pavement with your resume trying to get the employers to recognize your skills and you have politicians suggesting that there are no trained Northerners, it is frustrating.

We have socio-economic agreements, Mr. Speaker, with a couple of the diamond mines in the Northwest Territories, BHP and Diavik. We understand, and I think our constituents do, that these are on a best efforts basis. What they are saying to me, Mr. Speaker, is that because of this, and because of the fact that we rely on the companies to do the reporting, they end up essentially not holding any water, Mr. Speaker. I think this is disappointing.

We have tried to do some things. Mr. Ootes introduced a program, Maximizing Northern Employment. I think there are some good initiatives in there, but the criticism that I continue to hear is that as we look at and try to assess the success of Maximizing Northern Employment, we are talking about through-put. We are talking about the numbers of people who have been able to receive training but we do not go far enough to talk about job placements.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, that it is a relatively new program and it will take time to assess, but I still think we need to do more to talk about and look at job placements. I guess, Mr. Speaker, it comes down to finding potential solutions. I seek consent from the House to conclude my statement, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the GNWT has to ask itself what it can do to address this problem. I think, number one, Mr. Speaker, right off the bat, we have to make it a priority. This side of the House has been talking for the last three years about the fly-in and fly-out reality and the challenges it brings. We have been bringing these issues before committee, before the Premier and before the Minister of Finance. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, in the last three years, I have seen nothing concrete to give me any assurance that this government is serious about dealing with this issue.

We have talked about payroll tax, Mr. Speaker, possibly raising the payroll tax to make it more beneficial to live in the North and to make it a bigger detriment to try to fly in and fly out. We have tried to get the government to address the definition of "Northerner". As you know, Mr. Speaker, it seems to have more to do right now with whether or not you can get a health care card or northern address than whether or not you and your family actually live in the North.

I have recently written the Premier a letter in this regard, Mr. Speaker, and I concluded it by saying that if we do not do something, if we do not change our way of thinking, if we do not indeed think outside the box on this, we are going to end up throwing a lavish employment party for southerners and being left with the clean up. I hope that is not the case, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the Power Corporation is high on the agenda right now and may continue to be for some time, for some days. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that it is time to move on and I want to look forward to what we will be doing to pick up the pieces and move on with this agenda.

This morning on CBC Radio, we heard the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Handley, musing about potentially resigning or at one point thinking about resigning. Unlike some of my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, this is not something that I want to entertain. I do not want to see Mr. Handley resign his portfolio. I do not believe that we have the luxury of changing horses at this time in our mandate.

However, I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that this is not forgiveness. Mistakes were made. They were, I believe, avoidable mistakes, but I am not going to dwell on that. Rather, Mr. Speaker, I think we should recognize that mistakes should be admitted. We should learn from them and that we should move on.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot take for granted that our boards, agencies, assets and organizations can survive in an atmosphere of ambiguity or uncertainty, and our Power Corporation is certainly one. We have to move on to preserve and renew this very valuable asset. Among its many benefits or attributes, I would like to single out one. In 1988, Mr. Speaker, this government paid a dollar for the shares of that corporation. It is now worth well in excess of $50 million. I think that is a pretty good performance.

The corporation has the capacity to do much more. Energy is a very large part of the future of this territory. We are going to need corporate assets and platforms like the Power Corporation to help us realize that.

Mr. Speaker, I think that until now, we have done a pretty good job of managing a corporation that was keeping the lights on here, and we need to renew that and continue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement is concluded.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am going to take my first opportunity to wade into this Power Corporation issue, as yesterday I spoke on a different issue. Mr. Speaker, a few of the Members in this House still feel that it is an important issue to try to get some clarity to and to let the people of the Northwest Territories understand the process and why things happened.

We heard in this House after a number of questions about dates and times, and why things had changed, and there seemed to be a clear understanding by some members of Cabinet that a clear directive was issued, yet on the other side there seems to be an ambiguous decision that was made that was unclear. In fact, I have spoken with the individual from Inuvik that used to be the representative on the Power Corporation board and know that, in fact, they did not feel that there was a clear decision made. Now that is up for debate here.

Some Members will say that there was and there was not, but what we need to do is get to the bottom of it, Mr. Speaker. Get to the bottom of the issue, an issue where we have seen again coming at the eleventh hour, at the last minute, and pulling the carpet out from under a board that was mandated by this government following its legislation and following the rules of its legislation. It was not operating outside of it. It was operating within.

This is the third occasion that this government has stepped in and saw fit to remove the authority of the board of the time and make a decision that went beyond what was happening.

The board followed direction and followed the Act. In the case of the franchise agreement, they were told to remove from Hay River. They were told to halt procedures of a reorganization that would have seen savings to the Power Corporation. They were told to halt that at the eleventh hour.

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the eleventh hour again, we were told -- and I heard from the news, I was given a call by CBC North to ask my opinion about what happened. I just happened to be reading the transcripts on my computer and had heard nothing of it before that.

We need to get to the bottom of this, why decisions were made and why they were done in such an erratic manner. I will have questions for the Premier at a later time. Thank you.

-- Applause