Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 4, Member's statements. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you are aware, yesterday in the Great Hall of this Assembly, the Social Planning Coalition, along with the Standing Committee on Social Programs, hosted a session of the poverty game. Mr. Speaker, it is a board game in the style of Monopoly but, as should be apparent, it involves very little money.

The Social Planning Coalition approached the committee a couple of weeks ago with suggestions that we host this game in the Great Hall. We thought it was a great idea. The purpose was to heighten awareness of poverty and around the issue of income support. It also gave Members and other invited guests from the community a chance to see the kinds of decisions income support recipients are faced with on a monthly basis.

Mr. Speaker, it was enlightening to say the least. The character I played, a 36-year old mom with four kids, ran out of money two-and-a-half weeks into the first month.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Standing Committee on Social Programs has lobbied hard for additional money for income support. Last year, along with the rest of my colleagues, the members of the Accountability and Oversight Committee, we were able to see $700,000 in funding restored to the income support budget. Mr. Speaker, we continue that effort and tomorrow we will see if the government has been listening.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you indeed to all my colleagues who came out to support the Social Planning Coalition.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Item 4, Member's statements. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to Kole Crook who, as I am sure everyone knows, passed away on New Year's Eve. He was 27 years old. Kole was an extraordinary young man. This was so evident, as literally hundreds of people from many communities and all walks of life gathered on the Hay River Reserve to pay respect to his memory.

To say that Kole loved music does not adequately describe what he conveyed and how he made people feel when he entertained and performed for groups large or small. He communicated through his music.

He was an avid outdoorsman. The first thought I had when I heard that a small plane had gone missing with a pilot and three passengers, and Kole was one of them, was that if they survived the impact, Kole would be able to take care of them.

Kole was not attracted nor motivated by the comforts or convenience of modern living. He had a deep understanding of spiritual things and I believe that is what gave him the perspective of someone who seemed to have lived much longer than 27 years.

Kole truly had his priorities figured out. His life was a demonstration of his respect for his creator, his genuine love of people, his remarkable knowledge and reverence for the land, and his fun-loving sharing of his God-given talents, which included music and story-telling.

Kole will always be missed by his family and those closest to him, and to them we continue to offer our sincerest condolences. We thank them for sharing him with so many people. I believe there has never been a funeral which brought so many people together from so many places in the history of our Territory. Hopefully, this demonstration of how many lives Kole touched will sustain and comfort his family in the years ahead. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 4, Member's statements. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the heels of the statement by my colleague, Mr. Bell, I would also like to talk about the poverty game that we staged here in the Great Hall yesterday. Along with other members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs and the Ministers of Finance and Education, Culture and Employment, I took up the invitation of the Social Planning Coalition to engage in this. My persona, Mr. Speaker, was a woman named Barbara who lives in Fort Good Hope. She is a 36-year old woman with four children; twin boys, age 14, a daughter, 10, and a son, 8. As Barbara, here is my financial situation, Mr. Speaker.

I receive $851 in salary, plus some federal child benefit, which was clawed back, by the way, by this government. I received another $1,045 in food and $125 in clothing from the Income Support Program. My monthly income was $1,665 with a family of five in a community where the cost of food is almost double that of Yellowknife.

What initially struck me -- and something that I learned through this game, Mr. Speaker -- was the complexity of filling out the paperwork. There were 18 pages that clients have to go through. It is really hard if you have lower literacy skills just getting all of these papers together.

It again forces me to taking a look at real life choices through Barbara's point of view. Whether to buy my daughter new boots for 20 bucks or used ones for ten. Whether to declare the $300 that I got from a boyfriend and thus cheat the system or try to borrow $20 for milk at the end of the month only to find out that my friend was just as broke as I was.

Individuals at all levels are facing more and more difficult choices, Mr. Speaker, as life becomes increasingly complex. It is particularly true if you are living on income support and on the edge of poverty. An increasingly complex set of choices and decisions have to be made everyday and it again reinforced the message for me for government to provide every opportunity for a sound education, and for each individual to take the responsibility to stay in school and take advantage of it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the people from the social coalition for bringing this game to us.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Item 4, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Mahsi, Mr. Nitah. Item 4, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to extend my congratulations and my thanks to a young Yellowknifer who represented my constituency and my Ministry in the recent Youth Parliament. Leslie Merrithew did a fantastic job, as did all the other young parliamentarians who were here for the Youth Parliament, debating the issues that face us all here in the Northwest Territories.

Even though Leslie was the youngest, she certainly held her own amongst the others. She praised the Side Door for Youth, which is an important project here in my constituency, Mr. Speaker. She also provided a good explanation of the pupil-teacher ratio as the Minister representing the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

It is great to see a young person such as Leslie having such a good grasp of the issues and understanding the intricacies of government programs. Leslie says that she really enjoyed her time here as a member of the Youth Parliament. She said it was fun and that the experience definitely helped her understand the issues here in the Territories.

Her stint as a parliamentarian inspired her, and I believe she is applying to become a page here in our Legislature and no doubt we will see her again. When she finishes high school she has an interest in mathematics. She wants to become a high school math teacher and possibly some day become a politician. Mr. Speaker, I hope this House will join me in offering congratulations to Leslie Merrithew and all the Youth Parliamentarians who served us so well a couple of weeks ago. Thank you.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Item 4, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Antoine.

Mahsi, Mr. Antoine. Thank you. Item 4, Members' statements. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to recognize Chief Rick Edjericon and Chief Peter Liske with the Yellowknife Dene Band.

-- Applause

Thank you. Welcome, gentlemen. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a rare privilege for me to recognize just about my entire family in the Legislature today. Earlier my daughter Carmen and an exchange student, Karen Hatner, from Sweden, were in the choir from Sir John Franklin School. Sitting with us today are my wife, Valerie, and my mother, Esther. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

You did not miss too many. Thank you, Mr. Braden. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure this afternoon to recognize two of our pages from Inuvik Twin Lakes, Dwayne Drescher and Renie Edwards, and also three lovely ladies sitting in the gallery: my wife, Vanessa, and Betty and Sue. Welcome to the gallery.

-- Applause

Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. George Tuccaro, who is now semi-retired and greatly missed on CBC Radio and Television. I would like to wish George all the best on his retirement and we will have to see you entertaining us here and there and everywhere, but you will be there. All the best.

-- Applause

Mr. Tuccaro, the voice of the North. Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Antoine.