Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the Minister is reaffirming his department's desire to have northern companies working. I would just like to get clarification. Is the Minister committing that he will do a review of the work that is going on there this year and see how well the companies are living up to putting our people to work in the North? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. The time for question period has ended. The Chair recognizes the honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent to return to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

Thank you. The honourable Member is seeking unanimous consent to return to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, please give me a little longer than normal for this. There are a number of people visiting us today in recognition of the petition I am about to table and the display that is set up out in our lobby. I would like to recognize, Mr. Speaker: Marilyn Harry, of the Yellowknife Women's Centre; Dorothy Matthews, an advocate also with the Yellowknife Women's Centre; Ann Marie Giroux, a single parent and one of the sponsors of the petition; from the YWCA housing staff, Kate Wilson, Charlotte Ruttan and Darlene Ulrich; Lyda Fuller is the executive director of the YWCA in Yellowknife; Susan Peffer is a family support worker at the Yellowknife Women's Centre; Captain Karen Hoeft wears many hats in Yellowknife and in the Territory, not the least of which is the leader of the Yellowknife Coalition for Homelessness. Mr. Speaker, we also have Lorraine Sampson and Barb Baldwin with the YWCA Women's and Children's Healing and Recovery Program.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Welcome to the visitor's gallery. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me special pleasure as well to recognize the family of John and Marsha Argue and their immediate family, who are visiting the gallery this afternoon. Thank you.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Welcome to the Argue family and our condolences on your loss. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 7, written questions. Item 8, returns to written questions. Item 9, replies to the opening address. Item 10, petitions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me pleasure, on behalf of 613 signatories and sponsors of the petition entitled Fighting Child Poverty, a petition on behalf of children living in poverty. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Item 10, petitions. Item 11, reports of standing and special committees. Item 12, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 13, tabling of documents. Item 14, notices of motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Item 14, notices of motion. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 16, motions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Member is seeking unanimous consent to deal with his motion today. Are there any nays? There are no nays.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. We have a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Question has been called. All those in favour, please signify. Thank you. All those opposed? Thank you. The motion is carried.

-- Applause

Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker,

I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly Retiring Allowance Act and the Supplementary Retiring Allowance Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will allow Members of the Legislative Assembly to participate in a supplementary retiring allowance plan and sets out the details of the plan. Those Members who participate in the plan will contribute more under the registered plan.

This bill also changes numerous provisions of the Legislative Assembly Retiring Allowance Act and the Supplementary Retiring Allowance Act to ensure that the two plans are alike and consistent with similar plans whenever possible.

Finally, this bill makes other changes to clarify the details of the registered and supplementary plans.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. We have a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will not use my full allotment of time here. For the record, I want to state that I will not be supporting this initiative. Based on my initial stance on this bill as a Member of the 13th Assembly, I cannot support this at this time. I feel that it is not appropriate for me, again with my initial stance, that saw a previous plan of this nature go down in the 13th Assembly. I could not support it coming back in the 14th Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. To the principle of the bill. The honourable Member for Range Lake Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment on this. I will not be supporting this second reading of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I understand this is a difficult issue. It is a sensitive issue, but I believe it is important that we as public legislators articulate our position and why we are supporting this or not.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to indicate at the outset, I hope none of the things I am saying will be taken personally. It is not meant to be personal. I am just stating my position as the Member for Range Lake. I believe this is a public issue and it is about how we are spending public money.

I should correct here that I made an error in the way I answered some of the questions from the media. I do accept that some of the money for the last pension was from contributions by the Members and that this pension would also have contributions from Members towards the fund. My position is that most of the money, or at least part of the money, is public money. The surplus money that we are talking about in this fund therefore should be accountable to the public.

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of positions being put forward about this pension. I would like to address some of them.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe this is about whether or not some of us need this money more than others. I believe that we could argue until our faces are blue about who needs more money. I do not know anybody who is too rich to take extra money.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it is about whether or not we are entitled to this or not. I have heard the argument that because other Members, or the honourable people who have represented this House prior to us, have it that we should be entitled to it as well.

I have also heard people say that we work very hard, we make a lot of sacrifices, and that we should be rewarded for that. I have also heard other people say this place has to stay competitive in order to attract people of good calibre to seek public office. You know, I would agree with all of that. I do believe this is difficult work. It is not a nine-to-five job. I believe that the needs and desires of all the Members here are very different.

We come from a very diverse background, reflective of the people we represent. We are of different income level, different social background. Some of us have a pension from other lives we had. Some of us are much younger than the rest. Some of us have kids, some of us do not. We have a lot of variation to who we are, but I do not think that is what this is about.

Mr. Speaker, I have also heard people say, "Well, we feel that we should be entitled to what other Members had, and if you do not like it, just vote no and opt out of it and let the rest of us worry about it."

I believe that position also ignores the issue at hand, Mr. Speaker. The issue is on what we are doing with the surplus public money. What decision are we making?

Mr. Speaker, I believe what this is really about is that we are able to introduce a legislation like this simply because we can. We have the power to do this. Nineteen of us are the only ones in the Territories who could pass the law to set up a pension for the benefit of the 19 of us. We have that power to do that. I have spoken many times in this House about the power we have to make enormous decisions that affect the lives of the people. We have a say on how we spend the money for hospitals, schools, roads, even perhaps who goes to jail or not. We have enormous power. With that power comes responsibility and privileges.

I do believe that when we are making a decision or passing legislation on money and public money that is for the sole benefit of the Members in this House, the exclusive club of 19 people, we should be held to a higher standard and answer to the public about why it is that we should be getting extra pension.

Mr. Speaker, I think that many people here are aware, or people out there are aware, that there are a lot of people who do not have a pension at all. We should also be aware that the Members here already have one pension that is similar to the public service employees. Mr. Speaker, people who work at Wal-Mart or McDonald's or many, many private businesses, do not have a pension.

Mr. Speaker, I also recall that we were not able to do anything for the Giant Mine pensioners. I am not going to talk about what can we do with five million, ten million or 20 million people because again, just like the needs and aspirations of us, we could come up with ten million different ways to spend $10 million or $5 million. It is not about us not being able to find another way to do it. It is really about fairness and integrity and how we are exercising our power to vote and make law.

Mr. Speaker, my mother worked for the government. She worked for 20 years. She does not have enough pension to do a lot of things that she likes to do. I am just going to narrow my discussion to pension options.

I just had a constituent who had to sell her house and move out of the Territories because her pension does not pay her enough to allow her to make her payments.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree with this pension because I consider this pretty close to abuse of power. This is the kind of thing that people hate politicians for, because politicians are known to do things just because they can, without due consideration for what is in the public interest.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that this has been going on for a long time and this goes on in other jurisdictions. I am sure things a lot worse than this go on. However, I ran for office. My platform said I believe in good government. I believe in government that is accountable and that has integrity. How we get evaluated is how we pass the law and what sort of laws we pass and how we decide to spend our money, and continuing on with practices that have been going on forever does not make it right, Mr. Speaker. I do believe we have other options to do with the money. I am sure the Members here have a better way of stating what the needs may be.

I will not take all of the time. I did not expect to speak so soon. I assumed there would be other people speaking in favour of it. I would just like to close by saying this is not because I do not want the money. This is not because I do not need the pension. I have as many desires and needs as the next person, but I believe that exercising the power to vote and pass the law and spend the money in a way that benefits us to give extra pension, we are doing it because we can. I do not believe that is the right thing.

Just because things are doable does not necessarily mean it is the right thing. For that, Mr. Speaker, I will vote against the motion and I would encourage other Members to state their position. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.