Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me a warm feeling that the Minister wishes to be so accommodating by looking into that, so I would thank him. Mr. Speaker, recognizing the difficult hardship and the fact that some of my constituents, as well as constituents of all of us, have to take sometimes up to a month to get renewal if they happen to forget to renew their licence in the proper time, would the Minister be able to give me his firm assurance today he will direct his department to put people ahead who have to go through the full process again and receive ultimate priority in getting their licensing back because of the disruption to their life? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we would be happy to work with the people that have to renew their licences. We have to recognize we only have so much we can do in terms of accepting and moving people forward. There has to be some responsibility taken by the people who have a driver's licence and the people that have to renew them. So there is a very clear process on how and when you should renew your licence and people have to take responsibility. However, we can try to accommodate as we usually do with people that have to go through the process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister could elaborate on possibly trying to accommodate, recognizing that there are single parents out there who still have to deliver children to school and pick up groceries. As I pointed out earlier, we still have people out there who do drive for a living. So maybe if the Minister could let me know on how he plans to look into this problem by trying to accommodate as I have mentioned. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not making any commitment for special accommodations here. We have a process and if we can in any way be more accommodating with those recommendations by the Member, we would certainly be willing to make that, but we are not looking at incorporating anything special for people that forgot to renew their licence at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice. Mr. Speaker, as a result of the very unfortunate and tragic events surrounding the Canada Corrections parole officer who lost her life here in Yellowknife last week, a lot of people in the public have raised questions now with respect to the federal parolees who are at large and living in our communities here in the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice what kind of communications take place between federal Corrections Canada and our government, the Department of Justice, with respect to parolees, inmates who have been released who are back and integrated into the communities in the North? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Justice, the Honourable Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it depends a lot on the parolee. Because of an Exchange of Services Agreement with Justice Canada, in most communities outside of Yellowknife we provide supervision services. So there may be, at any given time,

a number of federal parolees who are being supervised by NWT parole officers. In those circumstances, we will have worked closely with national parole to know who they are, what their terms of release are and work with them closely on the supervision. In those instances in Yellowknife where the parolee is under the supervision of a Corrections Canada person, there is not a direct notification for us that somebody has been released to parole. The decision as to whether or not to issue a public information disclosure, for instance, would be made by the RCMP and the request for that would be made by Corrections Canada personnel if they felt there was reason to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Your first supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is not the first instance of this type. Just a couple of weeks ago in the newspaper, it was determined the information was released that a Hay River child was in fact murdered by another parolee who had done federal time for murder previously. This is a small jurisdiction. Now there are two incidents within one year. Does the Minister see a way in which things could be improved in terms of communication? The court case would seem to indicate in one instance that the judge felt that there was a dangerous offender. Is there not a registry or some way that the public can be informed of this, or the RCMP even can be informed of it so they know the whereabouts of these folks and the fact that they do have this kind of a history and a record? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the Member that the two incidents about which she speaks are indeed tragedies and we'd like to make sure that I extend the government's and I think all Members of this House condolences to the families of those who were involved. Particularly, both incidents were quite disturbing. In terms of notification, the RCMP are notified when an offender is released on parole. So they would have been aware in this instance of the release of the offender on parole, and the RCMP has the jurisdiction to determine whether or not a public information disclosure is made. Those are made on the request of staff from either Corrections Canada or Justice, depending on who was involved in overseeing the situation.

In some cases a personal information disclosure is made, in others it isn't, but it's made according to a decision that it taken by a committee of people who are involved in reviewing the circumstances around a person's release back into society. So the notification takes place to the RCMP and the decision is then up to the RCMP as to whether a personal information disclosure should be made or a public information disclosure should be made to inform the public that somebody has been released. As I understand it, the decision is made based on an assessment of a person's likelihood to re-offend. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question I have for the Minister then is will the GNWT Department of Justice be involved in an examination of the procedures and protocols surrounding the work of parole and probation officers in the Northwest Territories? We also have probation officers who work in a number of our communities. Will the issues around protocol and the safety of these officers be visited and revisited after the results of this investigation? Will you participate in this investigation of this incident as a government and will you revisit the protocols that are used by our probation officers that are employed by the GNWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. There may have been two questions there. Mr. Dent, you may respond to one or both. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we're invited by Corrections Canada to participate formally we would be happy to do that. I believe that we have had one member of our staff from Justice who has been approached about serving on the committee. So whether it's formal or informal I know that we will have some way of knowing what the outcome of the investigation is. I can assure the Member that our policies and procedures and the safety of GNWT staff is something that is of paramount concern, and an incident like this would, of course, cause us to review our policies and procedures.

I should have informed the House that we had instituted some time ago a policy whereby no member, whether male or female, of our parole staff would make a home visit unescorted. So our staff are required to visit either in pairs or with the assistance of an RCMP officer when they make home visits. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 6, oral questions. The Chair will recognize the honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Merci, Mr. Speaker. My question this afternoon is for the Premier and it's a follow-up to my statement regarding the status of devolution talks for the resources of the Northwest Territories. Last week, Mr. Speaker, the Premier was quoted in northern media as saying -- and this was in response to the announcement of a pipeline regulatory filing -- "The pipeline won't come at the expense of our children's future. We don't want to see northerners not getting a fair share." I applaud the Premier's statement and his statement of his vision which I share.

My question for the Premier, Mr. Speaker, is what measures will this government be taking to ensure that the Premier's vision actually becomes reality? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like many northerners, I have a concern that the bulk of our wealth and future wealth is in the non-renewable resource sector. While we do have, certainly, many other opportunities in tourism and so on that are renewable, the big piece is non-renewable; diamonds and oil and gas being the big ones.

Mr. Speaker, we have been looking at this. Mr. Roland, the Finance Minister, and I have been talking with the federal government and with aboriginal governments. I wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, last summer and suggested to him that we have an interim resource revenue sharing arrangement put in place so we begin to have some of that revenue stay in the North sooner. I talked to the Prime Minister when he was in Inuvik in August. I talked to the Prime Minister about it when I met with him in September. I have written to the aboriginal leaders. I have talked with them on a conference call about the idea of interim resource revenue sharing and there was going to be a meeting with the Aboriginal Summit leaders this week, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled because some of the members just were not going to be able to make it. I intend to follow up with this at a meeting on October 26th with Ministers McLellan, Goodale, Blondin-Andrew, Scott and, I believe Minister Efford may also be there, too.

But we need to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that our resources are not mined out of the Territories and that we do not have in place some sort of agreement that ensures that that money is here to be reinvested for future generations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.