Good afternoon, colleagues. Before we begin, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize some very special guests of mine in the gallery. We have with us visiting today my daughter, Michelle, her husband, Brent, and their kids, Lane and Tori Hartwell.

---Applause

Welcome to the Legislative Assembly. I hope you enjoy your visit. Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers' statements. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak about long-term care for elders. Mr. Speaker, I strongly disagree with the policy of this government to charge aboriginal elders in long-term care facilities for their room and board. I have raised my concern in the House before, and I am not at all satisfied with the responses I have received to date.

Mr. Speaker, elders are revered members of this society. They have waited a long time to get old.

---Laughter

They should be able to enjoy what they can of old age. It should be a time for them. Unfortunately, under this policy, rather than taking whatever pleasure they can from their old age security, they pay around $712 per month for their accommodation. For those who depend on old age security, this leaves them with very little. This is not at all consistent with the policy for seniors in public housing, Mr. Speaker, who pay virtually nothing towards their rent. Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that elders who are most in need of assistance must pay for their accommodation while those who are able to look after themselves pay nothing towards their rent?

It is hardly the fault of those who require long-term care. Why should they be penalized? Mr. Speaker, the long-term care facilities are the last stop on this earth for the elders who make their home there. Shame on this government for not doing all that is within its powers to make the last days of our elders as comfortable as possible.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance was proud to announce a budget surplus when he tabled the budget last week. The number of elders in long-term care in the NWT is not huge, Mr. Speaker. It would not unduly burden this government to cover the housing costs for elders in long-term care as they do for those who reside in public housing. But it would make a significant difference in those people's lives. It would also be a powerful statement about the value our society places on elders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last October, this Assembly passed a motion to reopen a residential addictions treatment centre in Inuvik. I was glad to hear about this motion because it has given me a head start on a very important issue for my constituency. The lack of a proper treatment centre with follow-up programs in the Beaufort-Delta is something that needs to be addressed quickly. The Beaufort-Delta Regional Council passed a resolution last November in support of the establishment of a treatment centre, prevention programs, especially to prevent hard-core drug use such as crack cocaine, and funding support for the mental health addictions counsellors and after-care programs in all communities.

It is a sad fact, Mr. Speaker, that during the week of the BDRC's meeting, which coincide with Addictions Awareness Week, there was an armed robbery at an Inuvik corner store by an individual looking for money to buy crack. It would be na‹ve to think this was an isolated incident. With more and more resource development jobs and the extra cash this puts in people's pockets, we will see more of this if we don't make the investment in prevention and treatment.

Mr. Speaker, although I believe that alcohol and drugs are a matter of personal choice, when people who are addicted do make the choice to get treatment, the facilities and programs should be there. The Minister has indicated he will be in a better position to respond to the BDRC's resolution in late March, once he has more details on the additional resources for health care recently committed by the federal government. I look forward to working with the Minister and my colleagues in this House and the Beaufort-Delta leadership to ensure that the new money is invested where it is most needed. I would certainly say that prevention and treatment of addictions is one of those critical areas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is a follow-up to Tuesday's statement when I was speaking to the issue of the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs granting permission to the Deton'Cho Corporation to access a portion of the sandpits here in Yellowknife to develop a residential community. I still do not understand how and why the Minister would and could unilaterally agree to grant access without first consulting the City of Yellowknife. How could the Minister be so bold, Mr. Speaker? On January 7th, he grants permission to Deton'Cho Corporation to access the land, then three days later, on January 10th, the Minister signs off on the city's general plan. What was the Minister thinking? In the event he doesn't know what he was thinking, I want to let the Minister in on something. That is that plans are in the works to develop this area with a 400-unit residential development. Does this Minister care that this is going to happen? Well, he should. If the development does proceed, we could have a substantial satellite community with 800 to 1,000 persons living out at the sandpits. There will be needs, Mr. Speaker; perhaps a school, parks, roads and other infrastructure. How will these items be managed? Who is going to pay for it? The Minister has to pay attention to all of the conflicting concerns on this parcel of land. Any future airport expansion plans involve land immediately next door to this parcel of land.

Residential development for the area is not in the City of Yellowknife's general plan. The Minister's department is currently involved in a joint survey with the Yellowknife Shooting Club and the City of Yellowknife on this exact parcel of land. How did discussions proceed with regard to the much-needed Kam Lake access road should a housing development be planned for this area? The decision to grant access is wrong from so many different angles, Mr. Speaker.

Again today I will be questioning the Minister about how and why this decision was made to grant access to Deton'Cho Corporation to build a housing development at the Yellowknife sandpits. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is on education issues in Nunakput. I would like to start off by thanking the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment for meeting with the Tuktoyaktuk District Education Authority and the public in Paulatuk during his Nunakput tour last summer with myself.

Mr. Speaker, today my statement will focus on education issues in my riding; namely, the high school in Tuktoyaktuk and also grade extensions in Paulatuk. I have spoken about the Mangilaluk School in previous sessions, and I will just put the government on notice that I will continue to raise these issues until they are resolved.

I want to take the opportunity to make Members aware of the reasons and logic behind Tuktoyaktuk's request for a new high school. The Mangilaluk School was only ever intended for K to 9. Several years ago, Mr. Speaker, the school was forced to take in the high school grades on very short notice. Separate portables being used for the high school were condemned. This created problems with overcrowding and having younger and older students together. I believe the current Minister should be very familiar with the situation, Mr. Speaker, as he was also the Minister of Education at the time that this was going on. There were some renovations done in the late 1990s but this was just really a band-aid solution.

Mr. Speaker, there have been some communications recently between the Minister; the chair of IRC, Ms. Nellie Cournoyea; the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk; the Tuktoyaktuk District Education Council; and myself about the possibility of looking at options to address the problem of a high school. I would like to thank the Minister for listening to us and want to encourage him to follow up as quickly as possible.

This has been a major concern in the community of Tuktoyaktuk for many years and I don't want this to end up on a back burner. As the Minister heard in Paulatuk last summer, people are very interested in seeing grade extensions so that their high school students can stay in the community rather than going to Inuvik. I would also encourage the Minister to follow up on this request as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to seeing some progress on these educational issues in the near future and then the government can look forward to hearing me pursue other matters on behalf of my constituents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am very worried that Hay River does not have a protocol in place to respond to the needs for shelter for transients. Economic growth in the Northwest Territories is almost 10 times greater than the rest of Canada, and our employment rate is higher than the Canadian average. This news is drawing people to the North, our population is expanding and most of the expansion is because of people migrating here from other provinces.

In the NWT, Hay River is the most accessible town from the South. Road traffic is on the rise and there has been a 33 percent increase in highway traffic since 1993. When the Deh Cho Bridge opens in 2006, I believe that road traffic is going to increase further. Everyone in the south has heard about the mining and the pipeline and I believe people are going to be heading to Hay River in search of jobs. Many of them will find employment and many more of them will arrive in Hay River in the dead of winter to find out it's 40 below and they can't afford a place to stay or they can't afford the cost of living.

Young men are the most likely group to travel north looking for work on the pipeline, Mr. Speaker, and when there isn't an appropriate place for them, they have, in the past, looked to the local churches for support. The number of men arriving in Hay River has already increased and some transients that have arrived appear to be chemically-dependant or have other issues that create some instability.

The members of the Ministerial in Hay River have been approached, on average, about once a week by someone needing the basic essentials to survive and they are not equipped or prepared to support these transients. Without an adequate plan to respond to these transients and their needs, there will be a problem in our community. Potentially, crime could increase, disease could increase and, sadly, mental and emotional problems could increase.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, the government would rather be proactive about this situation and have the appropriate facilities to address this issue now rather than pay a higher price down the road.

Mr. Speaker, departments in our government are working together to plan a pipeline and part of that planning should address Hay River's requirement for plans for emergency shelter, in order to deal humanely and appropriately with transients.

Mr. Speaker, later today in question period I will have questions for Minister Miltenberger, with respect to how we, as a government, are going to respond to the needs of transient people arriving in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The principal job of an MLA is to carry the voice of their constituents into this Assembly, and today I am proud to do that on behalf of a student who is in the Aurora College Nursing Program.

Mr. Speaker, this young lady, who is a single mother, finds herself in considerable difficulty, primarily because of housing programs or policies within the college and also due to the increasing upward pressure on rent scales here in the city of Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to read to some extent from a couple of notes that I received this morning: "I am faced every month struggling to pay the rest of my rent as well as my day care fees, food, power, clothes and various other needs."

Her two-bedroom, by the way, she just received notice that it is going up to $1,300 per month. She already gets the maximum of $1,100 from student financial assistance but still has that difference to pay.

Mr. Speaker, she has tried numerous options to get further assistance but our system just does not provide for anything that she can really get a handle on. She makes the point very clear here in one policy area, Mr. Speaker. She says: "It is not fair that student housing be available to those from other communities and that us Yellowknife residents are forced to go south just to be able to afford rent while in school. I am from Yellowknife, I want to go to school here, but I can't get any help."

Mr. Speaker, we do so much already in the area of assistance for students, here in Yellowknife and in other college campuses, but I think a reality here -- because of the upward pressure on the cost of living and other circumstances that students may be in -- we still do not meet the needs of all of our people. Especially promising young women like this constituent, raised here, who went to school here all her life but now is facing probably the only solution she has, which may be to go south. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard during the last sitting that the government and the NWT Power Corporation are making serious efforts to investigate the feasibility of a hydro project on the Bear River. Perhaps we have millions of dollars being spent there, but we don't really know what is happening with consent from other governments. The Minister has advised us that feasibility work involving talking to potential partners, customers and whatnot is happening but, to my knowledge right now, I have no idea if the federal government is onboard with this subject.

This is all well and good if the federal government plays a key role in the potential of this development. Has the Minister responsible talked to the Government of Canada about a hydro project on the Bear River? Has he talked to DIAND? Has he talked to Fisheries and Oceans? Has he talked to the Environment Minister? Those are the few that come to mind immediately.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about $2.7 million on the Taltson, we are talking about half-a-million dollars on the Bear River that has been spent, but I have simple questions such as do we have that right over that jurisdiction that Canada governs to even start any hydro project anywhere in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, do we have Canada's support? There are many concerns about global warming and energy problems and Kyoto started yesterday, Mr. Speaker. These mega projects make a lot of sense, but there is a lot of risk involved when we deal with public money, Mr. Speaker.

These are good ideas and I support the ideas but, Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope someone from this government is testing these ideas with the federal government. At the end of the day, they can say no. If they say no, the approximately $3.4 million dollars we have spent thus far, both on the Bear and the Taltson combined, would have been money wasted without opening up that subject with Canada. Mr. Speaker, later today I will have questions for the appropriate Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to inform this government on some issues that my constituents in Deninu Kue have been discussing over the past couple of days. Their concerns are related to some exploration activity that has been underway in the Pine Point area by a company called Tamberlane Ventures Incorporated.

Mr. Speaker, the frustration by residents of Deninu Kue at last night's meeting was not limited to the fact that there is some economic activity in the immediate area and no one from the community has been hired, but for the fact that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board has approved these land use permits to this company without prior notification or consultation with any of the Deninu Kue community organizations.

Mr. Speaker, the exploration activity would likely have gone forward without any community involvement or concerns had the exploration company not made one mistake and that being, they did not receive or request any notification from the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board about any trapping going on in the area in question, primarily due to the fact that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board probably did not know this fact themselves.

Mr. Speaker, two local trappers went to check their traplines in this area and were appalled to find several kilometres of road recently dozed, some crossing their traplines at several locations, and at one section the dozer actually followed the trapper's skidoo trail down his line, dozed up all his traps he had there and then carried on without a thought of the damage he just caused to someone's livelihood, wherein trapping around the Deninu Kue area is considered a fundamental means of providing food and shelter for families because of the high unemployment in the community.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I want to stress the importance of ensuring that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board strictly adhere to the four principles of public involvement in the guidelines for development applications to the board. All the attributes of proper public involvement, such as transparency, inclusiveness, respect and reasonableness, have been breached in this instance. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to see the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board become complacent with some of the decisions they felt they have been adequately formulated and well thought out because some of these decisions they make may not always seem adequate or justifiable to the people who have to live with them. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement has to do with the lack of services and programs in small communities in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker, and the high percentage of population in the smaller communities. Mr. Speaker, in smaller communities we lack the services of qualified social service workers and most of the services that social services gives are on an as-needed basis. Like in Colville Lake we only deal in isolation, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the increase of alcoholic rate instances seems to have more and more of a devastating effect on these smaller communities because of the number of people. Yet, in most of the small communities, Mr. Speaker, we don't have drug and alcohol workers to deal with these issues on a consistent and daily basis. Mr. Speaker, in the small communities we seem to be dealing on an emergency basis only. Like the example we had in Colville Lake last year where they had the TB scare and all of a sudden we had the nurses and Department of Health and Social Services come in there and stay there for months. Mr. Speaker, we need to get away from these emergency situations and deal with them in a good manner.

Mr. Speaker, we in our small communities are experiencing an increase of economic development activity, especially with a project like the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. We need help to review the projects, such as the people from Fort Good Hope said that we need the money to look at the work that is going into the Mackenzie Valley project. Mr. Speaker, the small communities are dealing with their alcohol issues. Again, like Fort Good Hope, they did a voluntary ban to keep alcohol out of the community and other communities that are dry. Mr. Speaker, that leads into the presence of RCMP in our communities, like I said last year in Colville Lake when they asked for the RCMP to make their presence known because of a high increase of alcohol coming through that community.

For these small communities, Mr. Speaker, as an MLA we fight for these things that other communities deserve. They talk about our roads. Our roads are really dusty in our communities. In large centres they're paved, they're well maintained and they take it for granted. That's what we think in small communities.

Mr. Yakeleya, your time for your Member's statement has expired.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude.

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude his statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You may conclude your statement, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I ask this government to do the honourable thing and give the little people what they deserve. Mahsi.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.