Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if the Member wants to pursue the parking issue and the Cultural Enhancement Commission issue further. I know I've given kind of where we're heading with that area and it's something that we want to promote and we want to do in this Assembly. We realize the importance of it.
As far as the Pages program is concerned, again, that's certainly an area where maybe the independent commission that we're going to be looking at may be an area that they can look at. Not necessarily at the Pages program itself, but that they could take that into consideration and look at Members' budgets where the Member's constituency budget may be able to be bumped up, for example, to cover that type of a program or the Member could also put a request in to the Board of Management to have that looked at. We would have to
bring it up and see where we could find the money and do it. I know that the program is a very important program for everybody across the Territories, and it is costly to bring kids to Yellowknife to partake in that Pages program. I was probably one of the luckier ones, coming from Hay River, as far as travelling; probably one of the lower expenses travelling. I know for some Members from the north it would be very expensive to bring Pages down here. I am sure if the Member was to bring that issue and make it an issue to the Board of Management, we would look at it again. So I would encourage the Member to maybe look at that. He definitely made some good points that he is bringing up.
As far as the languages in the House, that is an area that we don't use a lot. We do have a budget for languages, the use of official languages in the Assembly here. It is not hard to get interpreters here to use the official languages. All that we do is we ask that the Member let us know ahead of time what day he wants to use his official language in the House, and we would bring interpreters in for that. So there is no set schedule but, if we do receive a request from a Member saying that he wants to use his official language in the House on that particular date, arrangements can be made for that.
The Speaker's program, again, the Member brings out some good points; all those things about the Speaker going around and making presentations at schools, or speaking, or putting on mock parliaments are all good suggestions. The Assembly used to do that a lot more in the schools. I think we have taken a step beyond that now where in our Youth Parliament we bring in kids. It is talked about at the schools quite a bit, and kids are picked from the schools to come here and take part in the Youth Parliament. Again, that has proved to be a very successful program and one that the students really look forward to coming and taking part in.
On other programs of what the Speaker can do to promote the Assembly and government, I know that we are working right now on doing a possible Mace tour of all the NWT communities, where the Speaker would go along with the Mace and explain what the Mace means, the symbolic meaning of the Mace and how it was created and made. There is an awful lot of history in it, and it is very much representative of the whole Territories. I think that would be a good program to take part in.
I am certainly open to go into schools and talking about the Assembly and the role and promoting this government. I think it is a big part of what the Speaker's job should be. I look forward to areas like that where I can take part in those events. Any suggestions that the Members have, we are certainly open to them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.