Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask about the recent announcement of Diavik diamond mine with respect to the waiving of the cost or the contribution of the employees towards travel to and from their work, so now employees who reside in southern Canada do not have to pay anything towards that travel. Certainly there was a very extensive socioeconomic agreement put in place at the time that Diavik and BHP were coming online, and our government, I believe, worked very hard to ensure that maximum benefits to northerners through the socioeconomic agreement addressing things like purchasing, contracting and employing northerners and some of the benefits staying here, the secondary diamond processing and the list goes on. So I was quite surprised to hear this announcement by Diavik. I have spoken to it publicly myself and I have certainly had it raised to me as a concern by people who are trying to build their communities with the addition of these workers who are very valued people and make contributions in our community.

Mr. Speaker, the government has been eerily quiet on this subject. I understand that these are businesses operating here in the North. They cite things like labour market competition, needing to be competitive in their remuneration and salary packages as their reasons for waiving this transportation cost, but I think they are doing quite well financially. I am a little bit disappointed with what they are doing. My fear, Mr. Speaker, is once you start flying employees in from the South, then why not just get a bigger airplane and put all the goods on too, and we will be back to the days of Nanisivik and Lupin and we'll

just fly overhead. There goes our diamonds and the people flying over.

So my concern is I haven't heard much response from this government about this, which I think is going to have a major impact. So I would like to know if the Minister has had any communications with Diavik on this. What was the nature of his comments to them? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bell.

I have had several meetings with the company on this issue. I have had a phone conversation with Joe Carrabba who has now moved on. He has been replaced and I have met with his replacement as well to better understand why the company felt the need to do this. We had some discussion and I think the Member has rightly articulated the issues that the company was faced with: a very hot economy in Western Canada; having to compete with the oil sands for labour; having to compete with other projects; the startup of the diamond mine in Nunavut; the Tahera Mine and generally just a booming economy. All of these things were making it difficult.

Roughly 70 percent of their workforce is northern. Thirty percent of the workforce, and it tends to be in more professionalized skill areas, but 30 percent of the workforce currently flies in from the South, and in past they have been requiring them to pay for their travel and they've waived that.

Obviously we were concerned about this. We don't want to see an exodus of people living in the North to the South. But I think after meeting with the company, I have been reassured that the company does have a vested interest in trying to get up to 100 percent in terms of northern workforce. It would be much easier for the company. They see a lower turnover in terms of northern employees who are more acclimatized. So the challenge really becomes one of training, and I think that's why we've pinned a lot of hopes on programs like the Aboriginal Skills Employment Program, and the work of the Mine Training Committee, to make sure we get more people with the technical expertise trained so that we can move forward toward full employment from the North and not have to rely on southern fly-in employees.

So I did talk about our concerns about this, and the company I think is going to work as much as they possibly can to try and work with us and other partners to get our northern workforce increasingly trained. Of course, we're challenged by the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in the country. Despite having pockets of unemployment in some of our smaller more remote communities, it can be up in the neighbourhood of 40 or 50 percent, we do, overall as a territory, have quite a booming economy. So our challenge is to try to get those underemployed people meaningful employment in industry and we're going to work towards that. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I see this move as being regressive and counterproductive to what we're trying to do, and that is to encourage people who work at the mines to live in the North, and everybody knows that the cost of living is higher here. I think that this move on the part of the company, I think they could have found other ways of compensating or increasing, enhancing the compensation of their employees other than this particular move. I'd like to ask the Minister how does he see this affecting other socioeconomic agreements that may be negotiated say for the Mackenzie gas pipeline. Does he not see this move and the acceptance of this move by our government without a lot of opposition to it as sending a wrong message to industry wanting to develop and take non-renewable resources out of the territory?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are sitting down to negotiate a socioeconomic agreement in terms of employment for the pipeline. I don't see the same reality there. We know that in terms of pipeline construction, there are so many more people required for this project than we can possibly hope to produce in the Northwest Territories in a short time. So the reality is that there will be quite a significant amount of employment that has to be sourced elsewhere.

I guess I would say that in terms of the diamond mines, the three different socioeconomic agreements are different. I've been personally involved in the negotiation of the one for Snap Lake. It doesn't have the same kind of provisions and neither does the BHP agreement, but there is a provision in the Diavik Socioeconomic Agreement for them to fly their southern workforce in for four years after the start of operations, which seems to me was September 2003. So until something like September 2007 they can subsidize travel from the South. So there's that four-year window. So they are in compliance of the socioeconomic agreement and that's why it would be very difficult for us to come out and suggest that they weren't living up to the terms of that agreement.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, one of the things they've been very successful at doing is having some of the highest northern employment targets of any industry around, and they are employing over 70 percent northerners. I think it would be hard for us to find another big industry company doing the same thing. So their track record is quite impressive. They have I think a good track record of wanting to work with northern companies, source from northern companies, get involved in community projects and they are living up to the terms of the agreement, and I guess that's the bottom line. Now should employment targets fall below that, then we have to go back to the company and say we have a real concern here, now you're not living up to the agreement and the terms of that agreement. But at this point it's hypothetical because they are meeting that threshold test. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Third supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 7, oral

questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recognizing it has been a long day, I will just ask one question and quite quickly to the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to TTC. That being said, it may be a little bit of a lengthy one, but it will be fast. Mr. Speaker, I'm trying to understand why this government preaches decentralization, about being fair and equitable and making sure everyone gets a fair shot, but the bottom line is I think the Minister just mentioned Fort Smith has a facility somewhat of a similar nature, and the bottom line is now if we remove the one out of Yellowknife and put it in Hay River that will be two south of the lake. That means one region now has two, Yellowknife has zero, and the northern region has zero, as well. So, Mr. Speaker, I guess my clear question to the Minister is if you can't provide the vehicle today, I'd be happy to receive it tomorrow. But the bottom line is why don't you consider moving the one from Fort Smith to Hay River if we're worried about backfilling on some facility that needs to be filled or extending the service appropriately, again, south of the lake when we're losing it out of the central region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll give that request the consideration it deserves, as the Member has requested. The reality is a decision was made to move TTC from Yellowknife to Hay River, and it was a good decision. The capacity is there for Hay River to deliver that program and we've done our best to make sure we try to spread the resources around to the best of our ability as a government, though as we hear in this House from communities outside of Yellowknife that we should be doing more, we could be doing more. We take that into consideration when we try to make these decisions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 7, oral questions. Item 8, written questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Item 8, written questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a written question to the Minister of Finance.

1. What is the total amount of alcohol sales from the Norman Wells liquor store?
2. How many alcohol sales in total are there in the NWT?
3. What percentage of total revenue does the Sahtu region contribute to the total revenue by purchasing alcohol from liquor stores?
4. Are there any types of alcohol bans such as overproof alcohol in Canada?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 13, tabling of documents. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Tourism 2003-04 Annual Report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Item 13, tabling of documents. Item 14, notices of motion. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, May 30, 2005, I will move that Bill 10, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. Item 19, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Item 20, report of Committee of the Whole. Item 21, third reading of bills. Mr. Clerk, orders of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Friday, May 27, 2005, at 10:00 a.m.

---ADJOURNMENT

The House adjourned at 3:51 p.m.