Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just with respect to the budget of the Legislative Assembly. I'd like to thank my colleagues because it's an honour for me to sit on the Board of Management and undertake looking at the Legislative Assembly budget and goings on and understanding a little bit in depth as to how the Assembly works as a whole, how we keep our buildings and administration systems going.

I think by far this particular year, or within the last six months, the biggest issue that we had, of course, was getting our message out to the public: the loss of programming into a former contractor that was providing TV, or providing our Legislature on TV to each and all the communities. It was something that, believe it or not, people took quite public. Going back home the last couple of times in the last couple of weeks, people are saying, hey, we've been looking for you on TV, you're not there. I know that you guys are in session, we hear you on the radio. I guess our challenge is, I know that we lost that one channel that we're normally on, but now we're going to be on, we're trying to find an alternate solution. Mr. Speaker has mentioned it in his opening remarks about the loss of coverage by APTN.

At the same time, I kind of like his comments, too, that here's an opportunity to build a better communication strategy for the Legislative Assembly to bring to the kitchens of all our people in the North and now's the time to be deliberating it. I know that our staff is working hard on finding alternative solutions. Also, there's interjurisdictional negotiations and considerations, as well, because it's the other northern jurisdictions, like the Yukon and Nunavut, who have the exact same issues that we have with regard to providing our legislatures viewing into the communities, and in official languages, as well.

So I would favour investing in some kind of new northern network that can provide our Legislature to all the people. Because over the years, our elders and community members and constituents have all grown accustomed to turning on the TV at a certain time and knowing that they can watch their MLA either in English or the language of their choice. That was a huge build-up of steady watchers and it's a form of participatory democracy, too.

You know, like, Yellowknife MLAs are lucky because their constituents get to continue to watch them live on TV and catch current issues and provide them feedback, current feedback, as well. It's something that I, as a regional MLA, I feel saddened that the people that I represent get a delayed...even some of them aren't getting it on the TV. I believe they're getting it on the radio, but they're not seeing it on TV in some of the very small communities, like Trout Lake, and Nahanni, and Wrigley, and Jean Marie. But it's something that being a small northern territory, then they used to participate and see it all the time. They knew all the issues and it was great. I would go visit them and have a tea and we would talk about issues that interested them that they saw in the Legislature, be it on housing or economic development or even some of the current issues in Tuktoyaktuk. But it interested them and they saw that, and I'm not too sure what kind of continued feedback I'll get now, but we'll see. I'll make my tours and get some feedback for our next sitting in the May/June session.

Hopefully, too, by then, I know our staff and Mr. Speaker is working hard on coming up with alternate solutions and hopefully you'll have something firm by then so the other small communities can see it on their local channels. But that remains to be seen. I know that setting up a new northern network will be like any other project. It will be, I wouldn't want to say cost prohibitive, but the start-up costs will be huge. But that's something I'm prepared to support and speak in favour of, if and when the time comes.

Another thing that's of great interest to myself and to the constituents and students, much like the crowd that raised their own money to come visit us here today. During recognition of people in the gallery, I recognized the Grade 6 class up there. Mr. Chairman, they're at that age that they're at the Page age level, I guess I would say; Page age. Whereas, next year in Grade 7 they'll be eligible to come and participate as a Page. I believe it's a fun thing to do. I've had four this year. In fact, I had to pay the cost of two extra Pages this year for myself because the interest and the uptake was there and I didn't want to constrain students from not participating.

So I had no problem providing that service and it goes a long way because, believe it or not, in the smaller communities people are saying, well, I didn't know we had a program like that. I didn't know we had the opportunity to travel or participate. Where was this when I was growing up? But the Page program has been something that I believe we've had in the Legislature for a very, very long time, but it just wasn't used for whatever reason. But I'm finding that the uptake is getting more and more. In fact, in the springtime, I had students from Fort Liard and they enjoyed that immensely, Mr. Chairman. It's something that I'd like to continue in the new year and I'm glad to see that we will be budgeting four per year starting in the new year. I look forward to participating in that and allowing more and more students to come to our Legislature and see how it works.

The new initiative put forward by Mr. Speaker's office about the mace program, or travel with the mace to promote the importance of public government, I think that's huge. It's just one of those things; hey, great idea,

why didn't we do it before? But I'm very supportive of it and I think our Speaker should travel and get out there and let our students know a bit more about participatory democracy. I myself, as an MLA, when I travel to the communities, I like to get into the schools and talk to the students. The more and more they see about our government, the more and more interest they'll have as adults and utilize our public government system and understand and know how it can work for their favour. Because there comes a time in each person's life when we have to lobby government for a particular issue that we're passionate about, and once you know how it works, at least you know what the next steps are. So I would champion the mace program and get more knowledge about our Legislative Assembly. The more knowledge about how it works out into the communities.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll end my comments. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next I have Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Along with the way that the Assembly has changed a few of the ways it's doing business in our committees and this, in these past few weeks here with the way we're managing the budget, Mr. Chairman, so too have the staff and some of the contractors who work here in the Legislative Assembly. I wanted to acknowledge my thanks to them because these things, you know, it means change is not easy for anybody and I know that the staff here has had to undergo some changes in their own personal hours, their own family hours to accommodate the kind of things that we want to change here in the Assembly. I wanted to say that I appreciate that, and that I'm really looking forward to making this work even better.

There's been quite a bit of mention, Mr. Chairman, of the pre-budget consultations that Members on this side of the House undertook in September of this year. We will be doing that again. I believe that we were looking at some preliminary plans for late August, for the fall of this year. With that I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we will also see more access not only to the public sessions of this Assembly, but to our committee meetings, Mr. Chairman. Something that is still a marked difference from our Assembly to the national Parliament and I think most of the provinces, is that our committee work, which is an extensive part of Members, the way we do business, is still held behind closed doors. We have started in a small way to open our committee process up to the public and, with the cooperation of the Cabinet, I really do hope we can do more of that.

This gets me to the point, I think, that several other Members have already mentioned, and that is the access that the public has through communications. Indeed, I think the change from the APTN television format has caused us to become much more innovative and by getting into things like web casting, using existing radio, television, and cable TV networks, we are actually going to end up giving greater access to the public to what goes on here in this Assembly. That is really significant, really important, and very, very positive for me. It's one of the things that I've been striving to do, is find more ways to make this Assembly not only more accessible, Mr. Chairman, but more relevant to the people of the NWT. I think through these new ways of seeing how we do business, and I hope being able to interact with us, that we will make ourselves more a part of people's lives and they will see how significant it is that we do a good job and that they keep a watch on us. So I'm looking forward to expanding that reach and perhaps even making some of our committee processes acceptable, Mr. Chairman, or accessible, Mr. Chairman, through things like web casting. It's very doable. We just need to turn our minds to it.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps just to serve notice of a couple things that I would like to ask Mr. Speaker and his staff when we get to the appropriate place, is the bit of progress or bit of a status report on the work of the Legislative Assembly Enhancement Committee, I believe it was called. This was an offshoot of a study and a survey that was done at the tail end of our previous Assembly, Mr. Chairman, to look for ways that the Legislative Assembly building and grounds could reflect more currently the nature, and the cultures, and the lifestyles of the peoples of the North. So some kind of snapshot of what they have done and, Mr. Chairman, in the forthcoming year what kind of accent can we see from that committee.

Another area, Mr. Chairman, that I recall discussing at this time last year when Mr. Speaker was before us was the delivery of Legislative Assembly information in various languages. We have, it's now, I believe, 11 official languages. Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Eleven official languages here in the Northwest Territories. We have, through broadcast facilities, some broadcast of that of our processes. But there are other aspects of what we do here that I believe can and should be made available even in brief summary form in our other languages, and it relates to a specific question that I had last year, Mr. Chairman, which was the provision of services, or some interpretive services and information materials to our Japanese visitors.

Mr. Speaker, as we're speaking right now, just outside the glass doors of the Legislative Assembly, I see a small tour of Japanese visitors here. The private sector companies that make their visits possible escort them into the building, Mr. Chairman, provide them with some interpretation of what we do in Japanese, but nowhere in the building, Mr. Chairman, given the fact that there are, I think it's safe to say, thousands of Japanese visitors who come through our building during the winter, nowhere is there any information in their language of how this Assembly works, let alone in the official languages of our own territory. So that is an aspect, Mr. Chairman, of the Speaker's job that I would like to make an inquiry into at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll keep it very brief and to the opening comments. I want to say, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the hard work that the Speaker and his staff are doing. I know times that, for us new MLAs, called rookie MLAs, there's lots of regulations, there's lots of patience required by your staff to get us comfortable and understanding how the system works. So I really appreciate that, Mr. Speaker, in terms of guiding us through this process here, that your staff have been very patient with us. I want to support you and your staff and continue working to help us understand our jobs better. Sometimes we just don't understand things and they have the patience to let us know, and still sometimes we don't understand. But that's the way it is. So I want to

thank and in saying that to Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chairman, in terms of his staff giving us good support as we're down here.

I want to also say he certainly has my support of seeing a program going into the smaller communities all over the Northwest Territories, south of the lake here and further up north right up to the Beaufort-Delta, in terms of bringing the government into the schools and having them understand that, someday, they may be some up-and-coming MLAs from our regions, and so they understand that we are bringing government into the communities so even our older people in the communities don't understand that who haven't seen the mace and the like before. It is like bringing the Stanley Cup to our communities. I would think so, to really understand the mace and to understand it, because, as MLAs, we sit here day in and day out. We sometimes take that for granted. Sometimes it is nice to bring some of the government into our communities so people in our communities somewhat appreciate the work that we do and the integrity of the government that we perform in. I want to support the Speaker on that initiative.

Some of my colleagues that spoke on the public broadcasting, there is an opportunity waiting to be resolved and looked at. I support what they have talked about how we could really use this opportunity to really broadcast some other initiatives from the Legislative Assembly that will bring more understanding and education into our communities that would enhance the bringing of the mace and the Legislative Assembly into our communities.

Lastly, I would like to thank the Speaker and the staff to recommend that the Page program that Members would be entitled to bring four Pages a year to the Assembly. Again, that would bring some excitement to our region when who the four would be coming down. That is very good. That is why I am going to get some good MLAs in the future that this government is going out to the people. I just wanted to keep it to that point, Mr. Chair, that certainly, I will have my support on the initiatives here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of areas that I would like to talk about. I think the first one is I will start with the Youth Parliament. I find it very intriguing what we do. It is really an interesting form of engagement to the youth on the importance of democracy. Sometimes that value isn't realized until people become voting age, or they may even become taxpayers through the homeownership process. I find, sometimes, that could be lost out there for many years until, like I say, you become part of the taxpaying cycle. Then you realize how important public government becomes.

I think, through our education system, I am quite proud to say that I have gone through in the Northwest Territories. They taught us a lot about the importance of the Legislative Assembly. When Mr. Menicoche had mentioned today about the young students and some of the parents who came through here today who are going to school in Bompas in Fort Simpson. I attended that school while I grew up. I can remember them teaching us, the teachers that is, they were teaching us about what was happening here. They talked about the old days, about bringing government to the people. It sort of reminded me of those days, seeing them up there, those young, happy, smiling faces seeing what we did. Back when I was a kid, they had not travelled, the Assembly that is, for quite some time, so we got to know our MLAs through little brochures about who they were and whatnot. Occasionally, because I knew the Sibbeston family very well, I grew up at houses like Nick Sibbeston's and understood what they did here. It was very fortunate for me to sort of have that experience and to have teachers through the education system to talk about what we did. I am really proud to say that this Assembly is responding to a need through the Youth Parliament system which encourages youth to get involved and learn more about what is happening. Seeing them here reminds me about that period in my life when I first learned about government and what we did. That was a start where I first envisioned of coming to this Assembly, and one could say that I have realized the dream I have had since I was a little kid watching even Parliament on television back in the late '70s, early '80s, so we are on our way.

To the Page process, it didn't exist when I was a young student in Fort Simpson growing up. Until I moved to Akaitcho Hall, they went there and solicited and said, does anyone here from the communities want to participate in the Page process? I was fortunate enough to be one of those that was selected. It was quite exciting because I remember I started as a Page. Like I said, I learned about our government system through our school. It has brought me through today. So through a long-winded way, I am trying to say that I think it is an important process that we continue to bring the youth from the communities as well as, of course, our youth from Yellowknife here into the Assembly here, so they experience what we do, know and realize how important it is, the decisions we make today. On that point, I will leave those by themselves and I will move on.

Mr. Chair, when I am out in the community meeting and seeing constituents, not a week goes by when people talk to me about how exciting it is to watch us on television. I really find that encouraging because, in my mind, that is the way the Assembly brings government to the people. I know we have transcripts that you could read through the Hansard process by downloading them. I know the newspaper does what they can, the radio, the CBC and whatnot, but there is something a little bit different about watching your MLA on television than there is sitting down and reading it. Warren Kinsella had once said about the Canadian public, whereas they are a busy bunch of people, it is difficult to sit down and make time to go through the process, but yet, being able to focus in on a few minutes and watch things and listen to things, I thought was always a very stimulating point which was people's lives are busy, but bringing democracy in through the television into their homes, I think, is something that we need to continue.

I will say that I am extremely pleased to be part of this Assembly that has now started the pre-budget consultation process. I, as well as many Members, trumpeted this. I think this was met at great success. We started here in Yellowknife. I thought this was a neat way of bringing government to the people, because we are asking them in advance what is important to you and can we help bring this to life. It has never been done, to my knowledge, before this Assembly. I would like to see and

hope the future assemblies grab onto this important challenge that we have done by bringing it open. I think what we have done is blown the doors off the process so we can show to the citizens that we are trying to be more accountable to their needs.

With that, I am really committed to the process to ensure that the public really does see what we do here. That is why I have spoken even through a Member's statement about saying that I am fully supportive of stepping forward to a satellite channel where the Legislative Assembly can be seen throughout the North as well as throughout Canada, of course. I have spoken about the fact that I believe we should create a northern channel and embrace our colleagues to the left and right of us which are the Yukon and Nunavut legislatures. I think that is a good vehicle to bring our debates and our questions to the people which, ultimately, are the ones we are here to serve. I have been cornered, in a sense, a number of times where people have wanted to tell me how excited they were to see us on television from community members when I was in Fort Good Hope, how they say that they enjoy seeing us. They like watching our debates. They like to see that, sometimes, we even get an answer when we ask a question. They find it quite a different process. I think it is very encouraging to know, on a personal level, that people are watching. I know that the Legislative Assembly debates are maybe not the most stimulating things to watch on television, but the fact is they are good information and there are good things seen that are being done.

To lend my support to, say, a satellite channel, I think, is the way to go. I know that there will be short-term costs. I don't want that to be seen as a criticism to the idea. I think the value of that type of communication goes far beyond any type of short-term costs that we may see as a quick hurdle. The fact is there will be no other system that we can truly bring a broad brush of democracy into citizens' homes. I think that is our mechanism, like I say, or our vehicle to help ensure that the people are seeing what we do and help ensure that they know what we are doing, as well.

With that, Mr. Chair, at this time, I am going to leave my comments at that and say that I am very supportive of what we have been doing here, and I would like to continue to see the good work that goes on. Like I said earlier on a number of occasions, I think the pre-budget consultation through this Assembly support I think is one of the most significant steps that we have done. It will only be realized years from now about how important that step was about bringing democracy to the people and asking them their opinions, because it is truly them who we are serving. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Next I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have already spoken on this so I don't want to extend that, but I just wanted to suggest one thing. I guess I could write to the Board of Management about that, but this way I get it on record and hopefully this will be looked at. That is the issue with the Japanese visitors. I have to tell you that it is always a good thing when you work in a place where people from so far away come to visit and they make a point of visiting our facility. I do believe that they walk away very impressed each time. We do get an enormous number of Japanese visitors. I think it is up to 12,000 and climbing. One thing I want to suggest is, Mr. Braden spoke about having some literature in Japanese. I don't know if that has already been done. I think some parts of description are written in Japanese. I am wondering if the Speaker's office could work with the tourism industry and the Department of ITI to see if we could have DVD or virtual display where Japanese visitors could just press a button and hear about the Legislature, or about the North, or our people, our land, in their own language. I do understand that we don't want to focus all of our tourism money on one sector. The tourism plan that the Minister of ITI unveiled speaks to developing regional products and building infrastructure at a regional level. I think what we have here is a captive audience. They have come all the way here. They are in our House. I know that, through their guides, I am sure they get good information, but the important thing is that we are more than...We, the territory, is more than just this House and this city. I am just wondering if the Expo being held in Japan and I am sure there was some production and promotion material that was already made about the Northwest Territories in Japanese. It could be in the form of TV format already. The only thing is, though, whenever we suggest anything to be done in this building, everything has to match the building. It has to be the same kind of colouring and wood. Next thing you know, even the recycling box looks better than most furniture I have in my house, to tell you the truth.

I don't want to see thousands of dollars worth of display case for something like this. I do appreciate that it is protecting the integrity of the design and colour scheme that makes our building look very beautiful as even the years go by, so I didn't mean to knock that down, but I want to make a suggestion and not make it as a big costly endeavour. I think it certainly is an idea that should be looked at if it has not been already. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Yakeleya was saying before, if someone said, come down here for when we first come down here, the first people that meet us at the door is Mr. Clerk and his staff really help us to be able to do our duty here and they keep us in line, as Mr. Speaker does. I have always appreciated that you come down here and you get the help from people downstairs and it makes your job a lot easier. A couple comments I would like to make other than that on the Speaker's opening comments, like some of the Members, I was disappointed that we weren't being broadcast this year because a lot of people do like watching us on TV, but I can understand their reasoning as for not broadcasting and going with the existing demands of the broadcaster. I back him up on that. I think they made the right choice. I like the web cast format. I checked it a couple of times and I think that is something that will work really well. Iron out some bugs.

One of the things I don't agree with is in speaking to the law courts building being on the grounds of the Legislative Assembly and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. They are both tourist attractions. I don't want this law courts building. Even with the price tag, it has got to be thought of as a tourist attraction. If there was another place that this building could sit. I would just as soon see it sit there. I would support any initiative to move it off of this property here and have it somewhere else.

I like the suggestion of the Pages. I think that is an excellent idea. The Pages that we have come down, to them, it is a real honour to be part of our proceedings. They take that very seriously. I would support any initiative like that.

I like the program that the Speaker is talking about bringing the mace and that out to the communities. All the travelling that we do, the people in the communities really, a lot of them like seeing their MLAs in the communities because they see us on TV and for them to actually see the mace and have the Speaker and some of the MLAs bring the mace around I think would give it a lot of good exposure. I think that is an excellent idea.

With that, Mr. Chair, I have outlined a couple of my concerns. I mentioned that all the help that we get from the staff here and everyone will agree with me. It is second to none. I had only one negative comment. I am sure a few of my colleagues will share the same feeling. Other than that, Mr. Chair, I will leave it at that. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments? If there are no further general comments, does committee wish to go into detail?

Can committee turn to 1-10? Information item, revenue summary.

Page 1-11.

Page 1-12, 1-13, activity summary, office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $7,381,000. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under this particular area, the office of the Clerk, describes one of the responsibilities or activities is that visitor services and public information is coordinated through the office of the Clerk and this expenditure area. It is here, Mr. Chair, that I would ask my question about the provision of language interpretive, descriptive information services, whether in print or audio or, as we have seen in some cases, Mr. Chair, there is information and interpretation information on the walls, on the glass windows and various displays. Mr. Chair, how can the office of the Clerk continue to provide language service interpretation in the Legislative Assembly building? I would like to include a special mention to tourism audiences and their languages, as well as our own official languages, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This issue, of course, did come up as the Member mentioned when we were before the House before, as far as putting out brochures or CDs or whatever publication we could put out in Japanese for the tourists that do come to the building. We gave that a considerable amount of consideration, but we also had to keep in mind the comments that came back to us from the Members that were in the House at the time. It was put to us pretty clearly that, before we put a lot of dedication or expense to putting stuff out in Japanese, we pay a lot of attention to our own official languages in the Northwest Territories. I guess that is a legitimate concern. We do as much as we can to make this building a House for the people of the Northwest Territories. Of course, because of the different coverage that we have now with APTN, we have changed some of our broadcasting in different languages. We are a bit limited right now.

I guess, with the Japanese one, a couple of things we, as much as I acknowledge the fact that we have large groups of Japanese coming in through here, we are not a tourist attraction, per se. We are not a museum or we don't have a tourist business because we go out and promote the tourist ourselves as a tourist attraction. We are here for the House of the people to do business in. That is not to say that it is not important when Japanese do come in here. I would like to see ourselves and our staff maybe work with...There may be a way we could approach the tourism industry. I think a lot of them end up here because of information they get at the Northern Frontier Visitors' Centre. There may be something that we could work through the tourism industry, or through the information centre here in Yellowknife, for them to provide some kind of brochures or publications that would be available to Japanese or whatever type of tourists come through the Northwest Territories. I certainly would be more than willing to have our staff work and look at some of those areas that maybe we could do something.

We have worked for our own official languages. Members will notice that, along the booths, we have put up all the writing around the building in all of our different languages. Most of our brochures now are out in most of our official languages of the Northwest Territories. I guess it is safe to say that we have put a lot more emphasis on our own official languages in the Northwest Territories before we step outside. My office, I am prepared to have some staff work with maybe the tourism industry or the Northern Heritage Centre to see what we could provide for them to assist them in putting stuff out for Japanese, for sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Respectfully, I would beg to differ with Mr. Speaker. We are a tourism attraction. This building is one of the most magnificent legislatures in Canada. It is acknowledged. I know Mr. Speaker has heard that himself from his counterparts who just visited us a few weeks ago and marvelled at the beauty, the complexity, and the features of this building. I think that, to the tourism industries across the Northwest Territories, if we can send them a signal that we believe that we are part of this industry, at least in that we are an attraction through our building and our style of government, that would be a very welcome step, a good companion to what was just announced yesterday, increase investment on the part of our government. I would like to think, with modest cost, we can extend an extra welcome to the visitors to our land through some interpretation of this building and the job that we have here as part of the government of the people of the NWT.

I would very much welcome the Speaker's suggestion that we could work with the tourism industry officials here in the city of Yellowknife. I think they are very proactive, as well, to see just what would be appropriate, and design our service to meet that need and potentially in other

languages, Mr. Chair. Is there an adequate or large enough number, for instance, of German or Italian along with French and Japanese people coming to the Assembly to make it worth the while to talk to them?

I would leave this request, again, with the good offices of the Speaker to advance and see what we can do to enable us to be an even better part of the tourism industry in the North, Mr. Chair.