Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to get into a dispute with the honourable Member about whether we are a tourist attraction. I don't dispute the fact that this is an attraction. This building in Yellowknife is an attraction to visitors from all over the world that come here and we are very well known for the beauty of the building. My only point is that we are not in the tourist business, per se, and we are not a building that is on display that we try to bring people in here particularly as a tourist attraction. I agree with the Member that we should have something, maybe work in cooperation with the people that are in the business of what they have and what Yellowknife has to attract tourists here. I don't have a problem with that. So I will leave that commitment open to the Member, that we will look at any way we can to work with the tourist industry to help out promote our building and make it accessible in their languages if there is anything we can do there. I will make that commitment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Braden. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to speak on almost the very similar lines Mr. Braden did. Maybe I am just going to take it in a different approach, although I may get somewhat of a similar answer. If the Speaker isn't offended, I am just going to go about the same direction, which is it is no surprise to anyone here, that I am very supportive of the Japanese tourism. That has come up on a number of occasions. I am very proud to be very supportive of it. We bring 12,000 visitors through our major tour companies here to the Northwest Territories. There are spin-offs to our communities for aurora tourism. That, to one extent or another, brings $16 million to our local economy. To that, I think that is a significant element to who we are as a territory, from a business sense.

In recognizing that we have several pillars and columns here in this Assembly building and many walls that could be used for something small, I am going to challenge the Speaker, and I am hoping he finds it an interesting challenge that I would like challenge him, to take him up on a suggestion about meeting with some of the people in the tourism industry. We have three major tour operators here locally, and they do bring in a lot of Japanese. It is my understanding that they would provide translation services in order to keep the fees realistic enough for us to come up with a small couple of plaques just to acknowledge what we are and what we do and whatnot. I can't imagine it costing more than a couple hundred dollars to take it to one of the local companies in order to produce what appears to be a fitting wall plaque or whatnot that would be suitable for the Assembly. I only say this in the sense that, from my experience with the Japanese people as well as specifically the tourists, that any acknowledgement of them seems to go miles. In a tourist economy that is extremely shaky at best in the sense that we have strong aurora here and it is acknowledged all throughout Japan that the best aurora is in the Northwest Territories, but the problem is that we have competitors in Alaska and other places that are competing just as hard for these tourists.

The reason I say all of this is because it is just about appreciation, respect and recognition that I am really going about. All I am asking is if we can get ultimately a clear commitment from the Speaker on this matter and that would probably end it for me. Could he find some way to agree today that they will put up some type of plaque in recognizing either explaining what our mace is, or something suitable, that at least Japanese can come here into our building and definitely see some writing on our wall that we recognize that they are an important customer to the Northwest Territories? If I can say this quite simply, happy tourists spend money. New money being brought to our economy is good for everyone. It is my opinion, growing up through the Territories, I don't think we would be offending any culture or other language if we just put up a small plaque to recognize the Japanese people in the sense of translation of one of our things on our wall. It is my belief that it only strengthens who we are. It will only further recognize the diversity of the world and what we do bring. I will say that I do understand what the Speaker means about we are not a tourist attraction, per se. I mean, we don't have carnie rides or handouts or things like that, but being one of the most important buildings, in my mind, in the Northwest Territories it is seen as a draw. I can tell you anytime I'm to any province, the first place I always wonder about going to visit is the Legislature. Maybe it's because I'm an MLA, I don't know, but I certainly think that they're important buildings. So I do understand the Speaker's point. So if I could get a small type of commitment from the Speaker whereas we'll just find some way to accommodate the request of something on our wall so that the Japanese people will see that we truly appreciate and respect them, that would satisfy me for the short term and give us a chance to go forward and see how it works out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll give the commitment that we will look at this issue some more. I know that from my office anyway, and I think with my staff, my preference and my priorities lie with all our official languages and whatever we can do to support, like I say, the building in recognizing the fact that we do have a lot of tourists come in here I am in support of that, as well. I will take it back and talk with staff over it and see what direction we can go with this and keep Members apprised at the progress we're making in that area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Hawkins. Thank you. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A quick question to the Speaker. Have there been any discussions in terms of working with the community constituents on a basic manual in terms of operations and procedures in working with the community constituents on putting together a basic manual for the community constituent assistants that we have in our office at the Legislative Assembly in terms of the CAs? I wanted to

ask if there was some discussion or that discussion will happen sometime in the future. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven't produced a separate brochure or information package for CAs, but we do have the role of CAs and the role of MLAs, and the connection between the two is pretty well spelled out in the Members' Manual. We do have an orientation manual, as well, that we put out for CAs when they come on stream. We also give two copies of the Members' Manual out when new Members come on stream; one for themselves and one for the CA office. So pretty well anything as far as the role of the CA or the MLA is pretty well spelled out in the Members' Manual. But we have not, other than your orientation manual that we put out at the beginning, as well, we have not put out another package beyond that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Yakeleya.

I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Speaker. In light of the constituent assistants, would there be some thought to even review that constituent assistants' manual because for two years now, and it is going to the third year, that we might need some options for putting some feedback into it in terms of improving it. I'm not too sure if that needs to happen now, but to review it again or to look at it. Not so much as a major overhaul in terms of things that we could look at with our CAs to help us make our job a little easier and also with working with your staff at the same time. That's what I'm getting at, Mr. Speaker. If it's a possibility, I just wanted to ask that question, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I would be open to any area that the Member wanted to talk about as far as looking at our operations manual and our orientation manual to see what changes, additions or improvements we could make in there. It's a little vague when you throw it wide open as to what we want to deal with, but if the Member has some specific concerns he'd like to have addressed, I'm certainly open to sitting down with him and seeing how we could address them through improvements to the manual or whatever. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly look forward to sitting down with the Speaker at some time in the future just to go over it and look at some of the specifics. I look forward until the date that we can do this. So I'll just leave it at that for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. 1-13, activity summary, office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $7.381 million.

1-14, 1-15, information item, office of the Clerk, active positions.

1-17, activity summary, office of the Speaker, operations expenditure summary, $199,000. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under this area I believe the Speaker has a responsibility for the Legislative Assembly Enhancement Committee. Actually, I believe this is under the direct chair of the Deputy Speaker, but it was set up through the Legislative Assembly to look for ways to help our Assembly and our buildings, and our grounds better represent the peoples of the NWT. How is this committee doing on that mandate, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee, Cultural Enhancement Committee, did get together a couple of times in this past year. The first meeting was more or less an organizational meeting for themselves to look at how they were going to operate, what things they thought they could look at. Then the second meeting that they had they did go over quite a number of issues, looked at around the building. but their main focus for the first meeting and the first year that they were in operation was more in the conservation end of things, and looked around the building at what's in the building right now, what's in danger of maybe being damaged and needs more attention as far as preserving any art that we have in the building.

They were instrumental in coming forward with some recommendations to, well one of them was the use of hot food in the caucus room to protect the paintings that we have in there, made some suggestions as to what we should be doing to try and mitigate any damages that we might be causing to the artwork in there. They also made recommendations to build a stand for the caribou carving, whale bone carving that's outside of the Members' offices, to protect that a little bit. It's sitting right down on the carpet and the commission was worried about having some damage done to that, whether it's cleaning people with vacuum cleaners or whatever. So they recommended that a base be built for that. They also recommended that some display cabinets be built for the previous Speakers' robes that are on display here. So those were some of the issues that they looked at.

The funding, of course, is very tight for the commission. We only had at that time I think $10,000 to work with, and with that amount of money they did some recommendations in those areas. They also had putting up the banners up in the Great Hall. So going forward, they have a number of issues that they want to look at in the coming year, but again, the funding is going to be very tight for them to operate on. We only have a budget of some $20,000 for them to operate in. But they do have some of what they want to look at in the next year; they had a couple of areas that they want to see. There's an area on the outside of the Great Hall on the curved wall that they would like to have some artwork put up there that would include some Delta braid and different cultures in the Northwest Territories on display there. There was another one, too, that they were going to put up...Oh yes, also they made a recommendation that we look at commissioning the work for a large teepee out front of the building on the grounds somewhere that's representative

of the cultures in the territory. So those are some of the issues that they're hoping to be able to come forward in this next year. Again, it's going to be depending very much, though, on the amount of money that they have to spend. Last year was more preserving what we do have now and then going forward looking at different areas where we can promote the building and promote the different cultures of the territory within the building. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Braden.