Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the Legislative Assembly the Grade 6 class from Bompas, students of Fort Simpson.

---Applause

Accompanying them are the teachers, Miss Hutfloetz, Mr. Leader; chaperones, Mr. Wright, Mr. Cli, and Mrs. S. Nadia.

---Applause

I see a stranger amongst them. I don't know them, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to recognize her, as well.

---Laughter

There is also a resident of Fort Simpson that is an adult student, Miss Emma Amundson. Welcome to the House. Mahsi.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As well as the Grade 6 students from Fort Simpson, we have another group of students who are here to observe session. It is a class from Aurora College social studies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. I take this opportunity to welcome everybody in the gallery today. It is nice to see you all here. It is always nice to have an audience. Welcome.

---Applause

Oral questions. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the oil and gas activities are on a curve up in the Northwest Territories. There seems to be a lot of activity in some of the regions here. In light of the proposed Mackenzie gas project coming down the line here, I want to ask the Minister of ITI and also the chair of the Joint AOC/Cabinet Pipeline Committee, if he can summarize what the government has done to date in helping the communities deal with the massive immigration of workers that may impact the communities along the pipeline route. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In conjunction with a number of different departments, most notably in this area probably MACA, we have been working to ensure that there are monies available for communities who wish to sit down with the pipeline proponents and discuss through negotiations some fee-for-service arrangements to make sure that their community infrastructure is not overly impacted with the additional activity in the region. There was a fund also rolled out about a year ago now, Resource Pre-Development Program. I think it is about $250,000 per region for communities to be better prepared. Health and Social Services, with the other social program departments, have been hosting regional workshops to better understand the challenges and the social envelope that communities will have to come to grips with. There are a number of initiatives underway. We have the coordinating body, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline office. That is our communication folks out of Hay River who are working with communities and making sure the messaging from our government is one message across departments and that we are working very closely with our communities to make sure they have the ability, the capacity and the money to be at the table and to be recognized throughout this regulatory hearing process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The committees need to be prepared and I am hearing a lot that there is going to be a huge massive immigration of workers into the North. Mr. Speaker, we need to really prepare for the types of opportunities that are going to come and prepare our young people to start training and be prepared to take the opportunities of the pipeline. Can the Minister give me some idea as to what improvements have been for the communities in terms of helping them get ready for the pipeline? Are there any statistics, for instance? How many students are being trained in welding? What types of workshops are given to businesses or the number of training sessions that may help out with these types of things? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To better understand the potential impacts of the project, we are relying quite a bit on the environmental impact statement filed by the proponents. In taking that, and using that, regional groups have used it. Land claim organizations, obviously, in their negotiation of access and benefits, which I am sure, although we are not privy to those agreements, speak to business opportunities, training opportunities, in addition to cash for access. But we are also using this document to help us frame up a socio-economic agreement that would be an over-arching umbrella document and agreement that will speak to training opportunities and benefits that we think should accrue to northerners.

Mr. Speaker, even in advance of that work, there are a number of initiatives underway. The Department of Education is our lead on the Pipeline Operators Training course. There are other training initiatives through the ASEP program that are already moving forward. I think there is a lot of good work underway. The Member is absolutely correct; if we are going to see the benefits of this project accrue to northerners, we are going to have to be ready, prepared and trained in order to be able to take advantage of those. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, the Department of Indian Affairs and the government, through the Minister's office, had successfully held a socio-economic conference and the Sahtu invited the Tlicho, the Deh Cho and the Sahtu people. Are there any targets in terms of preparing the communities who are on the pipeline route? What are we doing? What are we looking for in terms of reaching our goals? Are there any targets? If not, then why aren't there any targets right now in terms of preparing the communities for such impacts? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is in all of our interests to move ahead as quickly as we possibly can on this. I think that is why we are sitting down now, and the Premier has already met with the Prime Minister and with Minister Prentice to talk about the Mackenzie gas project. We are very interested in how the socio-economic impact fund will roll out because it will be regional decision-making bodies that set the priorities and talk about the strategic initiatives that will be funded with that money. We know there will be accessing benefits money that needs to be targeted. We can certainly play a support role there in working with communities because we are the delivery agent for many of the programs and services in communities. I think communities are going to become engaged as we better understand how the socio-economic impact funds will roll out. This is some of the

discussion the Premier has been leading with our federal counterparts. We look forward to getting more detail on that shortly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue of an airport authority was discussed and a steering committee was actually formed during the life of the 14th Assembly. Since then, the interest has moved away from this concept as there is a lot of investment that is required in the airport here in Yellowknife. It is a territorial airport and it has huge capital needs. We have to be able to address a number of things. Polar flights is an issue that we have raised from the stand point that the federal government has to deal with some of the issues around the concept of polar flights. This airport is not equipped to accommodate the large size airplanes that are used in the polar flights. However, in some cases, we have been forced to accommodate them during emergency landings. We are not planning, at this point, to do any expansion of our runway. We don't have it in our capital plan. That would have to be some place down the road. But we have looked at it and we are looking at how we can accommodate it as part of all the other capital needs that this airport requires. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say it again; if you build it, they will come. If you pave it, the planes will come. So if we pave that runway, we will be attracting flights. Mr. Speaker, Whitehorse did it and they came. German tourism is up. It is always packed. Mr. Speaker, what is this Minister doing to encourage these flights to Yellowknife for German, Japanese tourists, et cetera? What is this Minister doing to build the infrastructure so we can get these planes interested in our area? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess that is a good concept, to build and they will come, but if we build it, we have to pay for it. I am not sure how we do that. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to be clear. In the Yukon, I believe the military built the extension to the runway. It was not the Yukon government. The Yukon government is still struggling to deal with all the other requirements that come from having polar flights land in that airport. They are struggling to deal with the concept of having customs, being able to expand their airport facility to provide space for custom officers. There are a number of things that have to be taken into consideration if you are just looking at expanding the airport. I think that is something that we really have to study and make sure that we can pay for it, we can accommodate it, we have the room and that we have the capacity to deal with it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.