Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the best of my knowledge, they are all non-profit associations that are in government-owned space. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for Charles Dent, the honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. A number of weeks back, the Hay River DEA provided a petition to the Minister seeking an alternative funding and government structure for the provision of education services in Hay River and for that DEA to oversee those services in a different way. That petition has been in the Minister's hands for a little while now. I would like, for the benefit of viewers and the people of Hay River, for the Minister to describe the process which he is undertaking to assess that petition. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since receiving the petition, I have had a summary of the points set out in the petition prepared by the department and sent out to what we considered to be stakeholders and anybody else who has contacted the department since the petition was tabled with me, asking for them to respond formally to the points set out in the petition.

We have included a bit of a survey form with the letter making it easy for people to respond. We are hoping to have the final responses received. We expected the final responses by either yesterday or today. I would then plan on taking 30 days to review the responses to that request for consultation. I would hope to be able to talk to the DEA sometime early in March.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to share with the House whether those responses that have come back in from stakeholders and interested parties have been favourable towards the DEA's petition and position on what they would like to see for Hay River? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to be careful about characterizing the responses in any one way because I haven't...I have been reviewing them as they come in. I am not sure that my memory would be a valid tool to use right now to say that they were mostly one way or mostly another. I think it would be fair to say

that a number that have been received have expressed concerns about issues that the petition raises. There is a real concern around the fiscal area from the communities that are part of the DEC that are outside of the Hay River DEA. I would say that those are probably the biggest issues that have been raised today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if, in response to the Hay River petition, he is going to consider the petition on its own merit and the responses to the outline that he has put out there for Hay River only, or is he going to also include in that what kind of a precedent this may set for other DEAs and DECs throughout the Northwest Territories in terms of governance, the implications for other governance models in the Northwest Territories? Or is he going to view Hay River's concerns and petition on a stand-alone basis? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a Member of Cabinet, I have to take a broad view for the Northwest Territories, so, clearly, what we will do when we are examining the petition is take a look at the request from Hay River, the reasons for that request, and the responses from those who were consulted, as well as the broader picture. The Member has raised a good point; that we do have to take a look at precedents. We have to take a look at what any change might mean for the future. So we can't look at just today, tomorrow or next year. We have to take the long view when we are taking a look at governance schemes in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Before I go on in question period, Members, I would just like to draw your attention to the gallery and the presence of the honourable Minister Olayuk Akesuk from Nunavut with us.

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He is the Minister of Environment, the Minister of Economic Development and Transportation, Minister responsible for Nunavut Housing Corporation, and Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, so he is a very busy man.

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With him is David Clark. He is the President of the Workers' Compensation Board for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Welcome to the House, gentlemen.

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Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think this question will be for the Premier, just with respect to the negotiated contracts policy that we have and have been using for sometime now. I am just wondering if the Premier is in agreement that there must be a better way of doing business. I laid out, in my Member's statement, of a set-aside policy that our federal government has and have been using it with quite some success in that, over a 10-year period, they help stimulated the aboriginal small business economy, as well.

Is there another way of doing our negotiated contract policy? It is creating some to do with that, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there are probably many ways of doing negotiated contracts, or similar ways of stimulating the local economy. Mr. Speaker, our draft negotiated policy is now at the point where, I believe, we are soon going out for consultation with the aboriginal communities. At that point, we will get their feedback. With regard to the federal Set-Aside Program, we have looked at that one. That one has its weaknesses, too, Mr. Speaker. The two weaknesses as I see, just off the top of my head, are: if a community is 80 percent aboriginal residents, then it would qualify for the set-aside policy. That project would then be tendered to aboriginal corporations across the country. So there is no protection for that community. If you go anywhere, the contract in Northwest Territories could be given to an Ontario or New Brunswick aboriginal company. I don't think that is quite what we want to do here.

The second one, of course, is that there isn't provision in that set-aside policy for RFPs. It is either tendered broadly, or tender the project to aboriginal businesses. We like to go more toward a request for proposal, so there is more flexibility in how we award the contracts. But there are many ways, Mr. Speaker, of achieving this objective. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to our negotiated policy and the federal set-aside policy, granted that it does have its weaknesses, but in the communities I represent, all they are saying is, look, we live in these communities; we have been here since time immemorial; we want opportunities, especially proximity contracts by the government. So there must be a way of massaging our new draft negotiated policy to say, okay, you guys have been here. You guys will be the primary beneficiary of our government contracts. I know that there is some objection in that. There is a public accountability aspect here, Mr. Speaker, where we have to be

accountable to the public and have other people bid on it, but there must still be a way of doing that, at the same time recognizing businesses and corporations in the smaller communities. With that, if the Premier can speak to that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I don't know what the question was there, but the honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will provide an answer, even though there wasn't a question.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, we want to work with the aboriginal leaders and communities to have a policy that achieves what the Member has referred to. We prefer to go the route of, like I said, a request for proposal, because a request for proposal, 40 percent is the amount that is attributed to cost. The other 60 percent is on a whole host of other factors that work in the community's favour.

Public accountability is always very important. No matter what happens, we will always, as a Legislative Assembly, be accountable for public money that we are spending. That one, we are not going to be able to work around, but we can do it on a request for proposal. We can do it by invitational tenders, or we can open it up to full tenders depending on what would be the most benefit for the community. But, Mr. Speaker, I understand the issue the Member is raising. I look forward to the feedback from aboriginal leaders and community leaders on the draft negotiated contracts policy we have. I would also hope that they would have a look at the federal Set-Aside Program, or other ones, and we'll approach this with an open mind. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this morning are for Mr. Bell, the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, regarding the secondary diamond industry. Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that the cutting and polishing industry in Yellowknife supplies about 150 jobs to the community and a number of them are to constituents of my riding. We identified considerable growth potential in this industry, but our Minister has been putting out some signals in the last few months that really cause us to question whether or not our policies and objectives for this industry are consistent with the high hopes and the programs that we've set in place.

Mr. Speaker, we almost let go of some very hard-fought and expensive property of ours in the form of trademarks to protect and promote our product. We disbanded the unit of our government that was charged with implementing our policy and we bailed out on our commitment to the National Diamond Strategy.

Mr. Speaker, has this government abandoned its support for the secondary diamond industry? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bell.