Good morning, colleagues. Welcome back to the House. Orders of the day. Ministers' statements. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Tobacco is the single largest cause of preventable disease in the NWT. It causes heart disease, stroke, respiratory illness and many other diseases. Many have lost their lives or those of loves ones because of smoking-related cancers.

Since January 21st, the new Tobacco Control Act has been in effect throughout our territory. The act reinforces this government's initiative to encourage healthy, smoke-free lifestyles for all northerners. As we enter the fifth year of the Territorial Tobacco Control Strategy, the act is a further commitment to continue our government's efforts to reduce the NWT smoking rate, which is twice the national average.

Highlights of the Tobacco Control Act include:

• • The sale and supply of tobacco to those under 18 years of age is prohibited;
• • Retailers cannot display tobacco products and tobacco advertising;
• • Tobacco can no longer be sold in pharmacies, athletic or recreational facilities;
• • Smoking is not allowed on outdoor patios of restaurants or bars, complementing the existing Workers' Compensation Board smoke-free workplace legislation; and
• • All retailers must post signage prescribed by the act in their place of business.

Also within the act is a provision allowing for the use of tobacco for spiritual or ceremonial purposes in recognition of traditional aboriginal cultural practices.

The Tobacco Control Act is enforced by inspectors to ensure this legislation is being upheld. Substantial fines or other penalties will be imposed on offenders.

Preliminary investigations done by our environmental health officers during the first week the act was implemented have shown positive results. While 13 of 35 retailers did not fully comply with the act during a first inspection, all were fully compliant after 24-hour warnings were issued.

By removing tobacco and related products and advertising from public sight, our government is doing more to ensure tobacco use declines, especially among our youth. The act will help those trying to quit by denormalizing the product.

Our government is committed to the health and well-being of all northerners and we must do all we can to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Ministers' statements. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd just like to use my Member's statement today to talk about the environment and natural resources forest management sector, which takes up more than half of the total department's budget every year, and we're not talking about some small change here, Mr. Speaker. This is something to the tune of nearly $30 million per year, yet to this day I do not know of one successful timber producer in the forest industry here in the NWT. So I'm just curious as to where all these resources are going, because I can see where our actual forest resources are going every year and that being up in smoke, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to see our own timber products going into all our mega projects here in the NWT such as the mining industry, and the oil and gas exploration and development industry, and our growing housing construction industry. The potential for local commercial production is huge, and I do not understand why the GNWT does not openly endorse and support community-based timber harvesting and productions in areas where the viability is blatantly obvious.

I would like to see more dollars in support services in timber business proposal development and marketing initiatives, in areas where the most expertise is lacking in the commercial zones and small communities, and stop spending these large sums of money counting trees year after year.

Later on in today's session I will be asking the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources how we can reassess the forest management dollars that are being spent by this government. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak again today about caribou and the importance of this great resource that it provides to our people.

Mr. Speaker, I take my job and my responsibility to my constituents very seriously. I have a duty to represent all of my constituents and, when it comes to the harvesting of caribou, I have aboriginal harvesters, non-aboriginal harvesters and the outfitters to represent. The difficult task in all of this is the fact that I have not been given the opportunity to debate, question and discuss the crucial piece of information that is missing and that is the numbers.

ENR itself has some very conflicting numbers in terms of total number of animals in this territory. The Minister of ENR has all but admitted that his department does not have a concrete answer on what the total population of caribou is in the Northwest Territories today. Yet his department was ready to kill the caribou outfitting industry in the North Slave region based on best guesses, without consultation with Nunavut and, worse yet, without consultation with the Regular Members of this House.

The big question is how and when was the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment informed about the proposal that ENR sent to the Wekeezhii Renewable Resources Board calling for a reduction in tags to 350, which would, in essence, kill a multi-million dollar industry in our territory. Certainly, government has played a vital role in the growth and the development of outfitting in our territory and it would be very interesting to see what communication, if any, took place between the two departments.

Mr. Speaker, I must thank the Minister for intervening and getting the number of tags increased to 750 for the coming year. But the reality is, you can't make decisions based on incomplete information, especially with the importance of this great resource. Take for example the harvest of caribou in the North Slave region last year, estimated at 5,800 animals, Mr. Speaker. Why or how can ENR contribute the complete harvest to one herd, the Bathurst? It is completely and utterly absurd to do that when we know full well that at least four other herds frequent the area. We have to get to the bottom of it and that is the numbers have to be proven, Mr. Speaker.

The department, in 2005, told the Canadian Cooperative for Wildlife that there was an estimated 1.5 million animals in our territory, which would indicate a very healthy population. Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to see the inclusion of some more funding to get the answers we need. This resource is far too important to too many people to rely on half answers and half truths. Mahsi.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement is on the contribution and the wellness of our elders in the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Member responsible for Seniors, later on in the House here, in terms of how do we take care of our elders. Our elders are our guiding post for us young leaders here. From time to time, we go to them to seek advice on such issues as caribou, climate change, the water, the environment, even the way of life that we live today. Our elders are the ones that provide us this strong direction in life.

Over the last couple of months, we have lost a lot of elders in our region. We have lost elders in other regions, also. Mr. Speaker, the role of our life today has changed quite considerably from our parents and our grandparents. As young children growing up in our communities, we were also told to go to see our elders and ask for direction and sit with them. This one time that my mother and I were driving to Fort Good Hope on the winter road, my mother told me a story of an elder when she was young; she was 14 years old or so. This elder always told her to come and sit down and she could put her head on her lap, and she would sort of clean her hair. My mother said, Granny, how come you always want me to do this, because you know you don't have dirty hair? Why are you making me do this? My mom wanted to go outside and play with the other children, but Granny always said to do this, so she did that. One day she asked Granny why she always had her do this, and Granny said because in our way we dream for you, we dream a long life for you, we give you gifts, spend time with us. So one of the values the elders have passed on to us that these are the type of values and beliefs that we live. However, it seems that sometimes that we're so busy in our days that we forget to use elders like this in terms of important issues such as the caribou, climate change, the water. They give us very wonderful insights to our decisions, so I want to say that we recognize the elders and people that we use in our community, to treasure them and to pay respect to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the announcement in the budget address of $3 million to increase funding for water and sewer services was, I am sure, welcome news to NWT municipalities who are, like everyone else, struggling to keep up with the rising costs of labour, utilities and materials. Given the overall increase one would have expected that all municipalities could look forward to receiving at least, if not greater funding compared to the previous years.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this is not the case for Hay River, which under the New Deal for community

governments will see its funding for water and sewer services cut by $200,000. This is a decrease of 36 percent.

MACA's new water/sewer subsidy formula takes into account municipalities' fixed and variable costs, as well as their ability to raise revenues. Unfortunately, it seems that MACA has taken a cookie cutter approach when it comes to calculating the variable costs.

As I reminded the Minister on Friday, the Town of Hay River is responsible for trucked water and sewer services all the way from the West Channel to Paradise Valley, which is a distance of almost 30 miles, and I'm not aware of any other NWT community that provides services over such a large area. It seems obvious to me that costs like fuel, vehicle maintenance and person hours are going to be much higher when the service is provided over a 30-mile distance versus a one to three-mile distance, which I think would probably be the case in most NWT communities.

I believe the GNWT has historically recognized the extra cost of providing services along the Hay River corridor and funded the town accordingly. I, therefore, have to take issue with the Minister's suggestion last Friday that Hay River has been over funded in past years. In response to my questions on Friday, the Minister indicated that he expects Hay River to take funds from capital or other O and M programs to cover its $200,000 shortfall for water/sewer services. What kind of solution is this, Mr. Speaker? Is this the kind of financial management advice that MACA is handing out? Capital funds are for capital. That is why we have a Water/Sewer Subsidy Program to fund water/sewer services.

If the formula isn't quite right, if MACA has overlooked the fact that Hay River provides trucked services over a 30-mile corridor, then the Minister, I would respectfully suggest, may want to fix the formula, not to tell the town to dip into other pots of money for intended other uses. Later today, Mr. Speaker, I'll have more questions for the Minister of MACA on the water/sewer subsidy for Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the information we have tells us clearly that the barren land caribou numbers are in significant decline. They're in decline, we think, for a number of reasons: the broader impact of climate change, global warming, resource development, roads everywhere that makes hunting easier, the hunting, predation, infestation by pests and all these factors have combined to lower the numbers. We know this because the government has taken the time to survey the Cape Bathurst, the Bluenose West, the Bluenose East and the Bathurst herds. They did it twice to double check the numbers, and the numbers came back telling us there is a decline, a significant decline to the point that every co-management board, as well as the government, across the North came to consensus in Inuvik. It said these numbers mean we have to do something; we have to take steps to protect the caribou. This is, first and foremost, a wildlife preservation conservation issue. This is not an issue where the debate should focus on what's happening with the outfitters or should they be able to take another set of horns. What we have to look at is a herd that has been roaming this land for thousands of years, lived off by the aboriginal people. The biggest herd of large mammals that are free-ranging in North America live up here.

We know that there are gaps. We know that the Beverly, Qamanirjuaq and the Ahiak have to be done. We know that the Porcupine has to be done. They know and they anticipate that their numbers are going to be down.

The folks from Quebec were as well at this conference in Inuvik. They are concerned that their herds are, as well, going to be showing the signs that we have already seen here.

The government committed to a number of very fundamental things in Inuvik. They committed to moving on protection of the calving grounds, removing of the satellite information, working with the co-management boards to look at how we can better monitor and regulate the harvest for all harvesters. Those are very serious steps that were only taken after months and months and months of consultation, and the success of the Inuvik summit was the fact that ENR and the government took the time to do the work...

Mr. Miltenberger, your time for Member's statement has expired.

Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude his statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You may conclude your statement, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, my suggestion is that this House, this side of the House should be showing support for the recommendations that the government has chosen to act on that have been supported by the 180 delegates at this summit, and we should be taking all the steps necessary to protect and preserve the herd not just for this generation, but we should be like the Iroquois and try to think seven generations out, because this is an issue that's going to be important for now and far until then. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will talk on something. This is regarding ambulance in Gameti. Last summer, Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger, toured the community and also the health care centre. We heard a lot of concern and issues from the chief and council pertaining to the service vehicle that is available to transport patients from the health centre to the airport. It's been eight months now

when I asked the Minister the question later on. This is the concern to all of us. (Translation ends)

Last summer we visited the community with then-Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger. At that time we toured the community and the health centre facility. We heard concerns and issues from the chief and council pertaining to the service vehicle that is available to transport patients from the health centre to the airport.

Mr. Speaker, I was appalled and, frankly, embarrassed when I saw and heard what the health centre was using to transport these patients. Mr. Speaker, those vehicles were at least 10 years old plus, those ambulance vehicles. My fear is that during an emergency in the community, while transporting patients this so-called ambulance will spit out smoke and croak before reaching its intended medevac.

---Laughter

While this might be amusing during some comedy at the movies, it would certainly be unfortunate for the patient whose emergency I'm sure will be very real, Mr. Speaker. I realize Gameti is a small, isolated community, but give me a break. This day and age we need to be fully equipped with up-to-date equipment and supplies when dealing with these people's lives, Mr. Speaker.

This is not acceptable today, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services, mainly the Department of Health, had over eight months to deal with this critical matter, Mr. Speaker. I'm certainly hoping that there's a plan in place to replace these older vehicles in the isolated communities more suitable on the ambulance service. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.