Good morning, colleagues. Welcome back to the House. Ministers' statements. Honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning, colleagues. As this is Apprenticeship and Occupational Certification Week, I would like to celebrate our success in this area.

In the 2005-2006 school year, the Northwest Territories certified 20 people in designated occupations. Sixty-seven northerners achieved journey status, while another 41 journey-certified northerners achieved their red seal, inter-provincial certification.

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Throughout the week and into March, each regional career development centre will be hosting Apprenticeships and Occupational Certification Award ceremonies. Sixty-three awards of excellence will be presented to the candidates who have achieved the highest marks in their respective trade or occupation. I have sent congratulatory letters to the award winners on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories. I hope Members will join me in congratulating their constituents who have achieved these levels of excellence.

I would also like to recognize our many partners in trades and occupational certification, particularly the employers who participate in the program and without whom the program could not exist. The Apprenticeship Program is one of the most successful public/private/partnership programs in existence.

Mr. Speaker, given the potential for new jobs in the trades in our hot northern economy, I hope many more young people will choose to pursue a skilled trade after they graduate from high school. Those who do have tremendous opportunity for financial success and a fulfilling career.

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Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ministers' statements. Honourable Minister of ENR, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, an historic meeting occurred in Inuvik from January 23rd to January 26th. This meeting was held to identify key actions that we can take over the next four years to help barren-ground caribou herds recover.

Leaders from the Northwest Territories wildlife co-management boards, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northern Saskatchewan and Alberta communities attended the Northwest Territories Barren-Ground Caribou Summit. More than 180 delegates attended the gathering. This included elders, representatives from the tourism, oil and gas and mining sectors, as well as government agencies that have a role in managing the barren-ground caribou of the Northwest Territories.

Several MLAs were also in attendance. I would like to thank Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. Braden, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Pokiak and Mr. McLeod for their support and participation in the summit.

Mr. Speaker, for three days and nights, delegates spoke passionately about their desire to preserve this very important resource. This summit allowed people to share their experience and knowledge. Delegates told us that communities have noticed a difference in caribou numbers, which is supported by the results of surveys and information on calf survival and condition in recent years. I was very impressed with the spirit and willingness shown by all delegates to work together and put politics aside to help the herds recover.

Many delegates spoke of sacrifices they made in the past when caribou herd numbers were low, and they said sacrifices are again needed.

At the summit, delegates identified a number of key actions under these four themes: engaging partners, information for management, managing human activity, and addressing hardships.

The top priorities were:

• • protect calving grounds in NWT and Nunavut;
• • reduce all harvest;
• • bring traditional knowledge into decision-making;
• • bring youth into the conference;
• • develop management plans for each herd;
• • hold an aboriginal conference for harvesters;
• • develop codes of conduct for harvest; and
• •
• • hold regional harvester conferences.

Many of these priorities are reflected under the NWT Barren-Ground Caribou Management Strategy, which formed the basis for discussion at the summit.

We will share the results from the summit with all partners and wildlife co-management boards in particular. These co-management boards, established under the land claim agreements, have the primary responsibility for wildlife management in their settlement areas.

We will also work with all partners to implement the following immediate actions:

• • Meet with Nunavut to begin discussion about protecting calving grounds.
• • Improve the way the department shares information on caribou.
• • Stop posting data from satellite collars on the Internet.
• • Continue implementing recommendations from wildlife co-management boards on harvest levels and seasons.
• • Help communities and regions work with their neighbours to cooperate on management issues.
• • Expand and improve public education about the status of herds and hunting ethics.
• • Develop a closer working relationship with industry and share more information and collaborate on caribou and other wildlife monitoring.

I have appreciated the support from this Legislature in providing additional resources during the past two years to implement the NWT Barren-Ground Caribou Management Strategy. More resources will be needed for the next few years to implement priority actions from the Barren-Ground Caribou Summit and strategy.

I must also acknowledge the considerable support from the following funding partners for caribou management activities: Wildlife Management Advisory Council, NWT; Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board; Sahtu Renewable Resources Board; Wekeezhii Renewable Resources Board; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada; Diavik Diamond Mines Incorporated; BHP Billiton Diamonds and World Wildlife Fund, Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the leaders who have taken to heart their stewardship role of this important resource for the people of the Northwest Territories; in particular, the wildlife co-management boards, which have made some very difficult decisions over the past two years, and the Tlicho Government, which held a special session on caribou with community members and elders last week.

I look forward to continuing to work with all partners to ensure that we have caribou forever. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

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

Merci, Mr. Speaker. I would like to speak this morning about the issue of underage drinking in the NWT. It relates, Mr. Speaker, to problems that are arising from an unusual place, and that is the issuance of our temporary driver's licences.

It is well established that we are now going through a transition to a much more secure and up-to-date system of identification with our driver's licences. One of the consequences of this, Mr. Speaker, is that people are issued a temporary licence while the permanent one is being processed. It was brought to my attention by a constituent, Mr. Speaker, that the temporary licences which are issued are actually just a plain piece of paper with a photograph and some information on them. It has been discovered by underage persons that these are very easy to tamper with and have become quite popular as proof of age at liquor establishments. I understand that this is even going down into other parts of Canada, in fact as far as Vancouver.

Our temporary driver licences have become an issue with this kind of underage drinking. So where I would like to seek some more information, and I will do that at the appropriate time, Mr. Speaker, is are we aware of this problem? What are we doing to counteract it? Underage drinking, of course, is a very serious issue at every level of our society and in our communities. If there is something as inadvertent or unexpected as this may be, we still have to do something about this. As well, Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of going through a revision to our Liquor Act, and I will want to make sure that these provisions are well addressed as we go through this anticipated piece of legislation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the rules regarding the requirement for passports have recently changed. This has put Canadians, including northerners, in the same position as everyone else planning to travel to the U.S. or abroad. I don't often travel out of Canada. I had an expired passport, so when the need for a passport presented itself recently, I inadvertently got caught up in the rush. I want to share my experience in the hope of helping northern constituents who find themselves needing a passport on short notice.

Through the persistence of my constituency assistant on the phone to the passport office, I found out that you can get a passport on 24 hours' notice. What you have to do to accomplish that may not be readily known to people. I travelled to Edmonton where I got a room in the Westin

Hotel, because it is right beside the Canada Place Building where the passport office is located on Jasper Avenue. We walked to the Canada Place Building around midnight. There on the window of the building was a sign saying, passport line forms here. There was no one around. We were tired. It was cold. So it seemed a little silly to stand there to secure first place in a non-existent line. So we went back to the hotel and set our alarm for 3:00 a.m., at which time Rick got up to go check the line.

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Would you believe that by that time, at 3:00 a.m., there were already 25 people in the line? I don't know how long they had been there, but some of them were in sleeping bags sleeping on the sidewalk. So we hastily grabbed our canvas lawn chairs and got in the line. Between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m., when the doors opened to Canada Place, at least another 500 people had joined the line, behind us I am happy to say. When they opened the concourse at Canada Place at 6:00 a.m., the warm building was a great relief because it was about minus six out. I made the mistake of dozing off in my lawn chair. Don't do that because a security guard on his rounds noticed this and shouted from a far distance, wake that woman up. She is not allowed to sleep in a federal building. I thought, well, good morning to you too, sir.

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The passport office opened at 8:00 a.m. and we were out by 9:00 a.m. with a receipt to come back the next day at noon to pick up our passport. So, Mr. Speaker, there are some things to note. To get an expedited passport, you must bring all necessary documentation and proof of a paid for ticket to a foreign destination. You have to pay an extra $80. So altogether you need around $150. They do not care about your reason for travel. In other words, it does not have to...

Mrs. Groenewegen, your time for Member's statement has expired.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You may conclude your statement, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some people are under the impression that it needs to be a family or medical emergency. In fact, it does not have to be an emergency. You just have to have a paid for ticket as proof of the date of when you will travel. I have to tell you when you come back to pick up your passport, you don't have to stand in that long line again. You just go to a much shorter line and grab your passport.

So I just wanted people to know that, because there is a lot of misinformation out there. The Northwest Territories doesn't have a passport office that issues passports, so Edmonton is the nearest place if you need one in a hurry. And don't forget money, a lawn chair, and some warm clothes. You are going to be outside for awhile. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. (Translation) Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about Highway No. 3. Last November, a vehicle carrying a family from Edzo ran into the back of a semi trailer which had stopped without warning on the road. Fortunately, nobody was killed, although there were serious injuries. It would be good if there was a light. Sometimes, it would be good to have flashing lights to make them visible from a great distance. Later on, I will ask the Minister that question, Mr. Speaker. (Translation ends)

In November, there was a serious accident on Highway No. 3. A vehicle carrying a family from Edzo ran into the back of semi trailer which had stopped without warning on the road. There were no flashing lights. Visibility was poor at that time due to blowing snow, Mr. Speaker. Fortunately, no one was killed, although there were serious injuries. I am sure it was a very traumatic experience for the people involved. Blowing snow and other weather conditions that make it hard to see are common across the Northwest Territories. This, combined with steady truck traffic, especially now when the winter road is opening for the mining companies, makes it very dangerous to travel on the Highway No. 3, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the accident I talked about in November was preventable. Maintenance vehicles like snowploughs have flashing lights to make them visible from a great distance. Why couldn't a large truck also be equipped with flashing rear signal lights to give following traffic more warning of turns and stops when visibility is low, Mr. Speaker? Mr. Speaker, new requirements for large trucks to use safety lights in poor visibility conditions will go a long way towards preventing these accidents. I would urge the Minister of Transportation to look seriously at this suggestion and any other opportunities to improve the safety of the Highway No. 3 and other roads connected. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Finance Minister indicated the great urgency and support to get the Mackenzie gas pipeline built. I have been in support in a qualified way of this project. Mr. Speaker, last year Exxon boasted all-time record profits: $39.5 billion, the most in history. They would tell us and have us believe that the project in the Northwest Territories with its vast reserves, still with oil at $60 a barrel, is marginal. They have told that to us, to the people that would listen. They have made it sound like the federal government has to play a role to help them make this project a reality. Mr. Speaker, I am all for the federal government playing a role, but that role has to be clear: it has to be to help build the Mackenzie Valley

highway all the way up to Inuvik and to Tuk to assist in the development of the pipeline. I say...

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... an absolute and categorical no to any kind of corporate welfare for Exxon or Imperial Oil.

Mr. Speaker, we also have to recognize the doubling of the greenhouse gasses. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a recent report that makes it, to me, very clear that this is not a debatable issue. The North is heavily impacted, more than other parts of the country. It is very difficult for us to stand up and decry the impacts of climate change and global warming and all that it is doing to us if we are just going to let a project go ahead that is going to double our greenhouse gas emissions and have no kind of offsets planned. We have to come up with some way to do that. The diamond mines are working with us to get hydropower to their facilities. Imperial Oil, as far as I know and can see, has turned a blind eye to the whole issue and would prefer to ignore it, but we cannot as inhabitants of this land. Today in the paper it reported Canada is in last place of all G8 countries in terms of doing anything in terms of meeting greenhouse gas emission reductions. We are part of Canada so we have to take, I think, a proactive step. Imperial Oil has to take a proactive step. We are doing lots of things with hydro and those other types of initiatives...

Mr. Miltenberger, your time for Members' statements has expired.

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

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. Mr. Speaker, we have to step up to the plate, as does Imperial, on what do we do to offset the doubling of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Finally, it is going to be time soon for Imperial Oil to make up its mind whether it wants to proceed with this project or not. If it does not want to proceed with this project, it should say so and step aside so that other arrangements could be made to get the gas and oil to market. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this weekend, the Status of Women Council of the NWT and the Native Women's Association of the NWT will be hosting Joining the Circle 2007 Northern Women's Leadership Conference. This important gathering will bring women leaders and youth from all across the NWT and NGO groups to discuss and make recommendations to this government on present and future economic, political and social development in the Territories.

Mr. Speaker, the topics for presentations and workshops would include leadership, advocacy, economic security, social equality, public policy and human rights, just to mention a few. There will also be a mini-campaign school where participants of the conference could run for office and learn the mechanics of running a successful campaign.

Mr. Speaker, it is also my pleasure to inform you that the keynote speaker of the conference is here today with us. Rosemary Speirs is the past and founding chair of Equal Voice, a multi-partisan action group whose sole aim is to increase the number of elected women in all government levels and all jurisdictions across Canada.

Mr. Speaker, while Canada is an economically privileged member of the G8, we rank 46th in the world in terms of the number of elected women, right behind Singapore, Uganda and even Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, I am confident that with the work of Equal Voice and this conference we will be able to make some progressive changes in that regard. I would also like to take this opportunity to urge the government and Members of this House to act on the recommendations and suggestions that will come out of the conference. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Ms. Lee. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.