Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have some concerns brought to me by my constituents. Almost all the research taking place in our region is coming from outside institutions in the Northwest Territories, specifically my region. Communities are not being brought into the research that involves them, that serves their own needs. It always serves the institution needs or the organization needs. Yet they receive numerous research proposals from institutions based on the outside, Mr. Speaker.

The reason that the community wants to be involved is that they can learn too, so they can strengthen their ability to participate in decision-making processes. This is a matter of life and death for my people, Mr. Speaker, who are now facing major social impacts of development in our region. Yet despite the major investments in research in the Northwest Territories in honour of our International Polar Year, virtually none of the research will directly involve the benefits of northern communities.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, in recognition of International Polar Year, the Northwest Territories has a golden opportunity to establish a research institution as a centre for excellence in community-based research, especially in social and cultural research. Mr. Speaker, in the early part of the decade, the Aurora Research Institute did have a full-time staff person responsible for promoting and supporting community-based research. Projects supported in the Sahtu region and elsewhere were very, very successful, but this position has not been fulfilled.

Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time regarding how can the community get involved in this type of research in terms of what can the government do to strengthen our research and our capabilities in terms of looking after the people first and the institutions second. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.

---Applause

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Census Canada released results from a 2006 survey yesterday which seems to more accurately reflect the demographics of the NWT population. I'd like to acknowledge the Stats NWT for doing the work they did in assisting Census Canada with the work. When we get our funding per capita, every head counts, obviously, Mr. Speaker, and this also just shows you why we need to do more things in the North, not in Ottawa, to get the things done right.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that emerged from the 2006 Census is that Canada now gets most of its population growth from immigration and will continue to do so in future. If this is the case, I don't believe our country as a whole is doing enough to prepare and plan for what this means to us in all aspects of our Canadian life. This is especially true for the NWT where we also experience a huge influx of immigrants from all over the world.

Last fall, the application to the federal government to get a small amount of funding for an immigration support centre in Yellowknife was denied. We don't even have enough staff at the immigration office to answer most basic questions about immigration or other related issues. Just

last month, I read an article from the Deh Cho Drum about someone in Fort Simpson who was asked to travel to Inuvik to be sworn in as a Canadian. Obviously, someone in Ottawa does not know how much it costs to go to Inuvik or how far it is from Simpson.

Mr. Speaker, even in Yellowknife, over 200 people had to wait over two years, after going through all the necessary procedures, just to be sworn in as Canadian citizens because we don't have enough Canadian citizenship judges in Canada. Mr. Speaker, this doesn't go anywhere near all the issues that we have raised about accreditation of foreign-trained professionals to be able to be employed in jobs that they're trained to do, skills that we could use in the North, that continue to be unfilled in some of these jobs.

Mr. Speaker, as is the case with every other thing we face in the North, Ottawa doesn't understand the extent of the needs of the northern immigration population from over 140 countries who live in Yellowknife and NWT. Mr. Speaker, as someone who was given everything she has from the singular privilege of being an immigrant to Canada, I worry about what our future holds for us. If we are going to maintain and grow our population by immigration, we need to implement a plan. Mr. Speaker, may I 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, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to maintain and grow our population by immigration, we need to employ a plan that would bring new and old people together and raise everyone to an equal playing field. Territorially and nationally I believe this is a sleeper issue that will challenge us a great deal as a nation unless we pay attention to this at the level it deserves. I'd like to urge this government and the federal government to address these issues, not just as an issue of number of votes, but an issue that is important to our economic and political future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize Marino Casebeer, a constituent of mine. I believe he's just gotten a job recently with Arctic Energy Alliance, so I suspect he's here for the announcement later today. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, wanted to recognize Sam Gargan from my hometown of Fort Providence, former Speaker and MLA for Deh Cho. Welcome.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize a friend I met the other day, a former Member of the House of Parliament, Mr. Andrew Chatwood. Also sitting with him, his daughter, Susan Chatwood.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the House. I hope you're enjoying our proceedings. It's always nice to have an audience in here.

---Applause

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will follow the line my Member's statement drew out, so my questions will be directed to the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, in short, I want to make sure our Crown corporations are giving all the NWT citizens value for money. Mr. Speaker, my question, therefore, is, is there a value to the directors of the Crown corporations and the GNWT shareholders in conducting occasional performance audits on Crown corporations? Can the Minister indicate whether there has been any progress on this file since I raised the issue back in February 2006? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of accountability is something we take seriously within this government. We have reviewed our administration act, the Financial Administration Act, as well as our Financial Administration Manual, and highlighted a number of areas where there's a fair bit of accountability that falls into place. Instead of going to each section, I can provide that information to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the offer from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, in the letter I

tabled last week -- and the Finance Minister does have a copy of this -- Sheila Fraser, our top Auditor General here, talks about the great things value for service that audits do. Would the Minister be willing to take a serious look at this letter and take the Auditor General's office of Canada up on the service they are willing to provide to ensure we have value for service in our Crown corporations?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, each corporation that we're involved with has an act that establishes and talks about accountability. As I stated, through our acts we have accountability as well. As well, the third-party accountability framework is another piece that we've recently added, as a government, when it comes to how corporations are involved and spend money in the Northwest Territories.

As well, through the Auditor General of Canada's office, when and has in the past, from time to time, been called to come and look at a number of issues within the Government of the Northwest Territories departments and corporations and, in fact, were recently involved in the Housing Corporation. We're waiting for that report. So they have been involved and we'll continue to work with them from time to time as called upon. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't deny that the Finance Minister was correct on that information. However, I'm talking about a proactive approach that actually gets ahead of the problem before it gets away from us. I'm talking about getting ahead of the problem so we don't have to work on trying to force and try to reach a compromise to have these big, deep, forensic-style audits. So, Mr. Speaker, the fact is the Auditor General will do this. All we have to do is put it in a line item now that we have the FAA open. Would the Minister reconsider that? Thank you.