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

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as anyone who's read the media just recently, you will know that Hay River has encountered a very unfortunate situation where a sex offender from a southern jurisdiction ended up in our small community, unknown to the residents there, and became involved in volunteering in a high school and our library. I think that this is a situation that could occur in almost any small community in the Northwest Territories. We are off the beaten trail, we are trusting, we have people come into our communities and we welcome them, and then something like this comes to light and it does put a fear into us.

I think that our government has a role to play in working with employers and working with our institutions, our schools, and other government-funded agencies to put in place a better safety system whereby these types of people, these offenders, can be detected early on before they have a chance to do harm. Unfortunately, in Hay River, it would appear that, according to the charges, it may be too late to undo that now, but I think it's a good signal to our government that we need to do more to work with folks to ensure that criminal record checks become a standard course of action and also that there needs to be better reporting between jurisdictions in Canada when these folks fail to show up to report in with probation officers. There needs to be more national communication that goes out to warn people. I know that sometimes there are issues about the protection of people's privacy, but I think that in the case where people are convicted sex offenders that sometimes you have to weigh their rights in the balance of the rights of other citizens who need to be warned of their whereabouts. So later today, Mr. Speaker, I'll have questions for the Minister of Justice, and perhaps the Minister of Education, as to how we can change our systems and our policies to be more secure in the Northwest Territories against these types of incidents. Thank you.

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Thank you, Ms. Groenewegen. Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to recognize Chief Fred Sangris with the Yellowknives Dene Band. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Welcome to everyone in the gallery today. I hope you're enjoying the proceedings. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member's statement today, I talked about an Internet-based program called BizPaL and it would help small business streamline the process to make sure that they could do all the required permitting. Mr. Speaker, I have personally gone to this website and I found it extremely easy to use. So my question to the Minister of ITI is, is his department aware of this service called BizPaL and has he looked at bringing this to the NWT? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me first say that the reduction of red tape for business should be a concern and an initiative that all governments undertake. I know that the Minister of Finance and myself met with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and they urged us to do a review of the requirements in our jurisdiction and talk about how we could streamline some of these things. The BizPaL program that Industry Canada has rolled out has come to my attention and I have asked my officials to investigate it. It appears, certainly at my first glance, that there's some real merit into a partnership of this nature. We'd have to look at costs and options and those kinds of things but, yes, I have seen it, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister today commit to initiate some type of discussion with our business communities, be it the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, the NWT Chamber of Commerce as well as maybe the other chamber of commerce to see if they would be interested in this type of an initiative to help them streamline the business red tape process? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, critical for this kind of program portal to work is the partnerships with provinces and territories and all of the relevant stakeholders. I will talk to my department of about this. I know they did receive a presentation from Industry Canada; it's quite possible that the chambers did as well, but I'll ask. I'll also ask if they would sit down and consult with the chambers.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's emphasis on helping to work to eliminate the red tape process. My last question to the Minister is would he be able to prepare something and report back to the House on the feasibility of bringing this project to the Territories? I realize it's a big project and won't be done overnight but yet we need to get a communications plan out there and look at the feasibility. Could the Minister commit to doing that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, I'll certainly come back to committee members, all Members on the other side of the House, with our analysis. You could just tell him that initially this may be one of the rare cases where, per capita, it works in our favour. Our understanding is that we would be charged on a per capita basis for the partnership with Industry Canada, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12,000 to $15,000 per year. As the Member has pointed out, time is money and as a former businessperson I can tell him, small business person, that red tape is more than just an irritant; it really does hamper productivity. So this is something we'll look into and we'll come back to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions today for the Premier. Last year when the $500 million social-economic impact funding was announced by the federal government I stood up in the House on February 16th of last year asking the government what it was doing in abandoning 75 percent of the population here in the Northwest Territories. The $500 million is for the 22 communities deemed to be affected by the pipeline. Mr. Speaker, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand or appreciate that social impacts will fall down and end up in all of our communities here in the Northwest Territories. I'd like to start off by asking the Premier, from last year until today, what has his government done in addressing this concern with the federal government so that we can get socio-economic impact funding for each and every community in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has been persistent on this one; indefatigable I think is the word. This is not the first time he's raised it; he's raised it many times before.

Mr. Speaker, let me go into a little bit of history and take a little bit of time here. We have access and benefits agreements, or impact benefit agreements, for any major development happening in a region. In the case of the diamond mines, there were impact benefit agreements signed between industry and the aboriginal people on whose traditional lands this development was taking place; those included the socio-economic impacts. In the case of communities along the pipeline, both those who are signing access and benefit agreements and industry appealed to the government to separate out socio-economic impacts and let the access and benefits agreements deal with land access issues and business opportunities. So an arrangement was made between the federal government and the aboriginal access and benefits beneficiaries to then have two arrangements in the place of the one as you had with the diamond mines. So we ended up with access and benefit agreements that deal with business opportunities, employment and so on, and access fees. Then you have a separate agreement that deals with socio-economic impact for those who are eligible for access and benefit agreements along the route. This did not include anyone else; it did not impact on those who were impacted by diamond mines, for example. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now I'm even more confused on how this exactly works. I'll tell you, with the City of Yellowknife, the IBAs weren't developed with the City of Yellowknife; they were with the aboriginal groups when it came to the development of the diamond mines north of the city. The City of Yellowknife was

impacted tremendously by resource development north of this city and my suggestion is that it's going to be impacted by the resource development in the Mackenzie Valley, as well. For example, the City of Yellowknife and, as well, the Yellowknives Dene and the Akaitcho that live in the region, how are they going to access funding when they are impacted, and they will be impacted as a result of this resource development. I'd like to know that, Mr. Speaker.