Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I'd like to talk about sustainable standard design for government building infrastructure. Instead of spending money on original designs for every single public building each time we build a new facility, what if we came up with a sustainable standard design? I'm talking about a modular public facility with room for expansion to grow with the population as needed. After a concept has been developed the money saved in design, fees could be put back into more infrastructure for all our communities. By standardizing or even streamlining our designs and the building materials, we would be able to realize true cost savings on these projects.

A northern design is the opportunity before us, Mr. Speaker. This would also allow us to work with our latest technology best suited for our location and environment. Efficiencies can be found through engaging our local architects and engineer professionals about what really works, what is environmentally sound, and what is technologically realistic in a northern environment.

The problem is simple and it truly is before us. Are we overdesigning our public infrastructure to look like pieces of art? Are they losing their functionality because a statement needs to be made over the quality of the design? Let's face it; for the most part, sweeping, curved roofs, rounded walls, odd-shaped windows, while entertaining to look at, do nothing for the quality of the program delivery. I know if it isn't enjoyable to look at, sometimes it's not enjoyable to be there, but that's part of the point. We could challenge each individual case, each individual community, to add their special touch by giving them a feature opportunity within that building.

Project overruns are largely due to design and inadequate site evaluations. If we eliminate one of the causes, we could save ourselves a lot of valuable resources. Cost overruns typically result from quantity overruns, correcting designing errors and addressing unforeseeable conditions. Although elimination of all cost overruns is unrealistic and even probably cost prohibitive, we can temper this by the efficiency of our design, improving negotiations, the discipline of scope management. When designers design to the maximum of our project budget, they know the government won't lose a school because of a 25 percent cost overrun. So, Mr. Speaker, who is putting pressure, market pressure, on who?

Keeping designs efficient and simple will certainly allow us to move forward. Mr. Speaker, we all know about the training costs of building designs and how they keep skyrocketing, but this would give us a solution to deal with that.

Mr. Speaker, at this time may I seek 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. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a solution to this obvious problem. We could engage our public, we could engage our professionals about true, real designs for our northern location. I'm tired about hearing about cost overruns, about one project delaying or possibly cancelling out another because of the skyrocketing costs. I think the future and expansive growth of our Northwest Territories requires smart design, and with community involvement we could solve this problem together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to talk again about the need for territorial-wide land use planning and the ability to do cumulative impact assessments. The people of the Deh Cho have embarked on a journey to finalize and negotiate their own land use plan for their region and they've clearly set the trail for the rest of us. I believe it's time for the territorial government, the aboriginal governments, and the regions, to seriously sit down and talk about how do we follow suit. We need regional land use plans, but we also need a broader land use plan for the territorial government. Let me give you an example of why I think that is the case.

Mr. Speaker, the folks from ATCO and Trans-Canada are trouping around the South Slave and Yellowknife talking about the projected, proposed hydro development on the Slave River. The old plan was for about 1,800 megawatts of power. They are talking about some type of run-of-the-river facility, but we know they are going to want to generate a maximum amount of power possible. As well, we know that there are discussions by these folks pushing the Green Corridors for Canada where they are talking about looking at trying to get 3,000 megawatts off the Mackenzie River at some point farther north.

We also know that site C of the Bennett Dam is being looked at for expansion and so is Dunvegan. We have the Taltson project and micro-hydro power projects as well. So, clearly, it is time for us, as a territorial government, to sit down with all the players to look at what is sustainable, what is the best way to advance on these projects if they even make sense, what is going to be the environmental impact and what is the benefit for people of the Northwest Territories. So there is a need, clearly, for broad land use planning.

The Dehcho has shown us that, if you do it, it can be done. It takes work and we might have differences about some of the things that were done or being asked by the Dehcho, but the process makes eminent good sense for us as a territory, the South Slave, the Sahtu, the Tlicho and all the other regions. There is going to be a need for us to make those decisions to look at what can be developed, how fast, what areas should be protected, how do we protect the waterways and the wetlands.

Mr. Speaker, right now we don't have that capacity. As we look to the 16th Assembly, it is going to be clearly time for us to put that front and centre as part of our planning priorities. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Members' statements. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Sunday, May 13, 2007, was a special occasion for all mothers across this beautiful country of ours. I am speaking of none other than Mother's Day. Unfortunately, some underlying could not spend time with our loved ones on this special occasion. At this time, I would like to extend a belated Mother's Day greeting to my wife, Lucille, in Tuktoyaktuk.

---Applause

She has been by my side since 1978 as a wife and dedicated mother to our two boys, Bertram and Darren, and now our granddaughter. Mr. Speaker, I am fortunate. My older son, Bertram, and daughter-in-law, Charlene and granddaughter Kaylee Ann Marie are living in Yellowknife. Yesterday, we had a special Mother's Day dinner and invited our mother-in-law, Monique Bishop, and some friends to celebrate this special occasion. Just having family members and friends residing in Yellowknife on special occasions such as Mother's Day takes away the loneliness of being away from our loved ones on special occasions.

Mr. Speaker, as MLAs, we are committed to represent our constituency and it usually takes us away from our loved ones on special occasions such as Mother's Day. We know our loved ones will understand. We may be here in Yellowknife either for session or committee meetings, but our first thoughts will always be with our loved ones on special occasions.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like once again to say happy Mother's Day to my wife, Lucille, in Tuktoyaktuk for Sunday, May 13th, and to all the mothers across this vast territory of ours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the weekend, I was thinking about the discussion that Members had last week in terms of the Deh Cho Bridge. Also, there were some discussions about the roads in the southern part of the Northwest Territories. I made several calls to the people in the Sahtu. They were quite concerned as to not hearing any announcements from this government in terms of how to improve the winter road into the Sahtu region, especially questions around what was happening with the Bear River Bridge around Tulita hooking up to Norman Wells here.

Mr. Speaker, the people in the Sahtu have to pay the high cost of living. When the winter roads are open, they are only open for a few months. If we are very lucky and climate changes, it will shorten the winter months in terms of the people in the Sahtu getting out to do their shopping either in Fort Simpson, Hay River or Yellowknife here, or even in Edmonton; also for the people to take their families out on a vacation. As you know, taking families out flying is very expensive, so families that plan around that time can take their children out to the southern parts to have some vacation.

Mr. Speaker, the people in the Sahtu want to know when will this government make some announcements in their region to fix up the road. I was driving the road there for a couple of seasons now. When I drive the winter road, it has greatly improved, but we certainly need more work to get done on it. More safety measures should be taken to provide that for the people. Mr. Speaker, our region has been heavily into oil and gas exploration coming in and having a lot of interest in using our roads. More and more businesses are taking opportunities to use our winter roads. People in the Sahtu really want to know when this government is going to make any type of decision on the Mackenzie Valley highway. Is it just going to at least fix our roads here? Keep us in the light here and not shut us out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to speak more about the elusive Deh Cho Bridge project since this has become the basic coffee shop talk-of-the-day here in the NWT. Mr. Speaker, I can attest that much of this coffee shop talk is really not favourable towards the public's trust in our government, Mr. Speaker. Although the majority of the people in the NWT, more specifically in the North Slave region, myself included, Mr. Speaker, are supportive of a bridge across the Mackenzie River, many have expressed concerns of the costs to northerners associated with a project of this magnitude, but, more importantly, issues about the lack of accountability and transparency displayed by our government when the decision to move forward on this initiative was announced last week in our Premier's sessional statement.

Before the Premier's statement was made public, Mr. Speaker, no one on this side of the House, or in the public in general, was even aware that discussions and negotiations were ongoing let alone being finalized and guaranteed by the FMB, the bridge proponents and the contractor's negotiators in this whole project. This is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker. I feel that this government is setting a bad precedent and a practice of bad faith in our so-called consensus government to the electorate. All elected members and the public have the right to be fully engaged and informed of how much public money is going to be financing this once termed self-financing project. For how long will the public purse be opened to keep this project viable and on track? These are only a couple of the very fundamental questions that are in our people's minds and this government has an obligation to answer all of these before the public is willing to give us their blessings for spending much needed dollars which could have been allocated which other much needed high priority items such as a courthouse, treatment centres, dementia centres and other important highway initiatives along the Mackenzie River Valley, the Tuk to Inuvik all-weather road, and even our highways in general are in

dilapidated states all over. These are just to name a few, Mr. Speaker. I think this government's vision for residents of the NWT is to take responsibility. I would like to see this government take its own responsibility for the public's money, that people are confident in how we are spending it. The way it has been rolling out so far, that confidence is really waning. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. (Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Housing Corporation staff has visited our North Slave district. They looked firsthand at how our people are living in this housing. They also met with the chief of Behchoko. They have never visited our community before. So the community is very thankful that housing staff has visited our community. They said they were going to revisit the community again at the end of this month so that we can work together and make some changes. We would still like to hold them to this. (Translation ends)

Last month, the president of the Housing Corporation and two staff from the North Slave district visited the community of Behchoko to tour some of their most critical housing units and to meet with Chief Lafferty. They personally met and visited the homes of the community members and saw firsthand some of the poor housing conditions that these people were living in.

They listened to each individual's concern and discussed options available to solve these problems. The trip was an answer to the concerns I had outlined in the House earlier, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that management has taken the time to come to a community and hear issues firsthand. The community was very appreciative. All of these years the community just wanted to be heard, Mr. Speaker, to be able to make their views clear about the reality of their lives. Those we visited felt that there was connection; a connection that has never been felt before. In the past, bureaucracy has always got in the way of dealing with human issues in a real human way, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is the first step in building a positive relationship between a particular department and the community of Behchoko and also the communities. Perhaps other departments might want to approach similar issues in a similar way.

While it takes time to build relationship, this is a very strong beginning, Mr. Speaker. At least now the department has shown it is willing to sit down and treat people with humanity and respect; a most welcome change from some of the past confrontations. There's a quote here from Mr. Henry Ford, "If everyone keeps moving forward together, then success takes care of itself."

Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to say the Housing Corporation will be returning to the community of Behchoko on May 31st to continue this process of communication. I'd like to commend the Minister of the Housing Corporation, the president and their staff for taking the initiative to open the lines of communication with my constituents. I hope other departments will take note. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery.

It's not too often that I get to recognize any of my constituents in the gallery. I'd like to draw your attention to Mr. Terry Rideout, a constituent of mine from Hay River, in the gallery today.

---Applause

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to recognize young people in the gallery, young constituents from Range Lake. Some of them, I'm proud to say, I've known them since they were in kindergarten. They're Grade 6 Ms. Hans' class from the best school in Range Lake, Range Lake North School; the only school, Range Lake North School.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize Dr. Andre Corriveau who's with us in the gallery today. He's the chief medical health officer and influential in the act coming up in this House later on, the Public Health Act. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd also like to recognize Terry Rideout as well, but also my very hard-working constituency assistant who usually doesn't have time to sit in the visitors' gallery but it's nice to see her there today, Wendy Morgan. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we've missed anyone today, welcome to the gallery. It's always nice to have an audience. I hope you're enjoying the proceedings. Acknowledgements. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment. It's a bit of a step-off from the statement that he made advising the House of the new reservation system for campers and RVs coming to the NWT. I applaud that; I think it's a great way to show the NWT's on board with the modern tourism industry. We've been engaged in an exercise here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker, to create more space, more capacity for RVers who want to come up our newly paved highway and, hopefully, try out, in a few years, our newly built Deh Cho Bridge.

---Applause

So this is very much something that I've been looking forward to and I'm fully supportive of creating more capacity. However, there has been some conflict in the selection of the site by the Yellowknife Airport and adjacent to the Folk on the Rocks music festival site to build a 36-site park. It's got great amenities there but, Mr. Speaker, it also has some shortcomings, not the least of which is the concern about the impact on the festival and its location on the site near the noisy airport and its potential for expansion. Mr. Speaker, is the department going ahead with development of this site in light of these concerns?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member's concerns about the site that we've been looking at. He has, on the floor of this House, I think at least on one other occasion some months back, raised his concerns about the site, particularly that it was in the flight path. When we looked at options and land that was available to us, this site seemed to make a lot of sense and it was nicely situated close to Fred Henne Park on the shore of Long Lake; it looked like a very good place. We knew we'd have to do some work on the site, but we sat down to do some consultation with some of the potential stakeholders and have run into some difficulties; some concerns have been raised. So we're now at the point where we're going to look at some alternative sites as well, and it will be up for the next government to decide what the best site to move forward on is. There's no doubt, though, that we need adequate RV space in this city and if this isn't the site, then we have to sit down and get serious about finding a site soon. Thank you.