Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, we will agree particularly with the Member's comments. I will forward them on to the committee for consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of ITI is aware, I have been working hard with other Members, especially with the community of Deline in the Sahtu, in terms of having Deline being recognized as the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada. I wanted to ask the Minister of ITI what type of exposure is he working on in terms of getting this recognition as a significant historical event in Canada, especially for ice hockey? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I would like to commend the Member for his hard work on this initiative.

---Applause

He has been encouraging this government to do some work to officially recognize Deline as the birthplace of hockey. I am happy to say that an event has come up in London for Canada Day it will be participating in. The GNWT, through my department, is supporting NWT Tourism in bringing over a ball hockey team from Deline. We will put on a bit of a show and an exhibition of their incredible hockey ability. I understand the Member himself will be suited up and put a number of balls in the net, presumably, and make us look good.

Mr. Speaker, we think that this is an excellent opportunity for us to lever some publicity. There will be a lot of people in attendance. It is a great way to recognize Deline. I understand that there is going to be some hand games demonstration, some other cultural promotion. After all, Mr. Speaker, we are really hoping to use this opportunity to create some awareness around Deline, the Northwest Territories, and see if we can't get some tourists to come back here and visit us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister in his confidence in hoping that I will put a bunch of balls in the net there in London, England. How important is this event here? I know the importance of Sir John Franklin, because he came from England, in terms of his name and his contributions to some of the historical events that happened in this world here. What role in terms of our team going over there from Deline, especially in the role of tourism, how important is the role of tourism for the people in London to come over here and come and visit Canada and especially visit the birthplace of ice hockey started by one of their own people from England?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very important for us. When we look at our tourism numbers overall, we break them down by country of origin. Number one, in terms of the most frequent visitors, are Americans, but close behind that, Mr. Speaker, are those from the United Kingdom. So we think there is a great potential for growth. We would like to get more people from England, from the United Kingdom, to come over. This is an excellent opportunity for us to do this. This is a real unique event that we are putting on. All the provinces and territories, Mr. Speaker, will be present at those events in London at Trafalgar Square. We think we have a unique hook here. We are going to try to take full advantage of that. I know the Member, as well as myself, have been working to try to make sure we can get some GNWT presence, potentially in the person of the Premier. We will see if his schedule will allow for it, but we would like to raise this up, ratchet it up to profile. I think that would be a way for us to do that. We are trying to make this a big event and are contributing monies to NWT Tourism to make it successful. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the Deline team will win the Franklin Cup in London, England. Does the Minister think that Ottawa will win the Stanley Cup?

---Laughter

That's asking the Minister's opinion. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories, through MACA and Public Works and Services, along with

the RCMP and the city have looked at the issue. The biggest barrier for going forward right now is the lack of communication infrastructure in our communities. I guess following that, the big barrier is the cost of implementing such a service. We are looking at roughly $26 million or more to have it within the Northwest Territories and to have the service in all the communities. That is something that we are facing, are the resources required to implement such a service.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, $26 million to look at a 911 service territory-wide is a tremendous amount of money, but given the fact that 911 is the North American standard for emergency numbers and it is something that children who live in the Northwest Territories are much more likely to remember when faced with an emergency, why aren't we looking at establishing this service in Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith to start with and what would that cost? Has the Minister got that information? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the detail and the cost for breaking it out per community. We could, I guess, look at that. There's a number of things that would come forward as one-time costs from the RCMP and also NorthwesTel or the provider and others. So we'd have to sit down and break all those numbers out. We haven't looked at specifically providing it for one community. There's still a cost factor. In fact, Yellowknife has made application to CRTC for some money and were turned down as this didn't meet the program criteria. If there's an interest, we certainly can sit down and review what the options are. But at this point, we don't have the resources to implement such a service across the Territories.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I feel quite strongly that the Government of the Northwest Territories has an obligation to the people it represents to implement such a service and to work with the stakeholders to ensure that there's a 911 service. If that starts out in Yellowknife and expands to Hay River and Fort Smith, so be it. Then we can expand it later on. I'd like to ask the Minister, and I wasn't overly impressed with the last answer, but what are the next steps to move this forward, and where does the responsibility lie to move this issue forward to the next level so that we can get this service up and running? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know what I have to do to impress the Member.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, if the Member's referring to the city of Yellowknife moving forward, that's something that's their decision. We certainly can work with them to implement such a service and try to locate some resources to help them along. However, at the cost factor or the estimates that are provided to us, it's not something we can resource at this point. Communications is something we'd like to have more discussion on with other departments, Public Works and Services, regarding which step do you take first. Do we start putting the facilities in the communities so that we can have adequate facilities so that we can start considering this, or do we focus on Yellowknife first and then worry about the other communities later? I think that's something we're going to have to decide, Mr. Speaker, and we'll have to have further debate and discussion on that with the other partners in this committee. Thank you.