Mr. Speaker, today I wish to recognize individually Chipewyan interpreter trainees and elders from Tu Nedhe. We have Elizabeth Boucher, Nancy Casaway, Henry Catholique, Bernadette Lockhart, Mary Jane Michel, Alizette Abel, Joyce Isadore — all from Lutselk’e — Terry Villeneuve, Pete King, Archie Smith, Joyce Hessdorfer and the instructor Sabet Biscaye. Terry and Pete are from Fort Resolution,

Archie is from Thebecha, Joyce Isadore and Sabet are from Tetlit’Zheh.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. We are aware that these folks will be in the House on Thursday and Friday, practicing their Chipewyan, and we are looking forward to that.

I would like to use this opportunity to recognize my son Ryan, who is down here visiting me. But because we have been so busy, we haven’t really seen that much of each other.

If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the House. I hope you enjoy the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.

Item 7, acknowledgements, Hon. Jackson Lafferty.

Item 8, oral questions, Mrs. Goenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement, I don’t wish to cause any undue alarm in Hay River. However, if I were the parent of a student who had been attending the school and now they knew there were issues around air quality and possible asbestos particle contamination, this week would seem like a very long week, waiting to find out if in fact there was the presence of this in there.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if she is aware of any kind of testing that exists that would definitely determine if people had been exposed to asbestos particles in the air — any kind of medical test.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for the question.

It is my understanding that tests have been done but the results are not out yet. We are expecting the results today.

I wasn’t referring to the tests of the air quality in the school; I was referring to any test of the students and the staff that might indicate if they had been exposed to any kind of asbestos contamination. Is the Minister aware of any such medical test?

Mr. Speaker, I should advise the Member and the House that this matter is within the jurisdiction of the DPW and

WCB at the moment.

They are doing studies of the level of asbestos in the building that’s suspected. Once these results are out, we’ll be moving to the next stage. The Department of Health and Social Services will become involved at that time.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if I can switch to a different minister on the same topic or not. I was going to ask the Minister of Public Works some questions on the same topic, but I’ll have to get back on the list again. Thank you.

In light of my statement in regard to the issue in Aklavik, where they’re testing the residents of the community for H. pylori, an infection of the stomach, there has been a high number of cases of stomach cancer in that community. There is an in-depth study going on right now with regard to Dr. Morris and a bunch of people from different universities in southern

Canada who have taken on this endeavour.

I would like to ask the Minister, in light of the funding situation we’re in — and we’re looking at a possible new source of funding by way of the Building Canada Fund — if those funds will be earmarked for communities that have problems such as issues related to water treatment, water delivery, or even dealing with water disposal in small communities so we can access some of those funds to deal with these types of instances in the Northwest Territories.

I trust that question was posed to me.

There are a number of sources of funding that have been flowing to the communities up to now that deal with water quality, water supply and things of that nature.

The Member is right. We are discussing and negotiating a new source of funding with the Government of Canada called the Building Canada Fund. We’re also talking about an extension to the gas tax. Mr. Speaker, both these sources can be utilized for community infrastructure. At this time it’s really difficult to see how much of it will be earmarked for communities, but a portion, we believe, will be going towards communities.

In regard to the water treatment facilities, in the case of Aklavik, they do get their raw water from the Peel River which flows down from the Yukon. There are questions about contamination in that watershed.

I’m just wondering, as a government, these types of surveys that go on…. What role does MACA play in regard to following those surveys to see exactly what the implications of the outcomes could be for the government of the Northwest Territories by having to replace or upgrade our infrastructure in those communities?

Our government takes a multi-barrier approach to dealing with water and water quality in communities. It’s a real area of concern, as Members would agree. We have a number of different departments working on water supply to communities. We have the ENR, which works on the source of water. We have MACA, which has testing of water treatment plant and also does the training. We have the Department of Health which does the testing for health purposes, and Public Works which works on some of the infrastructure projects.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of different departments and a number of barriers. We’re trying to make it so we so that we have safe systems across the board. That’s why we have so many departments involved.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to the in-depth review that’s going on in Aklavik, my question was more directed to what role this government plays in regard to that survey and the in-depth study that’s going on in that community. As a government, are we involved in giving input by way of providing information surveys and whatnot that’s been done? Are we going to be called so that when they do determine the source of the problem, we’ve given them as much information as we can so they can make a good decision, whatever the outcome is?

So my question is more in line of what government’s role is in providing information to this group that’s doing this survey.

Mr. Speaker, the question is beyond my responsibility as MACA’s mandate and jurisdiction. It should be directed towards Health and Social Services.

Mr. Speaker, I would expect that all departments are paying close attention to the survey and the evaluation that’s going on in Aklavik and will respond accordingly.

Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to my final supplementary, I’d just like to get some assurances from the Minister of MACA that community infrastructure will be considered when you’re looking at setting your priorities for the Building Community Fund. In light of the area such as possible water contamination or problems with our water systems in our communities, those get top priority when it comes to distributing that fund from the federal government.

That’s an easy response. I believe we’ve already agreed that municipalities should be receiving some of this money. We’re having some early discussions with the local government association, and also we’re talking to associations in the communities about how can we distribute this money and what kind of dollars are we talking about.

We need to set some criteria, and we need to be able to decide how that money will flow. So those things are ongoing. I can assure the Member that it will get serious consideration from this new line of funding from the government.

Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. It gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier today, where I talked about migrant workers. According to the last information I have, it’s 3,300 and counting — and these 3,300 migrant workers take with them $350 million per year out of our Territorial economy.

I’d like to start off with asking the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment if the government has a plan to address or mitigate the situation that we’re in today with the 3,300 migrant workers.

The issue of migrant workers has been a troublesome one for our government for some time. First of all, we have to recognize that we live in a democracy, so people are free to move and live wherever they want, as provided for under the Constitution of Canada.

We have been attempting to address the issues through the negotiation of socio-economic agreements with the mining industry companies, specifically diamond mines, through the negotiation of a socio-economic agreement with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline proponents.

Now, it’s more difficult in the oil and gas sector, because that’s a responsibility of the federal government. The federal government, through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, provides for benefit agreements with the oil and gas companies.

The way we looked at it, the best way to keep migrant workers living in the North is to make the Northwest Territories an attractive place for them to live. The best way to do that is to provide and make sure there is affordable housing and a lot of the benefits that we enjoy by living here. But the reality is it’s becoming harder to attract skilled workers. There’s a lot of competition for these workers, and the mining companies are finding that they have to offer these additional benefits.

Our plan is to go on the record and continue to express our concern about these activities to the mining companies. We hope to set up a process with the mining companies to work together to come up with solutions to this problem. We will certainly be communicating our concern to the federal government so they can take further action with regard to the workers involved in the oil and gas industry.

Specifically, I'd like to ask what campaign? When I gave my Member’s statement, I mentioned a scenario. That was just for construction workers. It wasn't skilled labour we were talking about. Out of the 40 employees, maybe five or six were skilled labour. The rest were labourers being trained, most of them from Newfoundland.

I'm wondering what type of campaign our government has to show industry and these migrant workers that there are communities here in the Northwest Territories that have affordable housing and that are livable.

For those areas of responsibility such as construction contracts that are awarded by our government, we will certainly follow up to make sure that the requirements of the various contracts are adhered to.

With regard to workers from Newfoundland who are brought in to do construction projects rather than hiring local citizens, we would have to bring this to the attention of the federal government, which has responsibility for labour standards.