Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am supporting this motion. I know the Member for Nahendeh attended the briefings we had with the Department of Transportation during the review of their Draft Mains and made it abundantly clear that this move by the Department of Transportation would negatively impact not only Fort Simpson but the region of Nahendeh.

I fully support his efforts. I know there’s an outcry in the communities that use this airport. In most cases, there have been examples of it. I sat through the briefing, and the Department of Transportation can’t always say that contracting out is the best way to go.

In this case I don’t know if everything was counted or measured into the equation when the department came up with the rationale to contract out the operations and maintenance at the Fort Simpson airport. We don’t have to look too far to see contracts, not just with the Department of Transportation but government-wide, where you always think you’re going to get a better price — it’s going to be less expensive if you go outside — and that’s not always the case.

In some cases individuals or corporations or companies that end up getting these contracts end up taking the lion’s share of the money south with them when they go. I’m not saying it would happen in this instance, but it’s a possibility.

I think the positions need to stay in Fort Simpson. We need to be supportive of the positions we do have in the smaller communities. I certainly do support my colleague Mr. Menicoche’s efforts in keeping this alive and trying to get the department to reconsider its direction on this.

Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be supporting this motion. I support retaining the Fort Simpson airport with the public service staff that are there. I support Mr. Menicoche in his efforts to see these positions and these employees and these families not disrupted on something that might or might not work out.

I’m not satisfied with the level of detail that was provided by the department to actually prove this would mean any cost savings at all. It’s fine to say we’re going to cut this many positions and save this much money. What about the severance to end the employment of these folks? What about the costs of contracting? How predictable is that going forward into the future? How about when the community economy picks up and this equipment that’s used at the airport — if it’s not dedicated — is needed somewhere else?

There are concerns of public safety. I say if it isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it. It’s working well the way it is. I will be supporting this motion completely.

Thank you,

Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, will be supporting the motion. I think Fort Simpson airport is a regional airport, and I think we can’t downgrade that service. We have similar airports in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Yellowknife. They do connect the North to other jurisdictions by way of the Yukon.

Also, as Mrs.

Groenewegen mentioned, we’ve

learned from our decision to look at the whole area of ferry operations. We’re seeing that supp coming forward in the next couple of days. A lot of forced-growth items are because of the privatization of those contracts. Negotiating with the unions and whatnot is a forced-growth item that is having an effect on contractors providing that service, because the unions are now basically demanding northern allowances and everything else.

Again, I think it’s important to realize that this is part of the Northwest Territories infrastructure, and we have to realize it’s a very critical link to the economic viability of the North by way of the pipeline route that’s going to go through Fort Simpson, the oil and gas potential, the tourism potential, the Nahanni Park expansion. This is a very unique economic stimulus to the economy of the Deh Cho region and the Northwest Territories.

For the sake of the economies of these regions we should not be laying people off. If anything, we should be hiring more people in those regional centres to generate and stimulate the economies

and finding other areas where we can reduce those costs.

An area that was mentioned earlier, by way of a motion, is that we can find savings by looking at energy plans, looking at wasted energy and reducing the costs, by way of ferry operations, how we operate and maintain our equipment, and how we service our warehouses. There are savings we can produce simply by changing the way we do business, without laying people off.

With that, I will be supporting the motion. I think we have to realize that this airport is an essential, critical infrastructure of the Territories. It is a regional airport and should be treated like a regional airport and not downgraded to something lower than that.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to make some comments for the record and kind of get a sense of how the Members will be voting.

I’d like to state for the record, in terms of the decision around the Fort Simpson Airport, Mr. Chair, that the potentially affected employees are proposed for ’09–10. We would be having some further discussions in the business plan in the coming months, in terms of the potential issues here with the Fort Simpson Airport.

For the record — for the people of the Northwest Territories — we do not contract out any airports. We contract out services. When you contract privatization — let me be very clear to people — that’s not taking ownership of the airport.

We still maintain ownership of all 27 airports in the Northwest Territories. We have contracted out at 21 out of 27 airports in the Northwest Territories — to bands, to local aboriginal companies, to northern companies, to hamlets. They have done a good job. Twenty-one out of 27 can’t be wrong, in our eyes. We have looked at that. I

have asked my

department to go back to see what the level of service was, and not to downgrade the level of service at those airports. That’s our number one priority in the Ministry of Transportation.

We looked at all the airports. For the airport in Fort Simpson, for example, in 2004, the number in terms of business was 3,061, compared to Yellowknife at 44,065 or so. The airport in Fort Simpson is not as busy as we thought it would be. Mr. Krutko is right.

Hopefully, when we have a good signal from the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline in terms of their offers, in terms of economic development happening, then we would see an upgrade of our airports.

We have talked to other airport service deliverers in terms of the way they’re doing work. They are talking about the potential of economic benefits with their local aboriginal, local northern, local municipalities in terms of taking care of the airports for us. We have high standards in those communities.

The reduction will happen as we potentially put it in for 2009–10. We are going to have to come back to a business plan with the Members here and talk about it. I have talked to my officials, looking to see whether we could look elsewhere.

The ferries contract operations are totally different from the Fort Simpson operations, which we were talking about. It’s two different situations; it’s apples and oranges. The Fort Simpson ferry operations were based on the urging of that government to provide that service for travellers.

We are maintaining a level of service with the other airports. I asked the department again to look at this issue, and I said, “As long as we do not drop the level of service in our airports.”

I look forward to coming back with the business plans and talking about this again. We are open to suggestions and options. We have to abide by the direction to meet a target we feel would have the least impact on services to the airline companies that use our operations.

We have looked at our other airports. We have taken the opportunities to work with the contracted employees and sought their feedback in terms of how they would improve their working capacity and the capacity of the communities.

For the record, Mr. Chair, that’s all I want to state.

Thank you, Minister Yakeleya. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to say I am in support of this motion. I didn’t attend the briefing for this particular department, but I haven’t seen any data that can convince me contracting out is going to save us money.

I hear the Minister talking about bands and so on, local businesses taking over such contracts, but I wonder whether or not there is an organization in Fort Simpson that has offered to do it — if there is anybody ready and willing.

I also understand this is a next year’s reduction, but it has to be talked about now, because the employees have already received notice of their being affected.

In my experience to date, I haven’t yet found that contracting out will necessarily save money. If it does save money, it very often lessens the quality of the service that is provided.

I have my doubts, and I would seriously ask the department to provide firm rationale and strong facts and figures, which I would need to convince me that contracting out the operations and maintenance is going to be an improvement on what we have at this particular time. That said, I am in support of the motion, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, am going to be supporting the motion for all the reasons you’ve already heard today.

In addition to that, one of the areas that concerns me is.... I’m of the understanding that the employees who are targeted to be eliminated have been told they stand a really good chance of getting a job with the contractors and that they shouldn’t be too awfully worried about their future because they’ll be working.

That disturbs me. That suggests to me that they aren’t valued by this government. By being removed from the government and sent to a non-government employer, they’ll lose their pensions. We can’t guarantee their salary is going to be the same. They’ve become comfortable with what they know, which is what they get paid. They are earning a pension; they’re long-term employees. If they leave our employ and get a job with a private contractor, that’s great — at least they’ll be employed — but they won’t have the same benefits and advantages they do right now, which demonstrates to me that maybe we don’t value our employees as our most important resource.

In addition to all the other reasons, that’s one of the reasons I’m supporting this motion.

Thank you,

Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Any change in the way we deliver a service in communities is a cause of concern to those directly affected by that level of service — or the employment, in this piece.

If you take a step back and look at what we’ve done over the lifetime of this government, the Government of the Northwest Territories…. At one time all work that was done in regions was done by central departments, whether it was Public Works and Services, Housing and so on. I recall a time when, for example, to do any body-work in our community of Inuvik -– and that was a regional centre -– we had someone flying out of Yellowknife to do the work, because that was the way government did business. I was, in fact, employed by the Department of Public Works and Services as an auto mechanic, and we travelled to the Inuvik

region to all the communities to service those communities.

Now those communities do it for themselves. They have contracted that work. They’ve taken it over. They’ve taken over delivery; they’ve taken over operations. They service it, and they’ve built up the capacity. In fact, as you were informed, there’s interest in Simpson to do the work.

We have to try to take a step back. It’s difficult when this is happening, I agree, but if we take a step back as a government and look toward what’s happening, do we not hear from Members of this Assembly about capacity in communities, the ability to get the job done and building that capacity? Is this not one of those ways of doing that, when we have other airports that are operating fine and doing that level of service?

I have to say that if there’s disagreement with this, I think the discussion about airport authorities — and I recall that happening in this fine city — should be off the table as well, just as we look at the way we do business.

It is something that’s difficult, but from time to time we have to look at how we operate and whether what we’re doing is the best thing overall or if this is an opportunity to build more capacity in communities and regions.

Thank you, Premier Roland. Question has been called. I’ll ask the mover, Mr. Menicoche, to conclude the debate.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleagues for speaking in favour of the motion. I’d like to thank Cabinet for their opinions.

I believe what we’re talking about here, Mr. Chair, is an experiment that’s gone wrong, and we want to bring it back again. Fundamentally, we cannot be doing that as a government. That’s the definition of crazy, by the way: it’s where you keep doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. This is a case we’ve proven is wrong, and we just cannot go down that road again.

I’d like to thank Mr. Krutko for bringing up the fact that it does operate as a regional airport in that west section of our Northwest Territories. It services all the communities down there and up the valley as well, toward Norman Wells.

Although Mr. Minister speaks about apples and oranges, it’s still the same thing. You can take the spots off a leopard, but it’s still a leopard once again.

To me, Mr.

Chair, in all the discussions with

everybody I’ve talked with and all my colleagues and with committee, we talk about the Premier wanting to go down the road of fiscal restraint and

reallocation of funds for strategic investment. But I keep saying that it’s strategic to keep what we have, especially something that’s working. It’s going well, and there’s good reason to keep it. There’s no good reason not to keep it. That’s what we’ve seen, and that’s what we keep saying over and over.

Mr. Minister asked for suggestions and options, and that’s what we’re telling him. That’s our suggestion and our option: you keep that airport staff and you keep that airport running at the level of service that is provided for the traveling public out there.

Above all, it’s been said it’s for the ’09–10 budget, but you brought us down this road. You’ve mentioned it in our committee; you’ve sent the letters out to the employees. You told us to wait for business plans, but we cannot do it, because I know how government works. Silence is assent, and we’re not silent and we’re not assenting to this.

With that, Mr. Chair, I’d like to call for a recorded vote.

Thank you,

Mr. Menicoche. The Members have requested a recorded vote. All those in favour, please stand.

All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.

The results of the recorded vote on the motion: ten in favour, zero opposed, seven abstentions.

Motion carried.

We were on page 9-17. Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you,

Mr. Jacobson. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the Main Estimates the airport is known as the Tuk Airport. About four years ago it was changed to the James Gruben Regional Airport, so that’s what I’m speaking to.

In regard to the position at the regional airport, the airport manager’s position, it worries me that the oil companies have three to four helicopters based out at Tuk. We have daily scheduled flights plus numerous charters for the oil and gas and local businesses.

In regard to the issue of this position, the length of our runway is 5,000 feet, and we’re capable of landing a 737. I would not like to see that affected for so little money and savings.

In my riding everybody likes to talk about this pipeline, but everybody forgets where the oil and gas is going to come from. It’s in my riding. With the pipeline boom, once it goes, it’s going to be busy — not so much in Tuk in regard to the actual construction phase but with the filling of that pipeline with the offshore drilling.

I think this is a really important position in the community in regard to the safety of my people, and I really wish the Minister would take that into consideration.

I’d ask my other colleagues if they’d like to speak on that, and I’ll come back to you.