Mr. Speaker, June 21 is a special day to all Northerners, aboriginal people in the NWT and across Canada. The Northwest Territories is the first jurisdiction in Canada to make June 21

a

statutory holiday in recognition of National Aboriginal Day. It’s a day that’s there to recognize our First Nations peoples and the significant role they played in the history of Canada and the Northwest Territories and how the First Nations people of the land welcomed the newcomers to Canada and the Northwest Territories. The unique culture and history we have within the Northwest Territories is because of our First Nations people.

Mr. Speaker, June 21

is the day to celebrate not

only the uniqueness of our First Nations people but the history and culture of the Northwest Territories and the role our First Nations people have played in developing the North into what it is today. We cannot lose sight of the culture, history and values of the First Nations people in everything we do, and the protection of our land, protection of our waters and also the protection of our languages.

With that, I wish everyone in the Northwest Territories to celebrate June 21

with the aboriginal

people of the Northwest Territories in recognition of the contributions our First Nations people have made to the history and the uniqueness of the Northwest Territories. I wish everyone all the best for National Aboriginal Day. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr.

Krutko. The

honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Mr.

Speaker, many years ago

Canada decided that a new town was going to be built in the Mackenzie Delta because Aklavik, the regional centre at the time, was sinking and would soon disappear. Well, we know now that Aklavik didn’t disappear. We saw it in the budget documents.

After a few locations were surveyed, Mr. Speaker, East Three was chosen as the new site for the proposed town. My grandfather Dan McLeod was part of the original survey team in 1954, and 1958 was the beginning of the community of Inuvik.

For such a young community Inuvik has a very colourful history. For many years we had the Canadian Forces base in Inuvik with 400 to 500 people. That closed down in the mid-’80s. Many families left, but a lot of the families, or a lot of the kids from the CFS, are still living in Inuvik and made Inuvik their home.

Mr. Speaker, despite all the negatives surrounding residential schools, Inuvik was the location of both Stringer Hall and Grollier Hall. We had an opportunity, growing up in Inuvik, to go to school with the CFS kids. We called them students from Grollier Hall and Stringer Hall. We made many good friends from the hostels and with CFS kids. We have many good friends to this day. That was one of very few positives that came out of the whole residential school experience.

In the mid-’70s there was an oil boom in Inuvik and the Beaufort-Delta that went on strong for a few years and then just stopped as quickly as it started. It’s starting to pick back up again, Mr. Speaker. We see that with the announcement of all the money spent on exploration. We expect it to pick up again

soon. We will be back to booming, and the residents of Beaufort-Delta will benefit greatly from this.

This summer, Mr.

Speaker, Inuvik will be

celebrating its 50

anniversary with two weeks of

celebrations. Many activities are planned for it. We have the Great Northern Arts Festival. We’ve got two weeks of events going on. We’d like to have a ball tournament, but our ball fields were torn down, so we can’t have that. It will all be on July 18. It’s the big day; it’s the 50

Anniversary civic holiday.

They’re planning a homecoming. We’ll have many past and former residents of Inuvik coming to Inuvik to take part in these celebrations.

I’d like to use this opportunity to congratulate the Town of Inuvik for all their perseverance over the years. I welcome all visitors from the NWT to come up this summer and join us in celebrating 50 years.

Thank you, Mr.

McLeod. The

honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s the last day of session, and I will be glad to be going home. When I first came here at the beginning of session I was one of the ones who said, “Let’s not waste our beautiful summer days in here.” I saw ice on the lake and buds on the trees when we got here, but we’ve gone through a change of season.

I was one of the ones who said, “Let’s not try to beat this untenable budget document to death here. Let’s just go back to the drawing board and come back.” But a number of Members wanted to persevere and press on, and they did. Between reinstatements, reinvestments, reassignments and the fact that we’re going to be revisiting some of the ’09–10 cuts when we come back to do our business plan, I think we ended up with something that we can go home and talk to our constituents about and be very proud of some of the advances and some of the accomplishments that will be entailed in that budget document. I do look forward to getting back to Hay River and debriefing with my constituents and dissecting some of the details of the budget further.

Mr. Speaker, this was an experience. It was an unusual experience, even for those of us who’ve been around here for awhile. I must say that I’ve gotten to know all the Members quite a bit better. I want to say how much I appreciate all their perspectives and what they bring to the table. I think there are many things that can be accomplished when we work together.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been over ten years now since diamonds were first processed at the Ekati mine, north of Yellowknife. After ten years I do believe it is time to review our policies, our objectives and the strategy as it pertains to diamonds.

It was just over three years ago that the Department of ITI gutted the diamond division within the department. It was a decision by the former government that that happened. Given what is at stake with the development of mines across this country in jurisdictions such as Saskatchewan, Ontario and potentially Quebec, I believe that we need to move on the review of our diamond policy. Otherwise, we’re going to get lost in the crowd. I’d like to know who’s going to be doing the work on the strategy. Who’s going to be planning our objectives and the policy? We need to have some concrete plans, Mr. Speaker, because we can’t afford to wait. Other jurisdictions will pass us by.

There’s no reason we couldn’t set up a diamond exchange here in the Northwest Territories. If we’re reviewing the policy, let’s take the 10 per cent of the rough, keep them locked up here in Yellowknife or in another community, and we could disperse them to the world. If you have diamonds, people will come. There are examples of that around the world. We don’t need to be an Antwerp, a London or even, potentially, Toronto to have a diamond exchange. If we don’t get off of our backsides, Toronto is going to be the place that has a diamond exchange in this country — not Yellowknife, not the Northwest Territories, but Toronto. I think that would be a shame, Mr. Speaker, because I think there’s more we could do about that.

The fact is that we’re not making any progress, I believe. Not much progress has been made in the last 20 years on resource revenue sharing. I believe it’s time we start looking outside of the box and we start, as a government, putting some money in an equity position in resource development.

If you can’t beat them, let’s join them. Let’s get some tangible results and tangible return on our investments, so we can put money back into our communities. If the federal government is not going to give it to us, let’s get involved ourselves, and let’s do that. That has to be a part of the plan. I don’t think we should overlook equity positions in resource development, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of

visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to welcome to the House His Worship, Mayor Mervin Gruben, from Tuktoyaktuk. Welcome.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to welcome my wife, Jenny, and my children, Kristin, Mikayla, Matthew and Mitchell, and thank them for all their support in this last month.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to welcome again all the visitors from Nunakput. It’s nice to see them in the crowd. I also would like to recognize my constituency assistant, Ms. Lynda Comerford. And with Lynda, visiting from Nova Scotia, is Ms. Vivian Schouteten. Welcome to Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to use this opportunity to acknowledge and recognize the two pages from Inuvik Twin Lakes, Tamara Voudrach and Paulina Burns. I think they’ve done a great job this week.

Mr.

Speaker, it gives me great

pleasure to recognize a few guests in the gallery. We have a group visiting from Lacombe, Red Deer, Alberta, visiting family and friends. Their names are Ken Morton, Norma Camman, Ben and Marg Linkletter, Everett and Marion Joselyn. As well, in the gallery, we have Ed and Joan King from Lloydminster. Welcome to the Northwest Territories.

Mr.

Speaker, I too would like to

recognize my two pages here: Denise Robert over there, and also Darcie Stewart. I’d like to thank them for coming down for the week to serve as pages in this House. Hopefully, they enjoyed themselves. Have a safe trip home. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize a page from Hay River who is a grade 8 student at Diamond Jenness Secondary School and thank him for serving us in the Assembly this week — Zachary Pangborn.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the House. Hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.

Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to follow up with some oral questions regarding autism. This goes back to my Member’s statement yesterday; I talked about the concerns for children.

Now, in all fairness, while I had my Member’s statement yesterday, a letter was finally delivered to my office, so I want to make special acknowledgement because the Minister wants to be acknowledged when good work is done. The answer has finally arrived, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, reading the letter, I noticed that it talks about there being few choices for parents to access things like speech and OT, except there are some limited services here in Yellowknife that are private.

Yellowknife Health and Social Services provides money for parents with children with disabilities such as autism to access funding for aids. I’m wondering if this Minister would also allow them to access funding so they could get the extra support out there that’s provided in the private industry for the speech and OT therapy for their children.

Thank you, Mr.

Hawkins. The

honourable

Minister responsible for Health and

Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr.

Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services, in cooperation with educational services that we provide, do assist families and children with varying types of disabilities, including autism. Those services are made available on a case-by-case basis.

Case by case is pretty thin, to be honest. A parent who has a child with autism can only receive a few hours a week for OT therapy as well as speech therapy. The problem is that the amount of time a week they receive for therapy here in the Northwest Territories is what is provided in Alberta for one single day.

My question once again is: would the Minister be able to look into the situation and develop a framework so these parents accessing money through Yellowknife Health and Social Services can use some of that money to access more — and private — speech and OT therapy that’s available?

Mr. Speaker, the department is working on a framework to address various issues of disabilities — not particular to autism, but

obviously the autism segment will be included in that.

The difficulties with providing all the services we need to for our children has to do with the fact that we have limited professionals available who can provide that service. For those children in need, we do what we can to provide them.

If the Member wants to talk about specific situations of a specific client, I’d be happy to work with the Member to see what we can make available to them.

I appreciate that gracious offer about trying to work for a specific constituent or parent or family, but I’m speaking broadly about all constituents and all people of the Northwest Territories accessing this.

I’m glad the Minister mentioned the limited professionals. As I’ve been made aware about the territorial services we provide in the area of speech and OT therapy, quite often parents miss out on the opportunity to put their kids into those things because those staff are busy in Nunavut providing speech and OT therapy to their citizens.

Do you have a question,

Mr. Hawkins?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to be clear: are the professionals employed by the Northwest Territories government putting our citizens first or the private contract that they’re providing to Nunavut?

All of our health care professionals employed by the GNWT or funded by the GNWT have to put their priority to the NWT residents.