Mr. Speaker, even after hearing Minister Miltenberger’s Minister’s statement today on the Board Reform Initiative -- I’ve been around here a long time -- I still am at a loss to understand what the government is trying to get at by taking such a wholesale and wide-sweeping approach to board reform.

Why can’t we take some small steps? Why can’t we look at the Health and Social Services department,

for example, and look at the governance structures that fall within that department and think of ways of creating efficiencies? Health is a good one because it is fairly integrated across the Territory. Mr. Speaker, to take all the education councils and local authorities; to take all of those local housing boards that get elected every year and mostly just volunteer to do their work; to take all of those...Let’s see, what am I missing here? Education, housing, health and social services...Like I said, health and social services is a different creature unto itself. Mr. Speaker, this is not a game we’re playing here. This isn’t some one person, you know, sitting up in some control tower trying to figure out how to move governance around on the map. These are people’s lives we’re talking about. This isn’t a game of I’m the king of the castle and this is how it’s going to be. I get the impression that this is some kind of a play on some kind of an organizational chart.

I still cannot hear coming through in the communication what the real reason is for the push behind this. Of course, we all want efficiencies. Of course, we want to make sure we have maximum resources at the front-line to deliver programs and services to our people. But how can we show such disrespect for the people at the community and regional levels that are bringing their good thought and their good expertise and experience to serve on these boards? How can we disrespect it? I would dare say that many of them have more knowledge and experience and more dedication -- because many of them do it on a voluntary basis -- than what we see sitting around this table here. Yet we think we’re in a position to dictate top-down to these people and criticize what they are doing by taking this absolutely sweeping approach to changing the way we do government.

There are so many other important things we should be focusing on right now and this is a misplacement of our energy and our resources. After hearing the Minister’s statement today, I would like to ask him to cease and desist. Let’s get on with the important stuff. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize the chief from Inuvik, Mr. Herbert Blake. Welcome to the House, Herb.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about the importance of creating a climate change research institute here in the Northwest Territories. My question to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources is would he reach out to his federal counterparts to see if they would be interested in establishing a research centre of excellence here in the Northwest Territories to do climate change study? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue the Member has raised today is one that we intend to follow up on. As pointed out here, there have been quite a number of concerns around climate change in the Northwest Territories. I know Minister Miltenberger is looking at our existing facilities to try and work with those in the field to see what we can do to improve in that area. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, would the Premier be willing to put this on the next type of discussions they have with the Prime Minister and potentially the Environment Minister at the earliest opportunity that we can have on this subject? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’re going to have to come up with our own approach here. I know Minister Miltenberger has been doing some work in there and I’ll have to get back to him to find out what work has been done, what connection has been made with other jurisdictions, and follow up from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. It gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the secondary diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories and the fact that the Laurelton plant recently closed down, with 40 jobs being lost. I have constituents who have come to me and said, well, what is the Government of the Northwest Territories doing to protect jobs in this secondary industry. That’s the first question I’ve got for the Minister. What is the

Government of the Northwest Territories doing to protect jobs in the secondary diamond industry?

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to hear that the Member agrees that we should be protecting secondary diamond polishing jobs in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I didn’t hear anything specific there. I’d like to ask the Minister -- and it hasn’t come through our committee, the EDI committee. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’d be willing to take his departmental officials and if I could offer up my services to help facilitate any of those types of meetings with the secondary diamond industry, the cut and polish factories that are in existence. I think we need to sit down with them and find a way that we can keep their doors open and protect the 65 or so jobs that are out there. Will the Minister commit to meeting with the existing factories? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have briefed standing committee. We have offered, and the committee has agreed, to work together as we review a diamond policy. I know that the situation is getting very serious with regard to diamonds. Certainly, we’d be willing to meet with the diamond polishers and manufacturers here in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is, what good is a diamond policy if we don’t have any factories left? I think time is of the essence here. I’d like to ask the Minister if the government had sat down with Laurelton prior to them shutting their doors. Because my fear is in the next couple of weeks there’s a real fear that Arslanian and the polar bear factory will indeed shut down as well. Time is of the essence. Can the Minister agree today to sit down as soon as possible with those factories, the ones that are remaining, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

We’re quite prepared to do that. Arslanian and ACW are restructuring and have been restructuring for some time, but we’re quite prepared to sit down and meet with them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Speaker, in trying to keep the factories open, would the government entertain some type of interim measure on these policies which would allow the factories to remain open? I want to get a better understanding that the government will be flexible in these discussions. Thank you.

We are prepared to be flexible and work with the committee to see how we can protect these very important jobs. We’ve looked at a number of approaches and some of them haven’t worked; loan guarantees haven’t worked and we’ve also looked at other ways to help the diamond manufacturers. We’re quite prepared to work with the committee to see if we can find ways to protect these jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also addressed to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I spoke in my statement about small businesses and the importance of small business in our community. I mentioned that businesses have difficulties, small business especially, when they are new and growing. I want to ask the Minister how our government provides assistance to new, fledgling businesses in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have quite a number of programs and resources to help people get established in business. We have economic development officers that are available and can work with interested people. We have funding programs. We have grants and contribution programs to help people get established to develop business plans. We also have a wide variety of loan programs, either through Community Futures or through BDIC, through our partners such as Aboriginal Business Canada, and so on. We have a number of resources that are dedicated to this.