Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government’s position is they recognize that there is a need to provide a service across the Northwest Territories. I remember for a few times in the seven communities…We oversee all 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. This speaks well to the wide range of services offered across the Northwest Territories. We have so many small communities that would just like to have the cell phone service to be able to go to the next level. This is something that we have to sit back and have a look and make sure it’s something that benefits all 33 communities and if it’s the desire, and I still have to bring the report to Cabinet. It was my intention to bring it to Cabinet within the next week or so to get Cabinet’s feedback and then

come up with a position and the next step as far as we’re concerned.

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I can’t argue with the Minister’s statement that we have communities that are lacking such things as basic cell phone service. However, the report recommends that the seven communities -- and I’ll mention them: Behchoko, Fort Simpson, Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, Norman Wells, and Yellowknife -- that those seven communities should start the implementation of 911 and then we move on to other communities later on. Those seven communities comprise some 77 percent of our population. That’s more than three-quarters of our NWT population. They will be targeted with 911 if we implement it in these communities. So I would like to ask the Minister whether or not the funding of a 911 for these seven communities will be a priority for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs or any GNWT department in the 2010-2011 budget.

I appreciate the Member’s comments that these seven communities make up 77 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories. That’s one of the reasons I need to bring this to Cabinet and get Cabinet’s opinion on the report and see where we can go from here. If it’s partial implementation, then we would have to consider if it’s the desire of this Assembly. Of course, it would have to go through the whole budgeting process and have approval from this Legislative Assembly to implement partial service.

I appreciate where the Minister is coming from. I realize that there is a budget process that has to be gone through. I am hoping that we will get some certainty on funding to at least start 911. It’s been said many times: Presumably our government is all about partnerships. Even today our Premier has stated a strong and independent North is going to have to be built on partnerships. So I’d like to know whether or not MACA is willing to consider a partnership with the City of Yellowknife to start the much needed implementation of 911 service.

Absolutely. Again, not only just with the City of Yellowknife. The Member talked about seven communities. So if there’s a possibility of partnering with the seven communities to put together a plan for partial implementation and figuring out the costs and making sure that goes through this Legislative Assembly, then it’s something that we would seriously consider.

Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks to the Minister. At the risk of debating with the Minister, I’d like to suggest that a partnership with the City of Yellowknife is required to get this process started. I’d like to know if the Minister will agree to start a partnership with the

City of Yellowknife and expand that to other communities as the project gets rolling. We certainly can start a project with seven communities.

We’re going to have a chance to look at the report and analyze the report and cost figures and how it would be best to implement this. But, of course, once we do that, we would be willing to -- seeing as it was the City of Yellowknife that put together the report with some input and participation of the GNWT -- sit down with them and try to roll out the next step. Hopefully this can carry on to the other seven communities, which is a start, then hopefully get the rest of the communities in the NWT on board with this.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services and are in follow-up to my Member’s statement from earlier today. As I indicated earlier, it’s been 106 days, almost four months, since the Minister indicated that she would be meeting with the Social Programs committee to provide them with a timeline and outline the framework for the review of the Supplementary Health Program. To date there has been no briefing or no briefing has been conducted. Could the Minister please give me an update on where the Department of Health and Social Services is with respect to reviewing the provision of supplemental health benefit services in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the need for a little bit of drama, but I don’t know where the Member gets this 107 days. The motion was passed on February 8th . I think

everybody understands how busy our session was for six weeks. Our session did not finish until March 13th . Everybody went off to a break for two weeks.

Now, for the last seven weeks -- that’s 75 days -- the department and officials have been working to see how we do this better than we had done before. I have talked to the Member and said that we won’t go into really getting into the work until the session was over. So now I have written to the standing committee chair this morning. I said, as I’ve always indicated privately, that we will not move ahead without talking to the committee first. What we are proposing to do is we have set up an interdepartmental committee that will look at income security models and other frameworks that

we could use to review some health programs. As well, we want to set up a stakeholders group, including all the NGOs and interested groups, to give us input on that. We will be sending out an invitation letter within the next few days. We hope to have our first real substantive meeting with those groups by the end of June. I am happy and available any time to meet with the standing committee.

I think it’s fair to reference the 107 days. It has been four months since the motion passed and nothing has been brought to committee. I think it’s very important that it does come to committee because, as the Minister said, she wanted to get input from the standing committee. I’m happy to hear that a letter has been sent, but still it sounds like the Minister is moving ahead with some of these things and no information has been shared and no input has been gathered. So before the Minister moves forward with these committees and whatnot that she’s making reference to, will she commit to meeting with the standing committee and getting our input on that process before she actually moves forward and implements the process that she’s indicated she’s going to be implementing?

I’ve said that in e-mails to him at least three times, I will meet with standing committee or the Members to discuss input or to get their input and have further discussions. I have asked committee to meet at any time. So, yes, I would be happy to do that. I’ve always said that I will and I’ve e-mailed him at least three times to say that.

As indicated in my statement, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there. People don’t know what’s happening. So my question for the Minister is: How does the Minister intend to relieve some of this continued confusion and uncertainty that continues to exist within the public as residents wait for something to happen?

Everybody here knows that and I have committed. I don’t know if I need to explain more of that. I want to come and meet with the Standing Committee on Social Programs. I understand that we have a very short session, so the committee’s time is always of high value. I think it’s important and we are available to meet at any time to discuss. And we are not, we haven’t moved further, I don’t want that to be out there that we are somehow moving forward because I keep getting e-mails from Members suggesting that.

I want to make it clear that myself, as the Minister, and the government heard loud and clear that there are lots of major elements of that policy change that needed to be reviewed. I wanted to make sure that we took some time to review from the last session what we heard, which is what we’ve been doing for the last seven weeks. Before we do any public

meetings I will be happy to sit down with the committee. But it is important also that we hear from NGOs and the general public. We do want to have public meetings as well. Any time next week I think we could get together and talk about it more.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Premier today and it gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier where I was talking about the Northern Development Agency that the federal government has proposed. I’m wondering if the Premier can give us an update on what exactly our government has done in trying to convince the federal government that the Northwest Territories is a good location for this Northern Development Agency.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this concern. The work we’ve done on this comes in a number of layers. First and foremost we had a pan-territorial approach from the three northern Premiers as to making the pitch to Ottawa that the Northern Development Agency needs to be established in the North. Following that and putting that case in, I have worked directly with a number of the federal Ministers to highlight the fact that it makes sense, for a number of the reasons that the Member has raised, that we’re central amongst the territories, that our economic potential is the greatest amongst the territories, and it would make sense to base that here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve put that on the table. My understanding is that it is before the Prime Minister’s office and we are awaiting direction from there.

I’d like to ask the Premier if the federal government has come any closer to announcing a location for the Northern Development Agency. I know it’s at the Prime Minister’s desk now, but when are we expecting a decision on where that office will be located?

We’re hoping to hear something soon, but I can’t comment on the Prime Minister’s office and their timing of a decision there. At one point we thought it was in a matter of weeks, so we’re waiting to see if they follow through on that. The legwork has been done. I think it’s important for us to keep in contact with the appropriate parties, different Ministers. My letter went in to Minister Strahl and I’ve also spoken with the Minister who has involvement in northern development, and that would be Ms. Aglukkaq.

In keeping with the theme of jobs and federal jobs, I want to...We’ve talked about this before, about the fact that there are a number of jobs -- in the hundreds -- located in Gatineau and Ottawa, that belong in the three northern territories. There has been much work done in the past on identifying these jobs, finding out where they’re located, and we’ve asked the federal government in the past to relocate these positions north of 60. I’d like to ask the Premier today if his government, our government here in the Northwest Territories, will push this forward again and give it some renewed effort to try to identify those jobs and try to get those jobs north of 60 where they belong.

The Member is right in the sense that there’s been quite a bit of work done in the past governments and work with the federal government to identify positions that were in southern Canada, in Ottawa, that had a direct impact and relationship to the Northwest Territories and the three territories overall. We’ve done that work and it came down to identifying a number of positions that we felt could be moved north, and that initiative was pushed along.

I must say that this government hasn’t taken that information and moved it. Our focus has been the establishment of new positions and office that should be here and that is why we are putting a fair bit of focus on the Northern Development Agency. As well, we could use this avenue to further expand the discussions to look at those types of positions and having them moved north.