Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that. One other area that I wanted to touch on on the financial exposure, and that’s through the lien that I know of. I wonder how many liens are out there on the project itself and what future financial liability might the Government of the Northwest Territories incur because of the liens being put against the project, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

There are no liens against the Government of the Northwest Territories. There has been a lien placed on ATCON, the company that is doing the piers right now -- that’s Ruskan -- and there is also a lien filed against the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation by Structal, which has been there for some time, I believe. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister responsible for ITI and are a follow-up to my Member’s statement. As mentioned in my statement, it appears as though former GNWT employees have taken the lessons learned as part of the NWT secondary diamond industry and are applying them in other jurisdictions. These southern operations appear to be successful. If this knowledge works in other jurisdictions, why does the NWT secondary industry continue to struggle while others grow and what is the Minister’s department doing to revitalize the NWT cutting and polishing industry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of ITI, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I heard two questions there. I think we have no problem with the Canadian diamond industry growing. We think it’s to the benefit of the Northwest Territories, and certainly with a strong diamond sector, we can change the definition of a Canadian diamond, which will be to our benefit. We don’t believe that we are falling behind, but there are some challenges.

Everybody knows that it’s much more difficult and more costly to operate up here in the Northwest Territories. Secondly, the provinces where these operations are being conducted, Ontario, Saskatchewan, they are provinces. We are a Territory. They collect royalties and they reinvest it in the diamond industry, whereas our royalties go to the federal government who have not seen fit at all to invest in the diamond industry.

Another factor is we have a diamond policy. A large part of our diamond policy, which is the provision of loan guarantees, has been eliminated. So we have undertaken a review of our diamond sector and we will be presenting our recommendations with regards to what we should be doing to revitalize and improve our diamond manufacturing.

I should point out, also, that we do have three manufacturing facilities that are still, compared to other jurisdictions, a leader in this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the Minister for that response. I’m glad to hear things are happening and things are being done to revitalize this industry.

Earlier this week, I met with a constituent who happens to be a former diamond cutter in one of the plants in Yellowknife. When laid off, due to downsizing last year, he and his family decided to stay in Yellowknife in hopes that he would be able to return to his diamond cutting and polishing position once the market returned. Now he has been contacted by Embee to go to work for their factory in Saskatchewan. He tells me that 13 families are considering leaving the Northwest Territories to work for Mr. Botha in Prince Albert. Thirteen families are roughly 39 people at $22,000 per person. This means that at least $858,000 of federal transfers will leave with them. This affects Northerners, all Northerners. What is the Minister going to do to help expedite this revitalization that I hear you talking about of the local industry in the hopes that these 13 families don’t have to leave the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Certainly Canada is a free country and people can move to where they want to live. I think the diamond cutting family, if I could call it that, has fit in very well into Yellowknife and is a

very important part of the community. So I would hate to see that happen. But I think on our part the best way to keep these people in Yellowknife is to have a strong secondary diamond manufacturing and polishing industry, and I think the best way is to ensure that 100 percent of our NWT diamond allocation is bought and cut and polished here in the Northwest Territories and that’s what we are working towards, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that. I agree with him. Anybody can move and live anywhere they want within this country and I agree that Yellowknife is a great place. My question was more specific. It’s what are we going to do -- and I understand a lot is being done -- but what are we going to do to expedite this revitalization? What is the Minister proposing now? Are there meetings taking place? What’s happening to revitalize this industry in the Northwest Territories today? Because people who want to stay -- and I stress want to be here in the Northwest Territories -- are leaving. What are we doing to revitalize? What are we doing to expedite the revitalization? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but I think the main thing we want to do right now is we want to make sure that all of the factories are operating. Diamonds have been produced in the Northwest Territories for 10 years now. We have learned a lot over the 10 years and we think that we can find ways in working with the manufacturers so that their operations can become more effective and efficient, and, hopefully, we expect that they will become more feasible. So we feel that there are things we can improve upon. We can become more effective so we can move faster. We can have a little more flexibility so that the cutters and polishers can have a more feasible operation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister mentioned that diamond cutting and polishing has been in the Northwest Territories for 10 years. That’s true. Unfortunately, I don’t believe our diamond policy has changed in 10 years. I understand that about four years ago we actually did some significant reductions within the Department of ITI in the diamond division. I am curious who in the government, who in the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, is actually moving forward on this diamond policy and looking at reviewing it if our division was mostly gutted, for lack of a better word, and when can we expect to see some improvements or modifications or modernization of our diamond policy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wouldn’t call the diamond division as being gutted. We still have our

marketing side of the Diamond Program and the responsibility for the diamonds was factored into our mineral section. So we have recently focussed more of the diamond file to an associate director position. We do have a proposed revised diamond policy, and our expectation is that we would brief standing committees very shortly, with a view to coming forward and having the policy approved once we have received the input of the committees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. There was a discussion paper put out for some input into some of the proposed amendments to the Elections Act. We are assessing some of the results of the questions that were proposed out there, and we are just preparing a draft report and we are hoping to have that done fairly soon, so we can share that with the Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister for that update. I expect that I will probably be asking what “soon” means later on, but I would like to ask the Minister first…The residency requirement wasn’t really addressed in the discussion paper. It was referenced, but somewhat obliquely. I want to know from the Minister whether or not there will be an opportunity once results of the consultation are out, whether there is an opportunity to go back and discuss particularly the residency requirement eligibility for voters section. Thank you.

One of the questions in the consultation/discussion paper was around the issue of residency requirements and a lot of the folks that did respond did say that there needed to be some adjustments made to the residency requirement issues. So this was taken into consideration and then we will be preparing a report to present to Members. Thank you.

I think the reference to the residency requirement had to do with allowing for temporary absences. I don’t believe the question addressed the length of residency that is required to allow somebody to vote in a municipal election. So I’d like to ask the Minister again whether or not that particular section of the act, the length of time that’s required for a resident to live in the community or make it, sorry, not the community but make it the Territory. Will that be addressed? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the questions that the Member raises will be addressed. There will be an opportunity for more input into the process. We are, between now and the summer session, wanting to come back with an LP and that will give Members an opportunity to suggest some changes, with a possibility of introducing a bill in the May/June session. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to now ask the question to the Minister -- he says we’ll get the report, the results of the consultation and the report soon -- what might “soon” mean? I have to ask this question very often of Ministers. Are we talking one month? Three months? Six months? Two years? Hopefully not two years, because he’s talking about an LP soon. So when might that be? And at that time when those results of the consultation come forward, will there be an opportunity for further input, not necessarily from Members but from the public? Thank you.

By soon…I have to remember to do that when I’m responding to the Members’ questions, because I always leave myself open for that. So in the future I will come up with a specific date; November 25th , 2009, type of

thing. So I will follow up with the department and see where we’re at with this. Hopefully, if there’s an opportunity to get this out within the next month, then I would commit to doing that.

There’s always opportunity for input into some of the things we’re doing. We are proposing an LP come forward between now and the May/June session, so we can introduce the bill in May/June and have committee take that on the road. But there’s always opportunity for input into this process. Thank you.