Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. We welcome everyone in the gallery today. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister of Transportation, can the Minister of Transportation inform this House and the people in the communities as to his knowledge, his information as to the evaluation by the federal government on the Food Mail Program?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

I can confirm that a review has been launched by the federal government to look at the program. That includes consultation with people in the Northwest Territories. A number of research contracts have been awarded by the federal government and we have provided some input in terms of recommendations. Our recommendations were more in the area of trying to make the program more flexible and allow more origin points for shipments and also to allow the aircraft carriers themselves to do some administration of the Food Mail Program. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome the good news from the Minister in terms of the evaluation involvement. When can this side of the House be involved in the process and privy to this information? Mr. Speaker, also to look at certain locations in the Northwest Territories, like Norman Wells in the Sahtu, to be a point of location for the Food Mail Program. My understanding right now is that Yellowknife and Inuvik are the points of location for this Food Mail Program. It would make a huge difference if Norman Wells would be considered strongly to be a point of location for distributing the Food Mail Program.

Our government and the Department of Transportation are not actually involved in the review. Our involvement has been more to the area of providing some recommendations as to how to improve the program. This is a federal program and is administered by the federal government. There has been actually no date indicated by Minister Strahl as to when this would wrap up. If there is an interest from the standing committee, we certainly can provide that information and let that be known to INAC that there is a request from the standing committee to have a presentation. We can certainly accommodate that if there’s that desire. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding from the federal government and from my notes is that the evaluation that was being looked at by the federal government, it’s taking a long time; actually years in terms of them coming forward with any type of strong recommendations. I think this government, through this Minister and the Cabinet, needs to sit down with the federal government in terms of stating our strong feelings towards this program and implementing some strong changes through the recommendations as to looking at some of the communities in the Northwest Territories.

Can this Minister, through his Cabinet colleagues, suggest that some of these locations such as Norman Wells be a point of distribution for the Food Mail Program? This would make a huge difference in my region in terms of the foods that are available through this program. Again, I urge the Minister that he would carry this strong message to the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is quite right; this review has been a long time in the making. There have been several governments that we have gone through on the federal side to get to this point. As I indicated earlier, our involvement has been basically to provide some recommendations. However, we hear the Member and certainly hear his request to take a stronger role in terms of our involvement. We will request to sit down with Indian Affairs and have a

face-to-face meeting and try to get a better handle on how long this is going to take, what they’re hearing up to now and put forward the recommendations that we think will improve the program. Thank you.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly would applaud the Minister for going the extra mile for the people in the Northwest Territories, especially with the Food Mail Program. Would the Minister commit to the House and the people that next time they have a meeting with Minister Strahl, or communicate with Minister Strahl through writing, would he bring this point up in terms of asking the Minister to put this on the agenda for his next visit to the Northwest Territories in terms of an item that needs to be discussed and to look at making some changes to the Food Mail Program?

We do have 17 communities in the Northwest Territories that participate in this program and it is important for those communities to ensure that we get good results. We will write a letter to the Minister, we will commit to a meeting with the federal officials of INAC to discuss this program, and we will certainly commit to providing that information to the Members. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment today. Easy questions, I hope. I’d like to know whether or not the Minister agrees with me that the NWT should have its own employment insurance board of referees, that it is a void and that that void should be filled.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mr. Speaker, we certainly do provide...Not just us but the federal government does provide those kinds of services throughout the North, whether it be Service Canada offices...Yes, we need to provide all sorts of services that meet the clients throughout the Northwest Territories. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

So if the Minister feels that this service is something that needs to be provided, is he willing to take on this particular issue to bring it to the attention of the federal government and to correct this particular situation? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly we need to identify those Service Canada offices throughout the North, where they are located, and work with them, and if they can expand their services throughout the North. At the same time, I’m willing to certainly deal with the federal government on those kinds of services throughout the North. It could be administered through our offices as well with the appeal services board. Certainly I make a commitment to the Member that I’ll work with my federal counterparts on this particular issue.

Thank you to the Minister for his commitment. I want to emphasize that I’m not referencing Service Canada offices. The thing that is lacking, in my estimation, is that Employment Insurance Canada establishes boards of referees across the country for people to appeal employment insurance applications that are denied.

If the Minister is willing to take on this commitment, which I think he said he was, I’d like to know what kind of a time frame we’d be looking at. When might he be able to report back to the House on progress on this particular issue?

Certainly this has been brought to my attention today, so I’m certainly making a commitment to follow through with the federal government. Certainly as soon as I hear from the federal government, if there’s a positive outcome I’ll certainly be sharing that with the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the last government I questioned the former Minister of ITI, Mr. Brendan Bell at the time, about creating an NWT manufacturing program with the logos. At the time he seemed interested in the idea and it seemed like an idea that the department could create quite simply. I’m going to have questions for the new Minister, our present-day Minister Bob McLeod of ITI. The fact is the manufacturing campaign could help build self-esteem and awareness within our industry amongst our regular, everyday people here in the North.

Would Minister McLeod be willing to look into something like this to create a logo program, as well as a campaign of awareness for northern manufacturing here in the NWT?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re quite experienced in the use of branding for Northwest Territories products and we do use it for NWT arts and crafts. We have very unique arts and crafts and have developed a branding logo that was put in place in 2007. Similarly we have logos for our genuine Mackenzie Valley furs. I think it only makes sense that we would do something similar for NWT manufacturing.

I appreciate the Minister’s response and I thank him for getting into my second question before I get there, which is about the arts program. I think the arts logo is a successful program to help identify products and I would hope they would follow somewhat similar and certainly not make the guidelines overly complicated.

My question to the Minister then is, do you think guidelines could be developed and perhaps a campaign could be launched by the end of summer?

The branding logo for arts was introduced in September 2007. The criteria are not that onerous. They’re for NWT artisans. It helps promote the uniqueness of NWT arts and protects them from copies. For the NWT manufacturing we do have an NWT manufacturing policy as part of the Business Incentive Program. The difficulty with that is to ensure that there are NWT manufacturers using NWT products and resources.