Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome back to the Chamber. Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise my colleagues today that

despite

the

global

economic downturn we are

experiencing, sales

figures from

the January

Fur

Harvesters Auction sale indicate that demand is still strong for Northwest Territories fur sold under the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur label.

The total value of fur sold in January was $90,000 CDN with marten, fisher and beaver pelts fetching the highest prices.

The top price paid

for marten was $161 per pelt with an average price overall

of $103.

The

best price paid for NWT

beaver was $63 with an average overall price of just under $24.

These prices give us reason for cautious optimism as we look forward to the upcoming March sale.

Mr. Speaker, these strong results are a reflection of many years of promotion, support and training facilitated by our government to Northwest Territories trappers through the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Program.

The Government of the Northwest Territories is, in fact, one of very few governments in the world that actively supports the harvesting and marketing of wild fur as a fundamental component of a modern and thriving economy.

By linking time-honoured traditions and practices with an increased understanding of today’s markets and its demands, we have been able to ensure and maintain a high level of product excellence. We have seen the quality and demand of Northwest Territories furs at auction increase. Fur from the Northwest Territories is now recognized as some of the finest wild fur in North America.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and

Investment, in partnership with the Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Fur Harvesters Auction completed a number of trapper training workshops in Fort Providence, Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution and Fort Liard. The turnout for these annual sessions was excellent and the information and training provided was well received.

Similar sessions have been held in other areas of the Northwest Territories in previous years. Next year, the communities in the Inuvik region will be provided similar trapper training workshops.

In recent weeks we have also taken steps to broaden consumer demand and markets for Genuine Mackenzie Valley Furs. With support from the federal government’s Strategic Investments in Northern Economic Development program, SINED, we have been successful in looking beyond our traditional market base in Canada, Europe and the United States, we are now promoting Northwest Territories wild fur at fur and fashion tradeshows in Beijing, Hong Kong and Milan.

Mr. Speaker, the ongoing support and success that the Northwest Territories fur industry has experienced in the international marketplace has and will continue to be reflected in the benefits that are being returned to our trappers and their communities.

It bodes well for our government's strategic priority to pursue growth and diversification in the Northwest Territories economy, but most importantly for the trapping industry in the North, which was almost completely devastated just a few short years ago. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, graduation numbers from across the Northwest Territories continue to rise, and while we don’t yet have the graduation rates confirmed for 2008, I am pleased to say that the graduation numbers are up again. This is worth celebrating, but there is still work to do in supporting our Northern students to achieve their full potential and succeed in education.

Data gathered by ECE over the last 10 years shows a steady increase in graduation rates for all NWT students. In 1998, 39 percent of NWT students graduated compared to 57 percent in 2007. In 1998, 20 percent of aboriginal students graduated compared to 65 percent of non aboriginal students. Ten years later in 2007, 44 percent of aboriginal students graduated compared with 70 percent of non-aboriginal students. The gap has narrowed slightly but we must continue to further improve these results. Although the NWT has the highest graduation rates for aboriginal students in Canada, we have more work to do.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment has begun work on an Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative to find the root causes and solutions to eliminating this gap in student success.

We already know some of the barriers to student success in the NWT. Our students are absent from school an average of one day a week, more than 30 days a year. A student who misses two days of school a month, or 20 days a year starting in Grade 1 will have missed the equivalent of a full year of schooling by grade 10. A student in that situation would not be working at a grade level that he or she could be working at and would be reducing their choices and options that can affect their future. We all need to work together to find ways to get our students to class so they can maximize their potential.

Mr. Speaker, literacy is also an issue in the NWT. Our students need opportunities to focus on their literacy skills, not only in the classroom, but also at home and in their communities. The recently released NWT Literacy Strategy focuses on literacy development in early childhood, and in youth. The work of the Literacy Strategy will be well aligned with this initiative.

The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is coming at the right time. The Dene, the Inuvialuit, and the Metis all have a strong commitment to improving the educational success of Northerners. The Council of Ministers of Education Canada will be meeting with national and regional aboriginal leaders later this month to find solutions to the same achievement gap at a national level.

Creating good schools and an environment that values learning and rewards hard work cannot be the sole responsibility of educators. It requires the cooperative efforts of the entire community. The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative seeks to bring our communities together to build a better future for our northern students. As we move forward with this initiative, I look forward to sharing more of what we learn and how we are able to make positive changes. Mahsi.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Michael Miltenberger will be absent from the House today to attend the Ministers of the Environment meeting in Whitehorse. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk today about the residents of Tuktoyaktuk who are being burdened with the high cost of living. They are not able to benefit from some of the initiatives the government has taken to help our other communities. Recently, petroleum products division adjusted their fuel prices downwards to ensure that residents in smaller communities would see lower prices, just as residents from many larger communities are seeing lower costs at the gas pumps. However, a private contractor provides the fuel services in Tuk and he was resupplied by barges, Mr. Speaker, this past summer when the fuel prices were at the highest cost, at the highest prices.

Gas costs in Tuk are $1.69 at the pump for a litre of gasoline. Home heating fuel is at $1.44 a litre. In Inuvik, people are now paying $1.27 a litre and their

gas truck is being resupplied by private contractor and is resupplied by trucks down the Dempster Highway.

The Minister can be pleased with himself that he reduced fuel costs in some of the communities. Another Minister can be pleased because he’s predicting there will be a new energy source for closer communities in the future. That’s all great, but right now the residents in Tuk are being hammered by very high costs; high power bills, high gas bills, high food bills. They don’t see the government doing very much to help.

I have heard that there is a Strategic Initiative Committee on the cost of living which is chaired by Minister Lee. Perhaps the Minister should take some time to live in Tuk for awhile and maybe she could get some ideas on the community’s high costs of fuel. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member’s statement today is about the condition of the highway from the Alberta/NWT border to Hay River. The Minister, when I told him I was going to do a statement on this, asked me not to mention the outhouses. It would be hard to mention them because I don’t think there are any on that particular stretch of highway.

---Laughter

Much to my disappointment.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, from the border to Hay River, you can tell when you cross the border from Alberta into the NWT. I don’t know if the roads are constructed differently, if they are made out of different materials, but there is a marked difference and I have heard that this is also the case if you are passing from Alberta into Saskatchewan. But, Mr. Speaker, I am not an MLA in Saskatchewan so I’m not going to worry about their problems.

When you come across into the Territories, the speed limit drops from 100 down to 90. That is one measure that we took to address the conditions. The shoulders disappear. They aren’t even sharp shoulders. There are just no shoulders. And, Mr. Speaker, no more roadside turnouts either.

Probably most obvious is the condition of the road itself during the winter. Just this past week again,

the daughter of a constituent coming home for the weekend from Grande Prairie got to around the falls and hit an unexpected patch of ice. I saw the vehicle, Mr. Speaker, and it is obvious that it bounced from snowbank to snowbank like a pinball and the damage was extensive on the front and on the back and, by the grace of God, the occupants of the vehicle were not injured.

Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that accidents don’t occur south of our border, but in the winter there is almost always this marked difference in the condition of the road when you hit that border. I am not sure of all the reasons, but we must do things differently in terms of our road maintenance.

I will have questions for the Minister about this during question period today. Do we have different plow trucks than they have in Alberta? Do we not apply certain products to our road that they apply in Alberta? I don’t know what they put on the roads; salt, calcium.

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that we cannot control the weather, but I think we must do everything in our power to try to make our roads safe for the travelling public, and later in question period I will have questions for the Minister of Transportation on how we can enhance this. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on some questions asked by my colleague from Yellowknife Centre during Committee of the Whole last week. Specifically questions on the lack of health professional legislation in the Northwest Territories.

Currently the number of health providers working within the NWT are not required to have an NWT licence. In some cases, such as chiropractors, massage therapists, and naturopathic doctors, there is no legislation or regulations that ensure that individuals providing these services are adequately trained to meet certain safety requirements before they can legally provide their brand of services in the Northwest Territories.

Last year I asked the Minister of Health and Social Services a number of questions on this topic. At that time, I was informed by the Minister that the department was investigating the feasibility of umbrella legislation that would accommodate various health professions rather than stand-alone legislation for each profession. That makes sense

to me. Other jurisdictions with similar challenges as the NWT currently have this type of umbrella legislation. The Yukon is one example.

Implementing umbrella legislation in the NWT should be pursued. Unfortunately we have an extensive list of legislative initiatives to pursue within the GNWT and the Minister indicated that although it’s on the list of legislation to be pursued and researched, this particular legislation is not high on the priority list and we won’t likely see it come forward during the life of the 16th Legislative

Assembly.

I understand workload and setting priorities, however, we also have to acknowledge that things change. In December 2008, the Ministers of Labour across Canada signed an enhanced Labour Mobility Agreement that would be implemented on April 1st , 2009. In January 2009 the Premiers

ratified the changes. The revised labour mobility chapter of the Agreement on Internal Trade provides that any worker certified for an occupation by regulatory authority in one province or territory is to be recognized as qualified for that occupation by all other provinces and territories where that occupation is regulated. Without legislation regulating these professions, the enhanced mobility provided by this new enhanced labour mobility could make the NWT a less attractive place for these professionals to work as they can have their credentials recognized almost everywhere else in the country except the Northwest Territories.

To me the changes to the enhanced Labour Mobility Agreement are a reason for the Minister of Health and Social Services to reconsider the department’s legislative priorities and move forward with umbrella legislation for health professionals. We can’t afford to lose these professionals.

At the appropriate time I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about the traditional economy in the Sahtu region. Trapping is alive and well in the Sahtu region. The Sahtu region is quickly becoming recognized as the top region in the Northwest Territories for total value of fur being harvested. Thirty-eight percent of the total value of furs in the Northwest Territories comes from the Sahtu. The top producing community in the Sahtu is Colville Lake, followed by Fort Good Hope, Deline, Tulita, and Norman Wells. The total amount of Sahtu fur being harvested for 2008 and 2009 is estimated to

contribute up to half a million dollars to the local economy in the Sahtu region. Some trappers in Colville Lake will be earning over $40,000 this winter and trappers as young as age 12 have earned income from harvesting fur this year.

The trappers in the region are the Kochon family in Colville Lake, followed by the Jackson and Pierrot family in Fort Good Hope. The top young trapper in the region lives in Colville Lake, but youth from all over the Sahtu have shown increased interest in trapping this year.

The Sahtu is home to the prize Anderson River marten, which is used across the world for making high-priced garments, including major fashion centres in the Far East, Russia, the Middle East, and Europe. Trappers in the Sahtu consistently get the top price for marten at the fur auctions.

ITI and ENR staff have noticed that a large increase of the youth that have gone trapping are due to the ITI Take a Kid Trapping program, which involves 51 students from Tulita, Deline, Fort Good Hope, and Norman Wells. The number of part-time and full-time trappers in the Sahtu are about 225, 20 percent being elders, 14 percent being youth under the age of 18, and 10 percent being female.

The top fur being harvested is marten, followed by fox, wolves, beavers, and wolverine. For example, Take a Kid Trapping program has been very successful in communities like Colville Lake where there’s approximately 28 kids from Grade 2 to Grade 12 who are working in this program. Students who own their own traplines, students who are raising money to take trips to Europe. If the Sahtu region continues to do as well as they are this year, they are expected to break the record of harvest produced in terms of dollars.

I’d like to say that the Sahtu region and other regions like that, we certainly support people going on the land and that trapping is alive and well in the Northwest Territories, especially in the Sahtu.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I`d like to speak today about the Deh Cho Bridge project. For the second year in a row, this government has failed to mention anything about the Deh Cho Bridge in the Finance Minister’s annual budget address. Like last year, I again find that this is a peculiar omission.

The Deh Cho Bridge project is the largest single piece of public infrastructure to ever be built in the

Northwest Territories. At $165 million this is a project that one would think the GNWT would be proud of.

According to the government, this $165 million bridge is going to reduce the cost of living. If it is true, why would the government leave that out of the budget address when the cost of living is the single biggest issue facing our residents?

With tolls being applied on all truck traffic, I still don’t know or understand how this could ever be possible. Everything that is transported across that bridge will cost more when it lands in the North Slave communities and any other community that these goods are flown into.

The bridge is being built and because of decisions of the last government, we are going to have to, beginning in 2010-2011, take our $1.8 million we currently use for ferry operations and ice crossing construction and maintenance, plus an additional $2 million on top of that because of the price increasing to $165 million, for a total of $3.8 million indexed every year for the next 35 years. This doesn’t include the cost of administration and collection of tolls, which is going to cost this government another $700,000 to $800,000 per year. With the recent economic downturn, the amount of truck traffic crossing this bridge may not meet the original financial projections, which would leave the GNWT having to pay even more for the bridge on an annual basis.

Questions and rumours abound on the bridge project. Is it going to be constructed on time and on budget? What about all the rumours of lawsuits, people not getting paid, and cost overruns? Where exactly is the GNWT exposed financially in all of these areas?

The deal itself was signed off on a Friday afternoon three days prior to the last election. A year ago, the Premier made a commitment in this House to do a post-mortem on how and why this decision was made. I have not forgotten about this commitment and I look forward to the Premier tabling this post-mortem in this House at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

This weekend in Lutselk’e, the community is very saddened with the passing of Mr. Laurence Catholique. He was only 52 years old, a very well-

respected man, who passed away well before his time.

Mr. Catholique was considered to be one of the spiritual leaders of the community. Laurence lived a very healthy life. He was a non-smoker, non-drinker, and he was a big help to many community members. He will be very dearly missed by the people of Lutselk’e, especially his father, Pierre, his brothers, Herman, Joseph, Henry, his sister, Mary Jane, and her family.

Just one month ago, I had an opportunity to spend a couple hours with Laurence and his father, Pierre, as they were driving around town and he was helping his father get some groceries together before he put him on the plane. As I dropped him off, I was thinking that for a 52-year-old man with such tremendous ambition it was hard to imagine anybody who looked so good for 52 and seemed to live such a healthy lifestyle. It’s very sad. I’m very sad myself to hear of the passing of Mr. Laurence Catholique.

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

Today I want to draw attention to several long-standing concerns about the Stanton Territorial Hospital. First, Mr. Speaker, Stanton is a gem of our health care system and the quality of health care is not the issue. But as many people know very well, Stanton has had problems with cleanliness and poor housekeeping ever since it was privatized. New CEOs and new public administrators have been appointed and they have all come and gone over the years but the problem still remains. The present contractor is not able to find qualified employees and retain qualified employees to a consistent level to deal with this problem. As a result, the cleanliness of the hospital is left to deteriorate. Sometimes the contractor has been put on notice, but with a lack of results. Sometimes it has led to short-term effects with positive results.

However, that kind of performance is not acceptable at a hospital, Mr. Speaker. The public expectation out there is that a hospital is expected to be one of the cleanest places on the earth. But, Mr. Speaker, is that 100 percent realistic? I’m not here to say. But, Mr. Speaker, patients at our hospital expect the rooms to be clean and safe. The bottom line is they don’t need to be put in additional danger because of dirty floors and washrooms and they certainly don’t need to have a family member

show up to clean those bathrooms and empty those trash cans.

Perhaps Stanton needs to move back to an in-house service. Perhaps Stanton needs to terminate the current contract and find someone who understands these needs. Either way, Stanton needs to find a permanent solution, not a temporary one. I hope the Minister can tell me what they are doing to ensure that the health of our citizens is not being jeopardized.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I want to point out the absence of effective security provisions at Stanton. There have been numerous incidents over the years where disturbed and sometimes violent people have caused significant problems and jeopardized the health and safety of our patients while they are getting much needed health care. Most recently, an inmate managed to get into a patient’s room while he was looking for a washroom. I can’t imagine how vulnerable and trapped this lady felt; a senior with nowhere to run.

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to imagine that this inmate was in her room disturbing her while she was there. The stress on her and her family was significant. Mr. Speaker, I hope that each and every one of these security incidents is carefully reviewed by the senior management team at the hospital and they certainly find actionable ways to deal with this so it is not repeated. Mr. Speaker, I’d rather be complaining about the lack of services here today and the lack of response today than hopefully someday that we never have to talk about how we could let this happen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

People in Nahendeh have been hearing a lot of fiddle music this winter. Today I would like to tell you about how learning to play the fiddle has provided recreation to our communities and it has helped our youth develop confidence from their achievements and leadership skills in helping others. I am referring to the achievements of the Kole Crook Fiddle Association that has got hundreds of youth interested in developing a passion for music and fiddling. This has come about through the efforts of volunteers, parents, teachers, students and board members. It was made possible by grants provided by the Municipal and Community Affairs, the NWT Art Society and the Dehcho Board of Education.

A fiddle has four strings and the Kole Crook Fiddle Association has a string of four programs. One

program is teaching tours. Two expert fiddlers have been touring this fall and winter and sharing their skills in 12 communities. There were six students in Kakisa, 38 in Fort Liard. In all there were 168 students involved. Some of these fiddlers studied during school hours and also at sessions with adults and in the evenings and on weekends. There were classes for both beginners and advanced students.

In November in Fort Simpson, the fiddle teachers were weathered in and students were lucky enough to have lessons every day for a week. On Friday they entertained at an assembly and on Saturday there was a fiddle jam and dance at the Bompas gym.

The second program is the annual fiddle jamboree. It was held in Fort Simpson last month. Six instructors taught 95 fiddle students who came from Wrigley, Fort Providence, Jean Marie River, Yellowknife, Hay River and Behchoko. Two nimble fingered students, Mr. Wesley Hardisty and Miss Elissa Hazenberg, who is paging for us this week, Mr. Speaker, participated as teacher aids.

Starting on Friday, January 9th , it was a week of

classes, fiddle repair, jigging and a Saturday night fiddle jam and dance. There is also a highly anticipated fiddle summer camp that has been offered since 2003.

The fourth is training for trainers to help our fiddlers become teachers.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Thank you, colleagues. It seems that the Kole Crook Fiddle Association has struck a chord with our people. Success like this comes from people working together, teachers in our schools, volunteers helping with the events, parents encouraging their children, the fiddlers themselves and the hard-working board of association. I am proud that the government is funding this worthwhile program and equally proud of our parents and volunteers. Mahsi cho.