Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this government has recognized the need to reduce our environmental impacts, our cost of living by moving away from fossil fuels and mitigating climate change.

In fact, we’ve said we are going to dedicate $60 million over the next few years to energy initiatives. We have already started on the installation of biomass heating systems, wood pellet boilers and so on. We are looking at wood gasification. Mr. Speaker, every single community in the NWT is required to have an energy plan by 2010. They are working frantically to complete those and you will notice a lot of consultants throughout the Territory from down south working on this.

Mr. Speaker, in May of last year, the Standing Committee on Social Programs recommended that we get going on a Renewable Energy Technician Program at Aurora College and a Sustainable Communities Program to develop the expertise we need here.

The Alberta Energy Plan, which just came out, in every section of that plan they highlight the need to develop the professionals and the expertise needed to achieve their goals. Mr. Speaker, where are our efforts in this area?

We know that expertise is needed in areas like home energy retrofits which we are embarking on through the Housing Corporation and so on in the area of renewable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass energy and, of course, the whole area of energy efficiency that can enter all aspects of our community systems and homes.

Mr. Speaker, we know that there are hundreds or thousands of opportunities for replacing fossil fuel systems or enhancing them with renewable energy systems throughout the NWT with attractive payback times of one to seven years. Solar hot water heating is an example of that, biomass space heating, et cetera.

Where are our programs to meet these training needs, Mr. Speaker? We’ve raised this before. There are so many opportunities out there. I am aware of training programs across Canada in communities or jurisdictions like New Brunswick, a number of community colleges: Seneca College Native Education Centre, Landon College, and other areas. Clearly there is a current and accelerating need for expertise and…

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, colleagues. Clearly there is a current and accelerating need for expertise in community energy systems, energy efficiency and renewable energy, both for technical planning, administrative and government purposes. Let’s get these training programs on the ground now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we all got elected to the 16th Assembly

from our constituents who gave us the direction to represent them in this House regardless of who they voted for or who they didn’t vote for. I think, Mr. Speaker, we have to ensure that we represent all our constituents in this Legislature and not just one group over another.

Mr. Speaker, we all have similar problems regardless of whether it’s in our larger centres or communities; the issue with regard to health and social services and delivery of programs and services. We cannot pit one group off against the other.

Mr. Speaker, the Inuvik region expends some $13 million with regard to health care, but in a lot of the communities I represent, a lot of these services that are being paid for by this government are not being delivered.

Mr. Speaker, to take an example, this government spends in the area of mental health and addictions $1.2 million in the Inuvik region. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I had to beg the Minister of Health to get money into my community so we could fill that position and not have the money sitting in the Inuvik board of health office to send someone to my community once a

month. Mr. Speaker, there again it shows that this government is not listening.

Mr. Speaker, the budget for mental health in Fort McPherson is $184,000. The Minister is committed to give the community $75,000, again shortchanging the community. Mr. Speaker, I, for one, will not take the injustice with regard to programs and services or even with regard to how capital is being allocated by this government. I think it’s very much underhandedly driven. I think it’s important that we sit down with those organizations and work with them and not work against them by using policy decisions or saying sorry you don’t have a qualified position or you don’t have a business case.

Mr. Speaker, I am still frustrated after yesterday’s events, but I think this government has to do something more than little gestures to say here, I’ll write you a letter and give it to the chair of the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority and see if they react to it. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has to do more than sending out a letter.

Mr. Krutko, your time for your Member’s statement has expired.

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time I will be asking the Minister of Health and Social Services what action has been taken with regard to her letter.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I am speaking again on water treatment facility deficiencies in Sachs Harbour.

Mr. Speaker, I have always supported drinking tap water to eliminate the unnecessary use of bottled water. But for the community of Sachs Harbour, it would be irresponsible to do so.

I have spoken about the boil water advisory and the water treatment facility problems in Sachs Harbour recently. This problem is so important for the people of Sachs Harbour it must be mentioned again and again.

Mr. Speaker, when I think of Sachs Harbour now, I think about the water treatment plant. According to

leadership in the community, the water treatment facility is the only type still in Canada and it’s so problematic, when parts are needed they must come from the United States or other parts of the world. I believe the primary responsibility of this government is to provide basic necessities of life to the residents of the Northwest Territories. I also believe the water is one of those necessities, so I can say I don’t…Sorry. So I can understand why this government is taking so long to resolve this problem with the water treatment facility. With the cost of electricity, boiling water in Sachs Harbour is not only time consuming, but is also costly.

This is another issue with a long list of disparages between small isolated communities like Sachs Harbour and larger centres.

Mr. Speaker, I know the Minister of MACA and his predecessor have forwarded me correspondence on this issue and I greatly appreciate that. But the frustration of the community is still boiling over, no pun intended.

---Laughter

The cost is escalating year after year. According to the community members, it makes more cost saving sense to just replace the entire facility.

Why is MACA so persistent in signing over the water treatment plant to the community when there are so many problems unresolved?

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Why is MACA so committed to trying to sign this program over to the community? The proper way has always been to fix the problem, develop a plan. This will ensure the problems won’t occur again. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions for the Minister of MACA at the appropriate time. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are times when people believe very strongly that government has made a decision that is wrong, bad and even sometimes can be described as unfair and unbalanced. There have been numerous cases over the years where MLAs have had difficulty getting full information about circumstances and to be able to get to the bottom of an issue because

often we hit a wall when the reply comes back as this is an internal decision and the details cannot be pursued further due to reasons related to internal management, confidentiality, et cetera.

Mr. Speaker, some of those reasons are fair, and I can respect that, but not all. There are cases out there, for example, when a person has a concern with a staffing issue, whether it was fair or not, the UNW and the government have an appeal mechanism for people to use. Even income support assistance has an appeal board where applicants can have their chance to request their concern to be reviewed. Conversely though, if a person is denied public housing there is no available appeal mechanism. What’s typically left is the person has to request their MLA to write to the department to get the Minister to go back and review the earlier decision. Guess what happens. The person who just said no goes back to their notes to say no again.

Mr. Speaker, I believe there’s a straightforward process and a solution that we could move forward to help our constituents and our people of the North. Many provinces across Canada including the Yukon have established an ombudsman. An ombudsman is an independent and objective investigator who follows up on people’s complaints. Mr. Speaker, they take into consideration the privacy issues and are able to balance them in a fair, respectful and certainly an objective way. The ombudsman can help all parties understand the differences and help resolve the decision and find a solution. This ombudsman could be a statutory officer, of which we have several, and they could be accountable to the government as are other statutory officers, Mr. Speaker, such as we have access to information, privacy protection, language and human rights. We also have ombudsman who could deal with various...Sorry. I’ll have questions for the Premier later today.

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

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about business development in Tu Nedhe. Mr. Speaker, today I wish to talk about the need for this government to increase support to communities in the area of business development. Mr. Speaker, in Tu Nedhe we have very few small businesses and very few government and private industry jobs. The people of Tu Nedhe can work in the traditional economy by hunting and trapping; however, that is never enough to sustain a family for the full year. Mr. Speaker, the current alternatives are few and many

families need income support to make ends meet. However, Mr. Speaker, this government may be able to help these small businesses by stepping up their support for development of small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, currently the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment along with the Business Development and Investment Corporation are mandated to develop businesses across the North. For various reasons, Mr. Speaker, the system does not seem to work. Mr. Speaker, any time you have an organization that is set up to rely on another organization to complete their work for them but have no authority over that organization, it doesn’t work well. Currently, the Business Development and Investment Corporation is responsible for small business development or business development, however, they have to ask the ITI regional staff to complete community work for them. At this time the structure does not work. Mr. Speaker, these types of organizational structures usually do not work. The ITI staff have their own work and staff tend to do the work that is directed by their supervisors and not a corporation that has no direct authority over them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I was on the phone this morning with the president of the Inuvik Minor Hockey Association, Mr. Les Skinner, and he informed me that he’d received a call the other day from Canadian North asking him if he could find 10 kids to bring down to Edmonton to take part in an Oilers game. After some negotiating, Mr. Skinner managed to get 16 nine and 10-year-old kids down to Edmonton. Canadian North in partnership with the Edmonton Oilers...

They get to go down to Rexall Place, they’ll practice tomorrow with the Oiler coaching staff, and tomorrow night they’re going to be part of the honour guard. They’ll get to go into the dressing room and meet the players. They’re also going to be on the after-hours show, again, I think that’s the game tomorrow night that’s televised on CBC.

Our colleague from Frame Lake pointed out to one of the corporate citizens sponsoring the basketball tournament this weekend and I think we don’t do enough to acknowledge the corporate citizenship across the Northwest Territories who put a lot of money into giving these kids an opportunity which a lot of them may not have had if not for this. I think we should acknowledge the work of Canadian

North in bringing these kids down and the Edmonton Oilers for taking time out in their busy day to mingle with the kids. I’ve always said that anything we do for children across the Northwest Territories, if we could make a difference in the life of one child across the Northwest Territories then anything we have done will have been worth it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Colleagues, it’s my pleasure today to introduce a constituent of mine in the gallery today, Karen Bouchard. She’s here as a chaperone for two lovely young ladies that are here paging for us this week from Hay River North, Desiree Bouchard and Chantel Beck. Both of these gals are students from Ecole Boreale in Hay River. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize my wife, Judy, who’s down here for a few days taking a course and visiting me. I’m trying to talk a little longer until she comes right around the corner there. She’s not quite in there yet but she’ll appear shortly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 6, acknowledgements. No acknowledgements today. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is government’s position that anything that we do

decide to turn over to the communities has to be in top working order before it’s turned over. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.