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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of a person who has devoted much to improving the lives and situations of people of the North. This January marks the 40th anniversary of Lena Pedersen’s election to the Legislative Assembly.

---Applause

This anniversary is especially noteworthy, because in 1970 Lena was the first woman to be elected to the Assembly, then called the Territorial Council.

Born and raised in Greenland and upon coming to the Northwest Territories in 1959, Lena has lived and worked throughout the North in communities from Coppermine, Pangnirtung and Cape Dorset to Yellowknife and Rae.

The constituency she represented was the Central Arctic, made up of Pelly Bay, Spence Bay, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, Bathurst Inlet, Bay Chimo, Coppermine and Holman. One of Lena’s early accomplishments in the Legislative Assembly was getting funding to build the Kitikmeot boarding home for out-of-town patients to stay at when in Yellowknife for medical care. It is named in her honour. During her term Lena was a member of the Housing Corporation and she chaired a special education report. Getting schools built in communities was a very important goal for her. When she was elected many communities had one-room buildings that taught grades 1 through 5.

Another success of Lena’s is how she was able to get an extension on the airstrip in Coppermine. The project was not in the government’s capital budget, but she was able to come up with a creative solution that involved negotiations with Gulf Oil to support the project financially.

Lena’s community activities involvement did not end with her groundbreaking term in office. Over the years she has worked as a drug and alcohol program coordinator in Kugluktuk, served as a board member for the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and served as a commissioner for Nunavut’s Law

Review Commission. Her activities in Yellowknife have included time spent working at the Yellowknife Women’s Centre, where she has used traditional and cultural and language activities to help the people build their self-esteem and reduce feelings of isolation that some have experienced.

Lena has been a board member for the Native Women’s Association of the NWT, is an active member of the Yellowknife Seniors’ Society and continues to be involved with Bosco Homes Territorial Children’s Treatment Centre. Throughout, Lena has acknowledged that if a person is going to be able to help improve a situation, listening carefully to the people involved is an important first step. She continues to encourage effective and positive communications between and among people, not just elders and youth or politicians and the people they serve.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Lena for all that she has done for the people of the Northwest Territories and the role model that she continues to be.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Twenty years ago when I first decided to put the bottle away, I sat down with an elder in Tulita and this elder and I were walking in Tulita along the streets there and the elder was talking about some of the old people that passed away in our community. The elder bent down on the ground -- it was during summer -- picked up the dirt, put his hand in the dirt and the dirt started falling out. The elder told me, he said, “this dirt,” he said “that’s my relatives, it’s in our blood,” he said, all the dirt falling out of his hand. I didn’t understand what the elder was talking about. The elder was Fred Andrew Sr. The elder was telling me that our relatives that go back into this land, this is our land and that’s where our blood is.

Mr. Speaker, before I came here last Sunday -- we have ceremonies in our communities on Sundays, ceremonies in some of our communities that we go pay respect to the elders and people who passed away over the years in our communities. Some of the elders teaching say that it’s a special day because the angels come on Sunday and they come into the birch trees. That’s where the angels come and that’s where our relatives come to visit us. Sometimes we make fire. Sometimes we cook out there and make offerings to the fire for our relatives.

Mr. Speaker, over the last year in the Sahtu we lost about 16 people, 10 of them were elders. In Deline

we lost Jimmy Mackeinzo; Mary Therese Mackeinzo; my uncle, Adrian Menacho, my auntie, Jane Neyelle; and Margaret Kenny. From Fort Good Hope we lost Eileen and Alfred Orlias, Dorothy Cotchilly -- she raised a blind son by herself, this old lady -- Charlie Gully. We lost some young people also: Tyler Harris, Michael Pierrot, Alana Boniface and Kenda Shae. From Colville Lake we lost a really good elder, Joe Martin Oudzi, and a young trapper named Tommy Kochon. In Norman Wells we lost a young man, Joe Richie.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pay respects to these people and give my condolences to all the people in the Sahtu for their loss and that we pray for them, and that these people here left us some good, strong messages to continue on our life. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to all the other people who we have lost, people in the Northwest Territories, we certainly pray for them also. Mahsi cho.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, greetings to you and all my colleagues, as once again we gather in the House to do important business. Today I begin by reviewing my perspectives and some priorities for this session.

Caribou play a central role in the life of most Northerners, and we are facing some dire situations resulting from a failure to manage this resource properly. We must stop herd declines and build cooperative conservation while political issues get resolved through separate discussions.

As economic recovery has begun in the North, I see the need for renewed focus on economic diversification that will provide more stability for the northern economy at less environmental cost.

Development of biomass projects for heating could be major support to local economies providing labour intensive business development and replacing fossil fuels with clean energy. Enhanced fisheries and agriculture have roles to play. Avalon Minerals’ Nechalacho rare earth metals project and Fortune Minerals’ NICO proposal present regional development opportunities. Maximum benefits will only result if we insist on local renewable energy and human resources for sustainable development.

We have many independent programs for people living in poverty, but we do not have a comprehensive, coordinated and cross-departmental poverty reduction strategy. Other jurisdictions are realizing significant achievements with this approach. As I highlighted last session, we need an NWT anti-poverty strategy.

Our archaic approach to energy supply, with its missed opportunities, must end. Let’s take the

NTPC and rate reviews and build an intelligent energy future. Small hydro developments can serve our communities and replace costly fossil fuel power with clean and cheaper energy.

An ambitious and fully implemented biomass strategy is another good step. Meaningful progress on Taltson hydro could contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, extend the life and sustainability of our diamond mines and promote success of aboriginal corporations. It is abundantly clear that we must set and plan to meet science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the results of the housing subsidy review and the housing needs surveys. We must use this information to make immediate improvements in the quality, cost and accessibility of public housing. I see the need for new revenues to help with housing costs. It is not too early…

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

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

---Unanimous consent granted.

It is not too early at all to see the implementation of the Heritage Fund. The public and Members are calling for full value from resource revenues and saving some of these funds to build a future. Resources and revenues leave the NWT faster each year. Mines pay down their development costs in no time, yielding huge profits. A revised resource revenue tax is a simple, quick answer to our years of complaint over lost revenues.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Joint Review Panel’s report on the Mackenzie Gas Project highlights issues of government capacity and oversight. The panel said all of its recommendations must be met if the project is to go ahead. There is enormous work to be done quickly if we are to responsibly contribute to the next stage in realizing the panel’s vision of a truly sustainable development project. Mahsi.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to send an invitation to all the residents of the Northwest Territories to mark on their calendar that they will make an attempt to visit the community of Aklavik and celebrate with them on their 100th anniversary;

more importantly, to take the time to realize a part of the Northwest Territories which most people have never been to or have never had the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, the opportunity is now. Celebrate the 100th anniversary with the people of

Aklavik. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Lena Pedersen, a former Member of the Legislature and a constituent of the Great Slave riding.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize our two interns who are here in the gallery from the Department of Justice. Mr. Blake Buckle and Emily Ingarfield are here with us. Welcome. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s my honour to recognize the parents, or at least the mother, of my esteemed colleague Mr. Abernethy, the wonderful Loretta Abernethy, a constituent of Weledeh. Welcome.

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

…the Gameti Land Corporation president, Mr. Peter Menacho from Deline.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Mr. Larry Elkin and his wife, Cappy. Mr. Elkin is a very long-time deputy minister with the Government of the Northwest Territories. He commented to me the other day that he had a letter of thanks from 40 years ago for intervening at the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline hearing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize the Elkin family, Cappy and Larry. I know they watch our Assembly quite regularly on television, as well as follow our proceedings quite closely through the community. I suspect that they are not here just to watch us. Their granddaughter, who also is a Yellowknife Centre constituent, Paige Elkin is here to help us today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.