As I’ve indicated many times, the authority for staffing has been delegated down to individual departments, and the majority of competitions are filled through the staffing process and they’re posted on our websites. We are moving to e-Recruit and all of the jobs that we advertise will be on e-Recruit.

With regard to the deputy minister level positions, that is under the authority of the Premier. The Premier decides if he wants to put it out to competition or if he feels that we have sufficient people who are qualified to do it within the public service. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to once again thank the Minister responsible for ITI for working with NWT Tourism and developing a meeting and conference planner for 2011. It’s a great first step. It’s a great document. I’m wondering if the Minister will commit to taking that second step, which is to find some finances to provide some financial benefit or incentive to local businesses, organizations or associations who convince southern institutions, southern businesses to come up north for conferences and meetings. It’s a great place to have a meeting. What are we going to do to help our businesses bring them up? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this issue, because it’s very important for us to continue to find ways to attract visitors to the Northwest Territories. As the Member indicated, there has been a significant decline in the business traveller sector of visitors to the Northwest Territories. With the reduced airfares, especially to Yellowknife, we have a significant increase in the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories; but in the business traveller category,

the numbers have decreased by 22 percent, which is a significant number. The dollars that represents is $16.5 million, so anything we can do to increase the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories, we will certainly look seriously at. Thank you.

That’s good news. What I’m looking for is something similar to what’s happening in the Yukon. They have an incentive program that’s available to associations when those associations bring their national and international counterparts to come to the Yukon for conferences. I’m not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination would we spend the kind of money they are, but there are still advantages. A little bit of money can go a long way. Has the Minister had his department explore the possibility of providing some sort of small financial benefit or incentive to our local associations when they go out and encourage their national and international counterparts to come north, anywhere in the North, for conferences and/or business meetings? Let’s get some of that $16.5 million back. Thank you

In follow-up to the questioning by the Member, I did ask my Tourism Marketing Advisory Committee to look at ways to provide financial incentives, and in their view they feel that with the discounts that are offered by hotels and airlines and the promotional items that can be provided by local businesses, that that might be sufficient. I like the idea of looking at what the Yukon is doing. We do already provide a certain level of financial incentives through our SEED program. Thank you.

I’m happy the Minister is going to be looking into that. I would say what his advisors are telling him may not exactly be working, because we have experienced a $16.5 million drop in business travel. So once again, I think there’s an advantage to provide small incentives, small financial incentives. We could also go with a base payment with maybe another small fund or amount based on the number it brings, because the more people you bring, the more money you can get. Will the Minister explore the possibility of actually creating an incentive based on the number of people that people can bring up for conferences and business meetings? Thank you.

We are committed to increase the number of business travellers to the North, so we’ll certainly be prepared to look at this area of financial incentives, and we’ll look at what the Yukon is doing, and we’ll also look at how the money that we’re spending through the SEED funding, how that’s working with regard to increasing the number of business travellers. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member’s statement today regarding the Tuk wind project in the community of Tuk, Mr. Speaker, it appears there’s a misunderstanding between the government and the community corporation on the deal to build the wind project in Tuktoyaktuk. Mr. Speaker, I’m wondering what is the Premier and the Minister doing to clear this up and can he help me to get clarity so this project can go forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the wind turbines is one that we’ve been watching as the discussions have been ongoing about purchasing power back through to the Power Corporation. We will continue to monitor that. If the requirement is if there’s call about providing additional information, we will commit to doing that and see what we can do to help have all the appropriate information so that the community can make the right decision. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, other communities in Nunakput have consistent winds for this project. If it does not go ahead in Tuk, can we make sure that communities like Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok can go ahead with this wind program on their own under the same project?

Mr. Speaker, of course we are hopeful that a satisfactory approach can be resolved here with the Tuk community and the wind turbine situation. Of course, if that is not able to proceed, we would go back to the Ministers of the Energy Coordinating Committee and relook at that and evaluate where we can do that and reallocate funds to communities that are willing and where we have the studies to show that wind is consistent enough for wind power. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, will the Minister reassure the Power Corporation that this wind program represents no significant cost and risk to the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I will get the information necessary to show the parameters of that project, what it means, the idea. That is why this government is putting capital funds in place to help offset that initial cost. We will get the additional information and provide it to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am hoping this project does not get stalled, because of the 15 to 20 jobs for local hire for this project, where

it is all tight work in our small communities. I just want to make sure that this is going to stabilize our power bills, because we have such high power bills in the communities, so it wouldn’t spike on our coldest months of the year.

Mr. Speaker, will the Minister reallocate the funds again from Tuk to one of the other Nunakput communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, if the situation in the community of Tuk doesn’t correct itself and we find a satisfactory solution there, we would look at the other communities within that area, or around the Territory as a possibility, but we would look at where there is a wind factor. Again, hopefully we could find a satisfactory report on this. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am assuming the Member is talking about homeownership units or public housing units. If it is a homeownership unit, as I stated on a couple of occasions, I have asked the corporation to be a little more flexible on how we allocate the units. The application process is done now, so the regions are just analyzing all the information and then we will be able to do the allocations. Thank you.