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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the gallery a good constituent of mine, Mr. Amir Suliman. I would also like to welcome all the participants of the youth centre’s conference that’s going on here in Yellowknife. I’m sure their MLAs will stand up and recognize them, but we have I think four or five of them up there that are not from the Northwest Territories and I’ll use this as an opportunity to recognize them: Josy Labbe from Youth Centres Canada, Dale Pearson from Youth Centres Canada, Kevin Morris from Youth Centres Canada, Benjamin Leikin from the City of Ottawa, and Colby Tootoosis from the City of Saskatoon. Welcome to the NWT and welcome to the Assembly.

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

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize constituents of Nahendeh in the gallery here: Mr. Aaron McNabb, executive director of the Deh Cho Friendship Centre in Fort Simpson;

Ms. Breagh Ingarfield from Nahanni Butte; and Ms. Shaylene Moses out of Wrigley. Mahsi cho and welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to welcome everybody here today. I want to especially recognize an inductee to the Hall of Fame, a well-known educator from Fort Providence, Ms. Margaret Field. She’s been working for many years at the school and more recently as an adult educator. She was here as a senior parliamentarian and did a very good job. I want to say congratulations to her. I also wanted to congratulate her on her most recent addition to her clan, her recent grandchild that was born about a month ago.

I also wanted to, since I don’t get very many visitors here, recognize a former resident of Fort Providence, Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew and her husband. I want to say welcome to them, too.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize the delegation of youth at the Tree of Peace conference: Sheena Kochon from Colville Lake, Gloria Gaudet from the community of Deline, Freda Kelly from Gahcho Kue Dene Fort Good Hope community, and Myles Erb, one of the Canol trekkers from Norman Wells.

I also want to recognize Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew and her husband Leon, and to congratulate Ethel on her achievement of being a Hall of Famer in education.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to start by recognizing some members of Weledeh in Ms. Marinier’s class. I’d like to start with Miss Sophie Clark and Miss Grace Clark, Miss Niva Stephenson, Master Kienan Ashton, Master Jack Panayi. Welcome to the House.

I’d also like to add my congratulations to all of the recent inductees into the Education Hall of Fame and thank them for their tremendous work.

I see Father Don Flumerfelt who used to be of Yellowknife -- I’m not sure where he is these days -- in the House. I’d like to recognize him.

Perhaps most importantly I’d like to recognize my mother, Barbara Bromley, resident of Yellowknife and Weledeh and with a bevy of old-time Yellowknifers including Jan Stirling, Ed Jeske and Vivian Squires.

Finally, I’d like to recognize some old friends from Rendezvous Lake: Billy and Eileen Jacobson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize all the nominees to the Education Hall of Fame. In particular I want to recognize Ed Jeske. I’ll have to bow to him every time I see him now with all of his nominations.

Also Ethel Blondin-Andrew, a fellow student at Grandin College for many years, and her husband, Leon Andrew.

Margaret Field, another Fort Providencer from way back.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of constituents from the Great Slave riding. First I’d like to recognize Ms. Jan Stirling. I’d also like to recognize Mr. Mark Bogan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today it is an honour of mine to welcome my uncle, Billy Jacobson and my auntie, Eileen, from Rendezvous Lake in Tuktoyaktuk.

I’d like to welcome Annie Smith, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, and Leon. It’s good to see them.

A constituent from Paulatuk, Lanita Thrasher; and from Sachs Harbour, Jolene Donovan. Welcome to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. It gives me great pleasure today to recognize my wife, Davida, in the gallery today. It’s not very often I get to introduce her. Also with her is my executive assistant, Sue Tkachuk.

I would also like to recognize Father Don in the Chamber today. He’s the parish priest from Hay River. Welcome.

If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.

Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

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

Today I wish to talk about the problem with dust in the Tu Nedhe communities. In Fort Resolution the

hamlet council plans to have the community chipsealed this summer. I understand they have put the money into the plan to chipseal the community. I believe they are looking at the economies of scale and will be working with DOT to have the community chipsealed while Highway No. 6 is being done.

In Lutselk’e the situation is quite different. In Lutselk’e the community plan on paper does not match the actual siting of the residential houses in the community. However, the community does not wish to relocate the houses and would rather have the plan redrawn to match actual sitings of the houses.

In the summer months there is a cloud of dust sitting over Lutselk’e as long as there are vehicles moving around the community. Lutselk’e has just become responsible for the municipal services in the last two or three years. I feel that they could use the support from this government to make it possible to put some dust suppressant on the road this summer or fall.

The Department of MACA must continue to provide support and the logistics of actually getting the product into Lutselk’e and some technical support to apply the product. I have spoken to the SAO and he advises me that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get the work completed this summer without the support of the government.

MACA should not be taking the position that they are no longer responsible for completing capital projects in the communities. What will it take for MACA’s staff to ensure that this project gets completed? The project is very important to the whole community. The community needs the project completed this summer. They have the funding and they need the assistance in the technical aspects of the project, such as the amount of material needed, what preparation work is needed, and the marshalling of the materials and equipment into the community.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Four years ago, it was reported in the Globe and Mail newspaper, the Federation of Municipalities of Canada reported that we needed at least $123 billion to repair or replace municipal infrastructure in Canada. It’s beyond our wildest imagination as to where or how Canada will ever find those resources in today’s economy let alone the Northwest Territories communities. We have gas tax initiatives, community planning and infrastructure funding, and in some places, the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund. However, this is not enough

and will never be enough if we really want to begin doing all that we need to do for the municipal infrastructure.

Some time back, Fort Good Hope and other smaller communities benefited from the GNWT main street chipseal program, which to some people was a great thing. It cut down on the dust and gave people a sense of what a community can expect with government helping with this problem. However, this program was cut and now the community has to take over the program along with other projects. Because of competing priorities, the chipseal has deteriorated and there are giant potholes in the roads of Fort Good Hope. It is in need of much repair.

Mr. Speaker, even four by fours have a difficult time getting out of these giant potholes, let alone a regular pickup. My point, Mr. Speaker, we need to begin to reprofile some of the dollars that will eliminate the dust once and for all and consider advancing discussions with companies like Easy Street to help Fort Good Hope and other communities with potholes. MACA has moved a long way to empower communities with decision-making abilities and it is the right thing to do. However, we all know municipalities are our government, and our government must find the solutions to settle the dust once and for all, or at least get out of the potholes. I think so, my community leaders think so, and this government should also help us in this solution. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On January 26th of this year the Premier of the

Northwest Territories signed an agreement-in-principle on devolution of public lands and resources to the Government of the Northwest Territories from the federal government.

On February 2, 2011, I held my regular constituency meeting for residents of the Great Slave riding. I hold one prior to every session. One of the issues which was discussed at length during that meeting was the recent AIP on devolution in the Northwest Territories. Clearly, there are many varied opinions out there on this topic. To that end, during the meeting I agreed with a request from one of my constituents to poll my constituents to get a sense of where they stand on this important issue.

As such, immediately after the winter session I set up a poll on my website asking a few devolution-related questions. I notified all of my constituents by way of my regular newsletters and included references on my website and did a public news

release, as well. Although my focus for the poll was on my constituents’ input, I did open the poll to all residents of the Northwest Territories so I could include their thoughts and their input. Here are the questions and the results:

Question one was: Do you support the transfer of management of Crown lands and a share of resource revenue from the federal government to the GNWT and Aboriginal government?

Out of 67 individual responses, 82 percent, or 55, said yes; 18 percent, or 12 people, said no.

The second question was: Do you support the GNWT in moving forward with the negotiations of a final devolution agreement?

Out of 66 individual responses, 42 percent, or 28 individuals, said yes, but make every reasonable effort to include all Aboriginal governments and organizations in the negotiations; 35 percent, or 23 individuals, said yes, commencing with negotiations with the existing signatories; and 23 percent, or 15 individuals, said no.

The third question was: Do you support the GNWT signing a final agreement on devolution?

Out of 71 individual responses, 30 percent, or 21 people, said yes, with the existing signatories; 27 percent, or 19, said yes, with a signed bilateral agreement between the GNWT and the federal government; 17 percent, or 12, said yes, only if at least 50 percent of recognized Aboriginal governments and organizations will also sign; 14 percent, or 10, said yes, only if all recognized Aboriginal governments and organizations agreed to sign on as well; 12 percent, or 9 people, said no.

Mr. Speaker, during the winter session, in response to questions from Members, the Premier agreed to meet with interested parties throughout the Northwest Territories to provide information and clarity on what devolution of public…

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Speaker, during the winter session, in response to questions from Members, the Premier agreed to meet with interested parties throughout the Northwest Territories to provide both information and clarity on what devolution of public lands and resources means to the Northwest Territories.

To that end, this evening the Yellowknife MLAs will be holding a public information session for all residents of Yellowknife with the Premier of the Northwest Territories. This will be an opportunity for all Yellowknife residents to ask the Premier their questions about devolution, and an opportunity for all Yellowknife MLAs to hear what Yellowknifers think about this important topic.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing many Yellowknife residents in the Great Hall of the Legislative Assembly this evening starting at 7 p.m. for this meeting. Thank you.

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