Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is the Inuvialuit tradition respecting our elders and people who have passed away. It’s very important to me. I always start off my Member’s statements with paying respect to the people who have passed away and their families and friends.

Since the last sitting of the Assembly there have been many deaths in our region. In the community of Tuktoyaktuk we lost elder Suzie Kikoak. Condolences to the family, her children: Lena, Caroline, Brenda, Steven and Violet.

December 4

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we lost Daniel Reid. Condolences go

to his wife, Maryanne, and his stepchildren, Priscilla and Vaughan.

On January 25

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we lost Ernest Cockney Elias.

Condolences go to his family and his wife, Georgina Cockney, and children, Shirley Steenburg, Steven Cockney, Joanne Cockney, and Brenda Wolki.

In the community of Ulukhaktok, on October 20, 2010, Wilma Memogana, daughter to Nora Memogana. Condolences to the Memogana family. Her common-law was Ronald Binder. Her children are Kevin, Justin and Brianne Memogana.

On December 1, 2010, we lost Nora Memogana. Condolences go to the Memogana family. Wife of the late Jimmy Memogana, children, Emma, Jean, Helen, Beverly, Barb, Roger, Mary, Roberta, Leslie and Kevin.

We are close-knit communities in the communities of Nunakput. All share the loss of our people together.

Lastly, I wish all my condolences to all the people who have lost loved ones in the Northwest Territories in the past few months. Prayers and thoughts are with their families.

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

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. During my recent visit to Fort Resolution I discovered the community services officer position had been reduced to half time.

In the small communities, as I indicated many times in this House, we have very low employment rates. We cannot afford to give up even a half PY; especially a GNWT half PY, something that this government has direct control over.

I thought there was plenty of work for a community services officer in the small communities. The requirement for information is usually what holds up the income support payments. People in small communities that do not have job opportunities are often like that due to low literacy skills, and the community services officer in the small communities can do extra to help these citizens complete the required documentation.

Surely the Department of Education, Culture and Employment can find work for an individual in order to retain a full-time job in Fort Resolution. Part of the reason this government does not centralize positions used to be a lack of confidence in their own employees. In other words, the decision-making and too many things are held at a very high level and is a very centralized model.

Surely with the employment rates in small communities below 40 percent this government does not want to decrease employment. This government must do all it can to maintain any and all positions in the small communities. I, for one, cannot sit back and allow the government to reduce a single position in Tu Nedhe. This government must be creative and find meaningful work for the community services officer to do.

I know the transfer of public housing back to the local housing organization has left a bit of a vacancy in work, but surely we can find work to keep the community services officer employed full

time. It is important to note that the transfer back of the Public Housing Program does not decrease the number of clients the community services officer is seeing and it’s only a slight decrease in the volume of work per client.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we’re at a critical time in Aurora College development. There’s a widespread call across our Territory to build towards a northern university, a full degree, university-accredited degree programming that could be satisfied very perfectly in the next of what we’ve seen our Aurora College develop into.

I believe that Aurora College offers fine programming today and I believe it must stay true to its roots where it has provided much needed upgrading to students for its 40 years. It must also include a focus that moves forward, not back.

I believe great challenges are facing our college here in Yellowknife. Our local campus suffers from space that is not available in the Northern United Building and with its lease up in less than two years, now is the time to ensure the planning is done to ensure that we build a new local campus that suits the needs of the future.

We must take advantage of the downtown location to ensure that a new campus is seriously located in a way that makes sense to the students, whether it’s close to libraries, recreational facilities, shopping, but good housing as well.

Mr. Speaker, with Yellowknife’s population of about 20,000, our local campus here in Yellowknife only serves approximately 200 students. That’s only 50 more than the Inuvik campus where Inuvik is only one-fifth of the size of Yellowknife. The point I make of this is our campus here in Yellowknife is underutilized for the potential it could provide. Mr. Speaker, one reason I wonder why our campus population and uptake is not higher is because of the space and lack of.

There are private partners out there who would be interested in providing a partnering with the college on doing more and help possibly turn it into a university as such, as we typically would know it. We all know that Aurora College is presently providing that type of programming, but it’s just one step away from that type of university-level recognition. As many people will know, when you become a university you are also able to tap into southern institutional investment where they spend money to come do studies and research here in the

North. Mr. Speaker, that would be new investment into the Northwest Territories; much needed investment to the Territory as a whole.

I think there are a lot of advantages that are being overlooked and I think it’s time that we take advantage of the growing interest in our northern programming before we lose any type of interest. We should make sure that we have a northern focus that is based here in the Territories supported by our college. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment and relate to my Member’s statement earlier today where I was talking about the study that the department is currently doing into a sustainable film industry.

I was wondering if the Minister could please give me a bit of a timeline as to when we could see that report come in front of the House for consideration, or at least to committee for consideration. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s good to see the amount of interest in establishing an NWT film industry in the Northwest Territories. We have three MLAs that I met with: MLAs Bromley, Abernethy and Hawkins. We’re on schedule. We hired a Yellowknife-based consultant to undertake a review of the film industry and the report is out. We will be doing a review of the report and meeting with the stakeholders sometime in February. We will also have a session with the stakeholders to review the options and I expect to table the report probably in May. Thank you.

The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The college campus itself has been in discussion for quite some time now. We’re fully aware that the lease is up in 2012, and we are working towards possibly extending the lease until we have a plan in place. We probably have to do that anyway, because it will take a few years to develop a plan of action and then find a suitable location, if that needs to happen.

Mr. Speaker, this is an area where we met with several other potential partners as well. We’ve had numerous discussions with different organizations on how we can move forward. This is an ongoing piece of work that’s before us. Probably this fall, Mr. Speaker, we will probably request an extension of the lease on the Northern United Place, as it stands right now. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the answer from the Minister there. I’d like to pursue, in my questioning, the area of partnership. As I understand it, the federal government has a P3 office suited for public partnerships, public, private, and institutions like Aurora College would fit into this particular case. Mr. Speaker, what has the Minister done to support the long-term planning of Aurora College with the private partners that do exist out there? I am aware that there are two potentially wanting to work with Aurora College, so I think we have an opportunity of interest. How does the Minister see his department helping that? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a couple meetings a few years back on potential partners, private partners, organizations, but the information has been brought back to our attention as we need to move forward. Those are the discussions that we’ve had in the past and we are open to ideas and suggestions on how we can move forward. There have been talks about having possibly a First Nations organization build a facility for us and lease it back to the GNWT. That was an option that was thrown at us, but we haven’t seen anything as a proposal or anything that we can move forward on.

Mr. Speaker, this is an area that I’ve also met with INAC Minister Mr. Strahl, a former Minister, and also dealing with the INAC office in Ottawa, identifying a three territorial jurisdictions MOU we

talked about. This is of real high interest for us and we need to discuss it further.

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister of Education be willing to commit to see if he could bring those partners to the table with Aurora College to discuss about putting forward a joint proposal to P3 Canada to take advantage of those opportunities? I won’t name the particular parties here in the House, for obvious reasons. They may not have publicly committed their interest at this stage so I don’t want to put them on the spot. Would the Minister be willing to commit to bringing these parties to the table in short order so a proposal could be put forward? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’re definitely open to discuss any potential opportunities with respect to a facility or programming. We did have a meeting in the past. I’m sure those individuals or organizations are listening to these House proceedings, so by all means, if they want to meet with us as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we are more than willing to meet with them. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In speaking to the Board of Governors last month when they were here in Yellowknife having their Board of Governors meeting, I know they are specifically targeting a long-term solution for the Yellowknife Campus. They need a solution that works, and the present solution in the NUP does not work. They are looking beyond that and they need someone to help lead that partnership role. That’s why I’m asking, would the Minister, once again, commit to seeing if he could pull the Aurora College president’s office as well as those potential partners together to develop a joint proposal for P3 Canada? Thank you.

I also met with the Board of Governors on that same day, probably before or after Mr. Hawkins. We talked about the same issue. My understanding is that the Board of Governors will bring an idea forward to our attention within the ECE department. So we are waiting for the Board of Governors to bring us information that we can work on. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement. The people of Fort Liard had serious concerns about the social worker position. Minister Lee had accompanied me to Fort Liard and we heard the residents at that time. They were very concerned

that the social worker was away for about three months for medical leave, Mr. Speaker. We had asked if we can fill it with a casual worker position, but the Minister responded to myself, and I responded to the community, that they will not fill this position on a casual basis. I still don’t understand why. The residents still don’t understand why. I would like to ask Minister Lee to explain why they won’t fill that position on a casual basis. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; I had responded to him on this issue on November 12

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last year. There were

specific personnel details involved with this position that made it difficult to fill the position at that time, but it has been three months since. I would be happy to undertake to see where we are at and get back to him. Thank you.