Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that investment in our youth is in an investment in our future, and to that end I think, with the support of the Legislative Assembly, we’ve contributed much funds to the young people in the Northwest Territories and given them an opportunity to broaden their horizons. The Northern Youth Abroad is a classic example of that.

Over the last two or three years, we’ve had 63 young people go through the program; I think 49 in the Canadian phase and about 14 in the international phase. We contributed, through our Youth Core Program, $100,000 to Northern Youth

Abroad. As well, ECE makes a contribution to that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. I think it’s very commendable for the department and this government for providing financial support for the Northern Youth Abroad. How else has the Department of MACA supported the Northern Youth Abroad Program? Mahsi.

Thank you. The Northern Youth Abroad Program, as these young people are ambassadors for the Northwest Territories, we see many of these young people moving into our Youth Ambassador Program, which is a great program that’s also funded by MACA. So it gives them a really good experience, and we continue to do what we can to support them financially so they have an opportunity to see the rest of the country, as well as the rest of the world. Thank you.

Thank you. What is MACA doing to ensure all recreation leaders and youth centres in the North have information about the Northern Youth Abroad Program? Mahsi.

We have youth workers in all the regions in the Northwest Territories and part of their duties would be to try and keep the communities updated as much as possible on the programs that are available to the youth as well. We have a website and there’s an excellent youth website that they can go on to see what programs are available to the youth.

The department does a really good job on trying to get as much information out there so we can access applications from all over the Northwest Territories, and I think we’re starting to see an indication that youth out there are being reached because we are getting applications from every region in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The success of the program is clearly evident. Would the Minister be willing to do further work with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to ensure that the Northern Youth Abroad is promoted in schools across the NWT, especially in the small, isolated communities? Mahsi.

Thank you. In this day and age of electronic communication, I think that it’s a lot easier to reach all those across the Northwest Territories. Pretty well everyone is on the computer and has access to the Internet, but I will work with my colleague, the Minister of Education, and our own youth workers to ensure that we get all this information out to all the schools across the Northwest Territories so youth out there have an opportunity to access our programs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier. I’m following up from my Member’s statement when I talked about the need for the establishment of an ombudsman office.

I want to say I appreciate the response from the government to the motion that was passed in June, but I do wish that it had been a little more definitive. The response to the motion talks about a review being underway, and I also appreciate that the government is doing due diligence in looking into things, but I hope they are looking at not only maybe adding to what we have already, I hope they’re looking at collapsing a few things.

So I’d like to know from the Premier whether or not there’s any consideration by the government, as they do this review, to collapse some of the current appeal boards and tribunals and bring it under one office, hopefully an ombudsman office. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all with regard to the ombudsman office, we’re reviewing the legislative base rights as well as all of the different avenues there are currently for which people that have issues can have them addressed, and we will take what we find and we will see what is the best way forward we would go without reinventing the wheel. If we take that approach, it depends what kind of wheel we’re going to use as some of the wheels cost $900,000 and other wheels cost $10 million. So we would certainly look at finding out what we think has to be done, and if it means perhaps we’d also look at what existing programs we have that could be rolled in. Of course, we would bring it forward to committee or Caucus to seek their input as well. Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier for those remarks. I guess I would like to advise the Premier that there’s one other wheel that he forgot to mention, and that’s the Yukon’s wheel and it’s only $600,000. So I don’t think we’re going to go anywhere near $10 million.

I mentioned gaps in my statement. There certainly are gaps in what we currently have, and specifically I’d like to mention a gap I believe exists for residents who encounter a problem with a government staff person. So I’d like to know from the Minister what currently exists for clients of GNWT services – and that would be our residents in most cases, sometimes an NGO – for them to lay

complaints about service that they have received from staff, or in regard to staff actions or ethics. Thank you.

I guess those are the kinds of areas where we’re doing further analysis. I think there’s a number of avenues. I think the average citizen, if they’ve got a complaint, they usually phone their MLA or they’ll phone the Minister in charge or they’ll contact the Premier’s office. I guess there are other avenues like legal recourse and so on. So there’s a number of different avenues and I guess those are the kinds of things that we will be doing the analysis on, in addition to all of the best practices that we’ll be reviewing. Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier. I appreciate that the government is going to do a full examination. I would hope that’s what we would do. The Premier mentioned that people can talk to their MLA, they can talk to a Minister, they can go to court. Court is not an option. In the minds of most people it’s not financially feasible for them. I think going to your Member of the Legislative Assembly takes out any element of fairness or impartiality in many cases. I appreciate they need to be considered, but I hope they are looked at with an un-jaundiced eye.

I would like to ask the Premier – there is no indication in the response to the motion when the government review would be done – if I could get an answer to that.

I guess within the context of the 120 days that we are required to respond, that didn’t get us enough time to respond. I fully expect that within six months we should be able to respond.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks, Mr. Premier. My last question then goes to if we have a review that’s done in the next six months or so – and I think that’s a reasonable time frame – I’d like to know from the Premier if it’s feasible that we could expect the establishment of an ombudsman office within the life of this 17th Assembly.

I guess that will be based on some decision points that we will have to come to. I guess to me the most obvious one will be if we see fit to proceed with establishing an ombudsman office, would it be established as part of the Legislative Assembly or would it be an officer of the Legislative Assembly? If we make it as part of the government, that would be defeating some of the objectives that have been described in why we need an ombudsman office. I see some decision points that would have to be made. Also, if at $600,000, if that’s what Yukon is, and assuming we follow the Yukon model, where would the money

come from? We would have to make that decision as well. Conceivably it’s doable before the end of the 17th Assembly, but there will be some decisions

that have to be made.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. David Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I share the Member’s enthusiasm when it comes to the future of the film industry here in the Northwest Territories. The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has gone a long way to getting us where we’re at today. We’ve established the website. We’ve established the Film Commission here.

The Member talked about his participation in the NWT Filmmaker and Producer Forum that was held earlier this month. We had helped out with hiring a facilitator for that event. The report and the Member talked about a number of ideas and issues that came up through that forum. We’re interested in getting that report from the consultant. Once we get that report, we are also working with our partners at Finance on a joint working group to try and look at possible incentives for the film industry here in the Northwest Territories. We’re anxious to see the report. We’re anxious to move forward.

We’ve gotten some really positive feedback just lately from producers that are filming here in the Northwest Territories and we really do believe that we will continue to see films being produced here in the Northwest Territories and continue to see that positive feedback. On our website, we’ve seen

1,800 hits just since the website’s been put into service in July of this year. We’re doing our best.