Good morning, colleagues. It is with great pleasure today and an honour to have with us today both of our Legislative Assembly’s honourary table officers. We have with us today Mr. Dave Hamilton, former Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.

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And Mr. Anthony W.J. Whitford, also known as Tony –

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– former Speaker of the Assembly. The stars certainly must be aligned today, colleagues. It is an honour to have both gentlemen here with us as our table officers. Item 2, Ministers’ statements.

Mr. Speaker, International Women's Day on March 8th is a global day of celebration to honour women's advancement towards equality in all areas of life.

In the Northwest Territories, the Status of Women Council of the Northwest Territories celebrates International Women’s Day by hosting the Wise Women Awards and celebrating the winners with the Bread and Roses Luncheon in the Great Hall of our Assembly. This year is the 20th anniversary of

the Wise Women Awards.

These women are role models in their communities and provide volunteer, counselling and caregiver service to others. The awards recognize their advocacy work and other efforts to improve the status of women in the Northwest Territories.

It is my great pleasure to announce recipients of the Wise Women Awards for 2012:

Beaufort-Delta – Greta Sittichinli Sahtu – Ethel Blondin-Andrew Deh Cho – Margaret Vandal South Slave – Therese (Dollie) Simon

North Slave/Tlicho – Marsha Argue

The council is celebrating this milestone with the publication of a booklet honouring present and past recipients. With this year’s recipients, 93 women have been awarded the Wise Women designation since 1992.

I extend this Assembly’s congratulations to the recipients and our appreciation for their lifetime works for the betterment of families and northern communities. Thank you. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Speaker, the health and safety of our people is a priority for each of us here. I rise today to give you an example of what we can accomplish when individuals take up the challenge to be safer every day and make smart choices.

Prevention, education and awareness are priorities for this Assembly and the work is showing encouraging results. The year 2011 was a very safe year on our roads, trails and waterways. For the first time on record, there were no fatal collisions. There were no pedestrians or snowmobilers killed. No one was involved in a fatal ATV collision. And there were no drownings.

Moreover, the number of severe injuries related to vehicle collisions in 2011 was the lowest ever. You can, in fact, count them on one hand. All of this is good news and Northwest Territories residents can be proud of these safety records.

We can continue this positive trend by wearing our seatbelts, ensuring our children are properly restrained in an infant car seat, child car seat or booster seat, driving without distractions, and wearing our helmets while riding bicycles, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and skateboards. When on the water, we need to be wearing our lifejackets, instead of leaving them on the floor of the boat.

And while I am mentioning the importance of wearing lifejackets, I want to acknowledge the enormous contribution by the Member for Weledeh during the filming for our Drowning Prevention

program. I know that his willingness to speak on camera about his personal tragedy, the account of how a lifejacket saved his life while his father and a family friend perished, touched the hearts of everyone who saw it. I applaud his courage and I want to acknowledge and thank him for that service.

Drive Alive, the department’s public awareness and safety information program, will continue to remind us all to make smart safe choices throughout the year through campaigns such as Leave the Phone Alone and Buckle Up NWT.

At the same time, the department will continue to make improvements to the transportation system that will help keep travellers safe such as increasing signage, straightening and widening our highways and installing guardrails. The department will also continue to improve surface conditions and inform the travelling public of road conditions more quickly, efficiently and effectively.

I ask all Members to join me in congratulating NWT residents for contributing to the success in 2011, and committing to safe travel and recreation in 2012. Thank you.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the 2012 Arctic Winter Games. This year the games are being held from March 4th to 10th in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Since 1970, the Arctic Winter Games have been bringing people from the circumpolar region together every two years for a celebration of sport and culture. We are proud to once again participate in this event.

This year more than 970 athletes from 26 communities tried out for Team NWT during the territorial trials. Of that number, 680 participants were from outside Yellowknife, confirming that there is broad interest and excitement for the Arctic Winter Games across the territory.

Team NWT, composed of 350 players, coaches and managers, will join over 1,900 other participants from the teams that will represent Alaska, Yukon, Alberta North, Nunavut, Greenland, Nunavik–Quebec, Sapmi and Yamal.

I would like to thank the Sport North Federation, their member organizations, the regional coordinators and the countless volunteers who organized the regional and territorial trials selection process. Their collective efforts have once again made it possible for young athletes to participate in

sport and to be connected to a special event like the Arctic Winter Games.

I would also like to thank the Aboriginal Sport Circle, the NWT Parks and Recreation Association, the Beaufort-Delta Sahtu Recreation Association, the Mackenzie Recreation Association, community recreation workers as well as the physical education teachers in NWT schools, who along with parents and volunteers provide the sport and recreation opportunities at the local level, that give our young people that first step towards trying out for the Arctic Winter Games.

The whole process of selecting and sending a team to the Arctic Winter Games supports the goals of the 17th Legislative Assembly related to

sustainable, vibrant, safe communities.

I also wish to profile our new NWT youth ambassadors who are accompanying Team NWT to Whitehorse where they will make their contribution to the celebration of northern culture and sport excellence.

The Youth Ambassador Program is founded on the principle that a guided and structured volunteer experience throughout the year, coupled with volunteer participation in major events, can develop significant life and job skills and build the confidence necessary for youth to deal with complex challenges.

As part of our commitment to the development of youth leadership and increasing volunteer capacity in our youth, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is sending 24 youth ambassadors to volunteer with the host society.

These young leaders are busy preparing for their meaningful roles during the games and I know they will proudly represent their communities and the NWT.

I invite all Members to join me in wishing Team NWT and the NWT youth ambassadors the very best of luck at the 2012 Arctic Winter Games.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to acknowledge the 2012 Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon, and congratulate the athletes that have been training to win their spot on Team NWT to represent the Northwest Territories.

We have such programs in place to help our athletes compete at national levels. We offer

financial contributions for athletes who need the extra training and we have endless amounts of resource material to assist our athletes in becoming the best they can be.

I have so much pride in acknowledging athletes that are coming out of the Mackenzie Delta riding. Please let me congratulate 41 Arctic Winter Games participants. From Aklavik: four Dene Games athletes, one ski biathlon athlete, eight cultural performers, two female hockey players, one juvenile dog musher. From Fort McPherson: two Dene Games athletes, two snowshoers, three cross-country skiers, four snowshoe biathlon athletes. From Tsiigehtchic: one Dene Games athlete. There is a total of nine coaches and staff from the Mackenzie Delta.

It gives me more pride to mention today that one of our respected elders in Fort McPherson, 81-year-old Mrs. Jane Charlie Sr., has supported her children and grandchildren throughout their years of growing up in all aspects of sports. She has attended many hockey tournaments and cheered on the sidelines for various other sports for members of her family. As a result of the extra support and encouragement, Mrs. Jane Charlie has five of her children coaching for Arctic Winter Games and six grandchildren were participating: one in dog mushing, two in Dene Games, one in female hockey, one in snowshoeing and one in snowshoe biathlon, and she has one female great-grandchild participating in female hockey.

Members of the Legislative Assembly, please join me in congratulating a fine supporter of active living and promoting fair play, Mrs. Jane Charlie from Fort McPherson.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to congratulate the 33 participants from Hay River who will be attending the Arctic Winter Games from March 4th to 10th . I’d also like to thank

all the coaches that helped them get there and those coaches that are helping them participate at the games.

Along with a few Members here at the Legislative Assembly, I have the honour of being a former member of the Arctic Winter Games team. I’d like to encourage all the athletes out there to go for gold, but remember to have fun, and go Team NWT!

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Tobacco is bad, period. We all agree that cigarettes contain known carcinogens that cost our health care systems millions of dollars annually. What kills me even more is that I don’t think we’re collecting all our taxes on this product, because I believe we have an open door in the tobacco tax collection process itself that is half open, and this half-open door could be potentially exploited. I will attempt to walk the Members here today down a very complex path in tobacco tax collection.

To start, there are a myriad of terms thrown in the collection of tax for tobacco such as Black Stock Tobacco, Alberta tax memos, tax rebates, tax rebate requests, treasury division, and wholesale dealer permits are just a few terms of the process. Placing all these terms together in a flowchart, you soon have yourself a very convoluted spaghetti chart. As complex as it may be, there is a flaw in this system that is easily identifiable.

The Minister of Finance is aware of this discovery, and I wish to thank him for his patience and his thoroughness with his investigation when I brought it forward. Furthermore, I am more than certain that the Minister will stand here before you today and indicate that all is okay, that hours were spent to obtain adequate evidence to assure that tobacco taxes were being remitted properly to the NWT.

The Minister may be accurate in his assumptions, but to be fair, providing assurances that the total tax revenues being collected are reasonable with the use of national averages for smoking rates are not, in my mind, the numbers we should be trusting. I think the people of the NWT deserve the utmost confidence that our tax collection system is foolproof and without the potential doorway of exploitation. Without the proper physical audits, this assumption with the use of smoking averages is futile.

Simply put, the Alberta tax memos that account for the tax being paid in Alberta are not the area of concern. These are audited and balanced throughout the purchase cycle from wholesaler to retailer. Where things get confusing are the means in which the self-reporting practice occurs for the GNWT tax portion and remittance. Admittedly, this is not an electronic submission but, rather, a manual remittance, hence self-reporting and the potential flaw in the system.

I will have further questions today for the Minister of Finance in asking him how we can close this potential loophole which could be costing the GNWT significant money in lost tax revenues.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was an exciting visit to the House yesterday by the N.J. Macpherson Grade 5’s and I think we had a very successful Anti-Bullying Day in the House.

I’d like to remind everyone that next week is NWT Education Week. During the last 15 years, a very positive initiative has been run by the Northwest Territories Teachers’ Association, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Northern News Services and First Air. They have all partnered to run a teacher recognition program called Thank You for Making a Difference.

Every January through to mid-February, students and former students across the NWT have the opportunity to submit a nomination about an educator who has made a difference in their lives. Two names are drawn, and the teachers win an airplane pass and the nominating student wins a laptop computer.

The great thing about this initiative is that although only members of the NWTTA can win the trip, all educators who receive recognition from former students get a copy of the nomination. Every year nominations pour in for current and former teachers, and it’s tangible proof of the message in this statement: Research has proven over and over again that the single most important factor in a child’s success in school is a teacher who cares.

Over the last 14 years there have been more than 18,000 nominations submitted, all thanking an educator who’s made a difference to one of their students. Nominations have come from all ages of students, from a few words printed in smelly markers to long, heart-felt testimonies from former students struggling. In the first year of the program there were 26 submissions. This year there were 2,000.

I’d like to quote one example: “I like my teacher, because when I was in Grade 5 I was failing, but she said I don’t want to see you in summer school. I think you’re very smart. So I said, you’re right. I am smart. After that I changed.” An age 11 student.

The awards ceremony for the Thank You for Making a Difference campaign is next Friday here in the Great Hall, I believe.

Yesterday all Ordinary Members delivered statements dealing with the impact of bullying on our students in schools, our communities and our society. We know schools are doing their part to combat bullying and family violence, and we know that teachers can indeed make a difference.

I’d like to take this time and this opportunity to thank the Northwest Territories Teachers’ Association, Northern News Services and First Air for this

worthwhile initiative. Most of all, I’d like to thank all those teachers who every day make a difference in the lives of students across the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The biggest factor in cost of living and economic development is the cost and availability of energy. Yet, in terms of progressive energy policy, we are so misled by the use of fossil fuels, which are costly and cause climate change, that we are missing the boat and the world is passing us by. What we do or don’t do in energy policy and planning is pivotal to our success. Our challenges are clear:

Skyrocketing cost of fossil fuels, dangerous climate changes, shrivelling community economies, fossil fuel subsidies 10 times that for renewable energy, and uncertain availability of fossil fuels. In fact, the International Energy Agency now admits peak conventional oil occurred six years ago and “current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable economically, environmentally and socially.”

Rather than accepting a fossil fuel future, jurisdictions the world over are switching to clean, abundant renewable sources proven feasible and commercially viable. How? Their secret is a simple but fundamental shift in perspectives. More than stepping away from our oil addiction, this is a commitment, a leap towards doing things better. Rather than a burden, it’s a huge opportunity.

Astounding unforeseen successes have been achieved through both public and commercial generation of renewable energy propelled through advanced policy. One key component is a government requirement for power corporations to purchase renewable energy at a set, relatively high price, or feed-in tariff. This promotes a move from highly inefficient service focused on maximizing consumption of power based strongly on imported commercial fuel, to one focused on the most efficient use of power generated from local and non-commercial fuels. It rewrites the economics of energy reduction from top to bottom.

A second key element is a smart grid. A smart grid uses the digital technology of your iPhone or BlackBerry to measure the flow of energy in both directions, depending on whether it’s being produced or consumed. This software also adjusts our appliances and energy sources to use or sell energy at times of day when it is either cheapest or most valuable, whichever gives the greatest benefit.

Tales of successes are building daily, but we need our own story to tell. The North is ripe for this approach because our energy prices are already so

high. The NWT cost of power is 70 cents per kilowatt hour and rapidly climbing.

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

---Unanimous consent granted

In contrast, jurisdictions where power rates are only 6 or 8 cents per kilowatt hour have required payments of 40 or 50 or 60 cents per kilowatt for wind, for solar, for biomass energy, and have turned their energy services around. Clearly, the potential for us to offer such prices for renewable energy and ultimately enjoy reduced costs is immediate. The annual GNWT subsidy for electricity is over $14 million, up 40 percent from 2009-10 to 2010-11 and rising. Why continue such silliness when alternatives are available?

We could choose to continue our headlong pursuit of an inefficient fossil fuel-based path, accepting the many costs while enjoying the last gurgling years of the oil bubble, or we could make the leap to proven sustainable energy systems with thriving local economies and healthy land. Like so many individuals in the North are doing, and as so many communities and jurisdictions are doing, I suspect we can see the potential and will make that big shift. Once made, the experience of others is that the benefits and realities far outweigh the estimated potential when they began.

We need an advanced energy policy that truly supports Northerners and their futures. Let’s get on with it. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened with great interest to the Housing Minister yesterday when he announced the proposed plans for the NWT Housing Corporation. During the 16th Assembly, I was among one of the Members that pushed Mr. McLeod for an overhaul for the rent scales for the young people who want to work and get a fair chance to make it on their own. I did this because the so-called economic rent being charged was too high. Basically, if someone got a job, they would have to pay so much rent. They wouldn’t have much money left for anything.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make it very clear, I did not ask the Minister to raise the rent for any seniors who live in public housing. These elders already have a hard time getting by. Many of them live in poverty or on the edge of poverty. It is not okay to raise the rent for our elders so we can lower the top rent scales in public housing. It shocks me that, after all he has heard in this House, it seems that this is what the Minister plans to do. The Minister

has already told us that his moratorium on eviction from public housing has not resulted in very many tenants making arrangements to pay back what they owe. Maybe in the future in the Sahtu, we are going to need a Betty House. I wonder why this is so, Mr. Speaker. It could be that those tenants don’t have their money to pay back. Could it be that they have so little income that they have no hope of paying the Housing Corporation back? How many of these elders will be affected with this proposed plan? It is supposed to be implemented on July 1st .

I don’t have those answers, Mr. Speaker, but I sure hope we can talk to the Minister about that. Maybe there is still time to exempt elders from any rental increase. That is what should be done.

A few days ago I spoke about penalized elders. We have someone living with them in their houses. We have not yet fixed that problem. And now the Housing Corporation plans to raise the rent for some of our seniors. Are we going from bad to worse, Mr. Speaker? I think so.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The small business sector is one of the most critical to the health of the economy, especially in the Nahendeh riding. Small businesses make great contributions to Nahendeh communities. Although the population is small, these communities are the scene of a surprising amount of activity.

The Liard River crossing is the second busiest river crossing in the Northwest Territories. The Nahanni National Park, with the NWT’s highest mountains and largest glaciers, attracts close to 1,000 visitors every year. The oil and gas and mineral development is becoming increasingly important in the region.

Small businesses respond to the needs of a wide range of goods and services. Small businesses are community builders. They are owned and operated by people who invest in the community and make it their home. They offer employment, training and apprenticeship opportunities and valuable local knowledge. Many young people’s first employers are the local, small business owners. Local apprenticeship opportunities help create a sense of pride in their work and in their town.

In the 2006 Deh Cho Regional Development Strategy, it highlighted small business as one of the key areas for development. ITI committed to make resources available to hold small business workshops, promote entrepreneurship, facilitate meetings between industry, business and Aboriginal organizations and provide business

owners with access to capital. Right now businesses in the Nahendeh region and the Deh Cho region make up only about 6 percent of all businesses in the NWT, but that will change as we look forward to future development of the Prairie Creek Mine and other developments in the southern Northwest Territories. There is a great potential for further small business development in forestry and agriculture. Our people and our small businesses are at the core of our economy. I ask the GNWT to continue to do all it can to help small businesses throughout the NWT and especially in the Nahendeh riding. I also would like to commend all the small business owners in my region and throughout the North for continuing to do their best for the residents of Northwest Territories. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.