Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to congratulate the NWT Montessori Society on their 40th anniversary. The

society has been part of the Great Slave riding for many years, delivering a high quality Montessori Casa preschool program from the society’s location on 52nd Street.

Yesterday the society celebrated their 40th anniversary with festivities at their downtown and N.J. MacPherson locations. Students were treated to a surprise visit from a mock Maria Montessori, founder of the Montessori method, collected material from a time capsule and enjoyed a reception with cake and fruit.

The Montessori approach provides a carefully planned, stimulated learning environment that helps children develop a foundational habit, attitudes and

skills that are essential for a lifetime of creative thinking and learning. Since the original preschool program started in 1975 with only 24 preschool-aged students, the program has seen a lot of change.

Today the society has grown to 83 school-aged students at five Casa classes spread out between the downtown Yellowknife Montessori School and N.J. MacPherson School. As well, through a partnership with the Yellowknife Education District No. 1, Yellowknife families have the option of a free Montessori elementary program. This unique partnership provides families with an option not available in many other Canadian cities.

Forty years ago a group of dedicated parents, committed to the principles and philosophies of Dr. Marie Montessori, founded the NWT Montessori Society. The work of those first parents has been carried forward through the years by countless parents, volunteers and teachers.

I congratulate all of those involved, parents and staff for their many years of commitment to the education of the Yellowknife community. The NWT Montessori Society occupies an important place in the educational landscape of our community and I hope the society continues to serve Yellowknife families for at least another 40 years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few members of the Department of Health and Social Services here today with us in the gallery and I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize them: Yves Panneton, who is the manager of our primary community and acute care services and a chief nursing officer; Erin Currie, the senior nurse practitioner consultant; Carolan Bennett, the senior nursing consultant; as well as Peter Workman, the health emergency planner.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to recognize the chair of the Montessori Society here in Yellowknife, Dave Wasylciw, as well as the executive director of the Montessori Society, Denise Araya. Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of Pages from Inuvik Twin Lakes that have been working here all week: Dustin Smith and Chantel Schab, and they’ve been chaperoned by my constituency assistant, who I recognized the other day without

saying her name. My constituency assistant is Leah Ipana, who’s chaperoning them. We appreciate all the work that the Pages do during our time in session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two Pages from Hay River who have been working with us all week: Jeffry Lamoureux, “JJ”; and Lily Gail Warrington. I’d also like to recognize my constituency assistant, Myrtle Graham, who’s been their chaperon all week. Thank you very much. Welcome to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a former resident of Deline, Erin Currie, also a great nurse practitioner. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’d like to welcome everybody in the public gallery here today. Welcome to the House and thank you for taking interest in our proceedings.

Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. There have been several reports. There was an indication that there may have been seven reports done on airport governance but there may be more than that. There have been a few reports done since then. Thank you.

The Minister is actually correct. In fact, dialogues behind the scenes reveal that there were at least seven reports in the 20 years in terms of trying to find a solution to this problem. Which leads me to ask: On February 10, 2015, in a series of oral questions from the Member for Range Lake, the Minister made a number of statements that the Yellowknife Airport governance was identified to be reviewed yet again by this government. Can the Minister elaborate? Thank you.

HON. TOM BEAULIEU: The latest report was completed in March 2014. It looked at five similar types of airports as far as landings and passenger volumes go and because of their varying governance systems. We’ve looked at those five reports. We’ve now put an RFP out, which will close on March 2nd , to examine the various alternatives in

those five different airports to determine which governance structure we feel would be the best to move forward with the Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.

Again, on February 10, 2015, the Minister was quoted as saying, “We’re going to look at management options at the airport so we can review all the options.” Again I ask the Minister, can he clarify what specifically is going to be uncovered that has not already been done, at minimum, seven times before? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There would mainly be three options, alternatives that we would look at. We would look at a Crown corporation; we’re going to look at airport authority and even possibly using a GNWT revolving fund similar to the way we administer petroleum products.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, there’s a lot of foolishness in all the delaying and deferring that the Department of Transportation has undertaken in the last 20 years on this subject. Again, the Minister made reference to a report. He claims that was on March of 2014. A report that has never been tabled in this House, a report that is buried in the website of the Department of Transportation to which I haven’t been able to find, but I did get a copy from the department.

We also heard on February 20, 2014, the Minister saying, “We’ve hired a consultant to specifically look at these for consideration, probably by the next government.”

Can the Minister indicate why this government is sloughing this responsibility onto the backs of the 18th Assembly? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the volume at the Yellowknife Airport changes fairly regularly. Right now we have approximately 500,000 passengers moving through Yellowknife Airport on an annual basis. We are looking at that now. We are hoping to… The RFP will close. We’re going to do an evaluation. What I’m seeing, just by drawing a timeline from March 2nd for the evaluation, hiring

the actual consultant that’s going to be doing the work, I’m seeing that the results of that would likely be sitting on the desks of the 18th Assembly. We’re

not sloughing the responsibility, but we’re looking at the timeline.

I realize that right now it’s costing us about $2 million to run the airport annually. If we were to do one simple math to determine how we’re going to recover that, we’d just be passing that $2 million on to the passengers who are flying through Yellowknife Airport. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health. We haven’t had an update lately on doctor recruitment and how that’s going. I’m wondering if the department has any additional information to add on to how we are progressing with getting doctors in the North and into the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The recruitment and retention of physicians continues to be a challenge, but I think at this point in time we are actually doing fairly well. We have moved to a system where all the physicians are actually employees of one body rather than multiple bodies. This has actually given us some opportunities, because individuals can now have rights and access to Stanton even if they don’t happen to live in Yellowknife.

When we originally went to this one model, the expectation was that we’d be having physicians in Yellowknife who can actually provide services in other communities like Fort Smith or Hay River or any of the communities in the Sahtu and up the valley. What we have found is by having one system where all the doctors were part of one

system, we’ve actually been able to recruit doctors in places like Fort Smith and Inuvik because they are part of the system rather than independent bodies. So that was a happy surprise.

We continue to recruit on a regular basis, but at this point in Yellowknife we are pretty close to having a full complement of doctors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.