Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I have questions for the Minister of Finance. I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance if he has met with other Ministers to see if they have a plan to spend strategically to ensure that we get the best bang for our buck as far as government goes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have conversations with my colleagues in the other departments and it is a very important initiative that we do try and spend strategically all across the Northwest Territories, the larger centres, and then we recognize that in the smaller communities any investment we make I think is a real plus to that community and it does create some employment. So the quick answer to the Member's question is yes, I have had conversations with my colleagues and we do plan on any infrastructure investment to spend it strategically so it benefits all residents in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the infrastructure spending by the government, has this Minister again continued discussions with the other Ministers to ensure that the spending is targeted to the Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories that we all support?

Mr. Speaker, everything we do in this Assembly, and I'm talking all 19 of us, is I think targeted towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly, and many of the things in the mandate is to create employment, and it's a very large mandate so we don't miss too many parts of the mandate when we do our spending across the Northwest Territories. So the answer is yes, we do target the spending towards the Mandate of the 18th Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, people know I'm a big proponent of employment over things like applying for somebody to come and fix my house; I would rather give individuals a job so they could fix their own house. So does the Minister agree that creating employment with government spending, not necessarily employing the people, but creating employment with government spending is the best way to address social ills of the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Speaker, I share the Member's concern with employment in the small communities, and I do agree that creating employment in small communities is one of the better ways to help with the social ills. It's not the only answer, there's other parts to it. We've seen prime examples of that, especially with the Inuvik-Tuk Highway, I can use that as an example, because I know from my past portfolios that our income support numbers went down, revenue went up with the housing collection. There was opportunities for training. I spoke of the numbers before, and there was great opportunity there for training. So this is a part of helping overcome the social ills of the Northwest Territories. I totally agree with the Member though, that people do want to work, and I think it's incumbent on us as a government to give them an opportunity for employment, and it's one of the reasons that we've gone through this exercise for the last -- since the beginning of this Assembly to free up some money so that we're able to reinvest that money back into the Northwest Territories, match any money that the federal government might make available to us. So there is a lot of moving parts to this, but at the end of the day our goal is for healthy people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral Questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister agree that spending by government during slower economic times is positive for the NWT? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree. I totally agree that spending by the government in slow economic times is positive for the growth for the Northwest Territories, but I'm also a realist and I realize that we need to have the money to spend to stimulate the economy, and that's one of the reasons that I stand up here and take the flack I take for trying to make the decisions we make on reducing some of our spending so we can be in a position to reinvest that into the economy of the Northwest Territories. I will continue to stand here and preach that message, even though some of you may be getting tired of it, you're still going to hear it.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, the NWT consistently receives a failing grade on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business red tape report card. How are we working to improve our score and reduce our redundancy and improve frontline services to small business? This is a question for the Minister of ITI. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Tourism, Industry and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my previous life I was actually a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, so I do know a little bit about them. In the early days of being the Minister of ITI I have not been contacted by them and I have not been aware of the score card as of recently, but I'd be willing to sit down and have a conversation with the federation at any time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Further to the question was, what are we working to do to improve our score? I understand the Minister's reply there, that he's willing to reach out to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, but what are we doing to reduce redundancy and improve frontline services to small business?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I'm not well-versed on the whole thing around this, I'll have to take this question as notice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There's been some serious construction all summer outside of this Assembly on the highway. Can the Minister of Transportation explain what is happening and when it will be completed? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Transportation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there has been construction completed recently just outside the Legislative Assembly and the department has worked with the City of Yellowknife on this project as well as the developer of Nova, and an unofficial group of representatives of the Niven Lake Community, Ecology North, and a former MLA. They've all agreed that we need to provide an active transportation corridor from the Niven Lake area and access the downtown area. The city continues to hold the leading role in developing this overall city wide footprint on this issue, and we will continue to meet with them and work closely with them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A large new hotel complex has just opened up on the other side of the highway. We can expect to see a really significant flow of pedestrian traffic across to the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre. Can the Minister explain what type of improvements are being made now and planned in the future to this stretch of highway in the interest of public safety?

As I've said, we've worked closely with various groups on this. The developers actually paid for the improvements that were made on this section of highway this year, as it become on him that he would pay for this. We will continue to work with the City of Yellowknife and all user groups. That's the best way forward with this.