Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that endorsement. As the Minister of MACA, of course you have a close relationship with the NWT Association of Communities, and they've had a "drop the bottled water" resolution on their books for a number of years. So once you've persuaded the GNWT to go bottle-free, will you issue a challenge to your municipal partners to do the same? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm just a bit thirsty; I'd like to take a drink of water.

---Laughter

The Speaker, I notice, as well. Yes, as the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, we do work closely with all of the community governments, like we say, in developing their water treatment plants and monitoring them as well. I will put forward to promote the residents in their communities to actually use drinking water from the taps as well, and I would join the honourable MLA Green in challenging all MLAs to go on the Ecology North website and join the campaign.

Thank you, Minister. I'd like to remind all Members of the Assembly to refer to Members by their riding or by their ministerial title in the future. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Human Resources on summer students. Mr. Speaker, on April 30th this year, about two and a half months from now, the students will be coming back to the NWT or finishing off their post-secondary schooling here in the NWT. I would like to know if all of the departments are starting to advertise and take applications for summer students at this time? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Human Resources.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we hear the Member and we're looking to improve on the numbers that we had from last year. Last year I believe we had 306 summer students who were hired, and we are looking at trying to increase those numbers. We have been in discussions with all the departments and trying to increase the number of summer students that they hire so we can improve on our stats from last year, and we will keep Members apprised as to how many applications we get. We had a number of applications last year; I believe we had about 627 if I'm not mistaken, and out of that we hired 306. We're hoping to improve on those numbers this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to hear that. I'd like to ask the Minister: what is the strategy of working with the other departments? I know that it has always been a difficult task to give to one Minister when all Ministers are responsible for their own hiring, or the departments are responsible for their own hiring of summer students. I want to know if the Minister has any coordinated plan with all departments on the hiring of summer students.

As I've said, we've been working closely with our departments and trying to get a coordinated effort going and getting call-out for the number of summer students that we'd like to hire, and actually getting a call from the students, as the Member pointed out before. Our summer students are going to be finishing their schooling soon and they usually try to get their applications in a little sooner. So we're working with all our departments and trying to ensure we have a coordinated effort to improve on the numbers that we that we had from last year.

The Summer Student program is an excellent program run by GNWT. The one bit of issue with it is the competitiveness of the private small businesses around the NWT when it comes to trying to hire summer students. I would like to know if the Minister has considered a way, in addition to trying to increase the number of hires by GNWT, of trying to support the students who are going to be going to the small businesses in a way of a subsidy or something like that for small businesses or for the students directly who wish to work for small businesses?

My understanding was there was a program such as that in the past and it kind of fell by the wayside. Maybe it is something that we have to explore and, as we go through the whole budget process and pending the approval of budget, if we have any money left over I suppose that would be one strategic investment that we could make in the future. So it is something that we would like to see, and if it proves valuable then it's probably an initiative that we can carry on into the future, you know, providing that it's fiscally doable.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that such a program would be greatly welcomed by people in small businesses trying to hire summer students for the various jobs that they do. I think that I could help the Minister of HR take a look at the vacancy rate if you're looking for money to hire summer students. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I'd love to respond to the comment. I've got 25 minutes left to respond to the comment. One of the reasons it fell by the wayside is we need to get buy-in from the private sector. If they think that the government's going to fund summer students to do all their work, there's got to be a buy-in. So it's got to be a partnership that we form with them. Of course, we've looked at all ways within the government to try and realize some savings, including looking at the vacancy rates, and we'll continue to do that.

Again, this is something that we would love to do. We recognize the importance of summer students, we recognize the importance of the work to summer students as they go back to school, and we've heard a number of stories. The program is currently under review. We're looking for feedback from our summer students and anyone else who has been a part of the program. We're doing a bit of a review right now, but that doesn't answer the Member's question.

We do look at trying to get as many summer students hired as possible, and we will work with our departments to try and make that happen.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I spoke about the importance of settling outstanding rights agreements, and one of our mandate commitments is to focus on the issue of making land accessible, that is, to complete land use plans for all areas, including regions without Land and Resource Agreements in collaboration with Aboriginal governments. So I have questions today for the Minister of Lands. Can the Minister tell us what the status of this is and if we're close to completing land claims in the Dehcho and the Akaitcho Settlement Agreements specifically? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you heard from the honourable Premier, we are making progress in all land claims agreements and, of course, that will inevitably involve land use agreements in those areas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I inadvertently misspoke. I'm specifically asking about land use plans, so if the Minister can just reiterate if we have made progress on land use plans, which I believe are a separate issue from lands rights agreements.

Yes, of course. As the Member has pointed out, they are separate. We are working with various Aboriginal groups and other stakeholders on these agreements.

Do we have any concrete details to share? People are looking at how we can explore these areas to develop the natural resource economy. We need to forget this land now. Is there anything more substantial the Minister can share today or commit to sharing in the future?

In those areas where there are settled land claims, of course there are land claims agreements that are part of that process. In those areas where there are no settlements, of course we are working with all groups, in particular Aboriginal groups, to achieve that result.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the Minister could tell us which regions have completed land use plans and which ones are outstanding, maybe we can get a bit more clarity from that. Thank you.