Question 70-16(2) Construction Of The Mackenzie Valley Highway  Mr. Speaker, the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway has the potential to be a very important project for the Northwest Territories and, I think, would go a long way into some of the Premier’s initiatives that he spoke about. I would like to direct my question today to

Question 70-16(2) Construction Of The Mackenzie Valley Highway  I would like to ask the Premier if that document he mentioned and provided to Ottawa, was that our formal request to Ottawa for funding to construct the highway.

Question 70-16(2) Construction Of The Mackenzie Valley Highway  That kind of leads to my next question. Who at the end of the day would be responsible for the funding of the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway?

Question 70-16(2) Construction Of The Mackenzie Valley Highway  I thank the Premier for that. I would like to ask the Premier how we can help Ottawa make up their mind. Does this government have the authority, or could we introduce legislation, called the Mackenzie Valley Highway Act that would help in our case with Ottawa?

Bill 2 Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to make a couple of general comments on the Minister’s opening remarks. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a few of these sups come forward. I’m just a little concerned that when they do their actual budgeting exercise, it seems that they come ba

Bill 2 Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008  I think the pent-up demand is still there. It just became a question of cash-flowing the money. We rolled out the program on January 7, and as the applications have been rolling in, we realized that, as part of the cash-flowing, we weren’t going to have enough applications to flo

Bill 2 Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008  Based on the applications that we received and the amounts requested from the different programs that were being accessed, we have calculated how much money would flow out this fiscal year. We are anticipating that all the $2.5 million that we had originally budgeted for this f

Bill 2 Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008  The $1.5 million — I’m not going to point fingers. They do have people who are supposed to be going out there inspecting these things. If they pass an inspection and then collapse, there is responsibility there somewhere, as far as I’m concerned. My question is on $1.5 million.

Bill 2 Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008  So the $425,000 the Premier made reference to, that’s on top of the $1.5, but that is not including the $422,000? I am assuming we are expecting work to be started this spring or even this winter because we do have a lot of anticipated traffic up the highway this summer, and we w

Minister’s Statement 11-16(2) Tourism Product Diversification And Market Program  Mr. Speaker, the new Tourism Product Diversification and Marketing Program was officially launched by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment on January 7, 2008. This program will provide N.W.T. operators with the knowledge and means to reinvent or expand their touri

Minister’s Statement 12-16(2) Human Resource Update  Mr. Speaker, in keeping with my commitment to provide regular updates to Members of the House on Human Resources matters, I’m pleased to speak today about a couple of areas where we have made progress in and about services in place as we move forward. Since the summer of 2006,

Mackenzie Valley Highway  Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Premier’s Sessional Statement with some interest. I’d like to propose today my partial solution as to how we can realize these five initiatives that the Premier mentioned with one project Andthat project, Mr. Speaker, is the construction of the Mack

Contract Tenders For Regional Materials And Services  Mr. Speaker, the G.N.W.T. puts a lot of tenders out there across the Northwest Territories worth millions of dollars. The economic benefits from these tenders should apply to all people and all businesses and regions. The regional businesses should have an opportunity to submit

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery  I would like to use this opportunity to recognize my son Ryan, who is down here visiting me. But because we have been so busy, we haven’t really seen that much of each other.

Question 51-16(2) Economic Losses From Migrant Workers  The issue of migrant workers has been a troublesome one for our government for some time. First of all, we have to recognize that we live in a democracy, so people are free to move and live wherever they want, as provided for under the Constitution of Canada. We have been attem