Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those sound like very constructive steps, Mr. Speaker, and I won't press the government on which one or how to go yet. I will be quite happy to leave it for some time, and come back with a thorough recommendation. But I would like to pursue, Mr. Speaker, one aspect of this that I believe deserves some attention and should be considered right out front, and that is the approach of saying that we should have two acts; one to administer the liquor on a business basis, and the mandate of the government's social responsibility. I'm wondering if Mr. Roland would advise us...

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, Ms. Lee, has already recognized persons in the gallery, some seniors here, and I would too. My mother, Esther, and her good friend and neighbour, Ed Jeske, and Ms. Barb Hood, the executive director of the NWT Seniors' Society. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the past few months the Yellowknifer newspaper has supplied us with a new and I think very valuable feature, and that is with the assistance of the RCMP and their crime statistics, a snapshot of a very, very real side of life in Yellowknife. It has the number of assaults, break-ins, impaired driving, public drunkenness and shop lifting complaints handled by the Yellowknife RCMP detachment. The headlines are disturbing. There were 528 calls for RCMP service in the two-week period between May 3rd and 16th, Mr. Speaker. Thirty percent of these involved alcohol....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and colleagues. So between the Minister responsible for managing liquor in the Northwest Territories and the judiciary, we have a dramatic difference -- I would say a grand canyon, Mr. Speaker -- in how we manage and enforce our laws. It is long overdue that we resolve these issues with a full-scale revamping and modernization of our antiquated liquor legislation. It should go beyond just the issues surrounding this board, but it should also go into many other areas that are impacted by the way we manage alcohol. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, I support the direction...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My colleague from Hay River North has already made reference to the words, the time that this Assembly has spent on the business incentive policy not only in the last few days but over the last few years. I would not extend this, but to say that from the point of view of the business community who are principally the clients and this government's partners in developing and advancing this Northwest Territories, that the plea is for consistency, stability and integrity in the way we go about our business.

Markets grow and evolve. They have certainly done so since this...

Mr. Speaker, the information that the Minister is providing just doesn’t jibe with what I heard from Mr. Simpson. Again, in the conversation I had with him this morning, in the aspect of seeking assistance from the department he said that he or we, the board, felt like we were high school kids going and asking for help to get a few things done like building a Web site, more training for their own people, training for bar staff and wait staff, continually denied at the administrative and bureaucratic level. So where the Minister says we’ll support you, in reality that is just not the case as I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement today I addressed the area of the Liquor Licensing Board so my questions are for the Minister of Finance who has responsibility for that area. I contrasted a statement by the Minister in which -- I’m paraphrasing here -- he indicated that it’s difficult for the board to go into social aspects in expanding its mandate. Yet a judge of our court indicated that considerations, which focus on public safety and public peace that are consistent within the purpose of the Liquor Act and the intention of the legislature. My question for the Minister, Mr. Roland...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are 170 licensed liquor establishments in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker. By far, the vast majority of these are well-run establishments necessary to our communities, to our hospitality industry that provide jobs. About five percent of them, at the most, cause our problems. In the last two years alone, we’ve had two deaths in Yellowknife attributed to situations and incidents in bars. Other serious incidents are on record in Hay River and Inuvik. Our Liquor Licensing Board, under the chairmanship of Mr. John Simpson, has, in recent months, undertaken...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been considerable discussion already in this Assembly, Mr. Speaker, about a number of tax measures that this government has proposed, a couple of which we have already approved and two of which have yet to come. I’ve already said that I think the government has taken a positive step in putting these together in a bundle, so to speak, as the Minister of Finance did in his budget address. This helps everyone understand and comprehend what we’ve got ahead of us and what this government’s plans are for how to manage our fiscal situation.

The principle of the...

Thank you. You know, the Minister is right in that if we get into a sort of he said/she said discussion here, we’re not going to help the issue. I would like to use my last question to ask on a go-forward basis. Will the Minister commit to bringing a new Liquor Act forward and to do so in time for consideration and passage by this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.