Bill Braden

Madam Chair, I certainly understand that we run a number of complex projects and some of them can’t be guaranteed or predicted with absolute certainty that they can be done, so it’s fully understandable that there can and will be some carry-overs. But I guess an aspect that I wanted to ask about is that, you know, as the implementation of some of these goes ahead and indeed, you know, the Minister or the department finds that, for instance, there is very limited uptake on a call for bidders or the cost of something comes in extraordinarily high, well above anticipated costs, do we have a way...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The bill is quite large, as supps go in this Assembly, and it may be a little, deceiving is the wrong word, of course, but in its inclusion is a very large number of carry-overs, both in cash value and in quantity, from the previous year, Madam Chair. Some $75 million of this is, in effect, for projects that this Assembly has already approved from the previous year or, potentially, even years. These projects are, of course, uncompleted and what the Assembly is doing here is simply reaffirming the money that was unspent from last year can continue to be spent this year...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is quite correct; the service will hopefully be restored much earlier than usual. But the reality is, it's too late for the fuel suppliers here in the Yellowknife region. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has acknowledged there are indeed maintenance issues, and it's starting to think the Merv Hardie has been out of the water for more than four months now, but here we are at the cusp of the season and we're still fixing it. Mr. Speaker, what is the nature of the mechanical and maintenance issues with the Merv Hardie and how long is it going to take them to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly hope we can all count on the optimism that the Minister is projecting about a Monday service date. Mr. Speaker, in some other discussions with folks on this issue, I was told that the Mackenzie River was indeed clear of ice yesterday and could have accepted the…The boat could have been in service very plainly, but we ran into apparently some issues regarding maintenance or inspection of the boat. Could the Minister advise why the Merv Hardie ferry was not in the water yesterday?

Mr. Speaker, you know, again, I want to appeal to the Minister and ask for his commitment to focus not on what’s good for the pipeline project, Exxon Mobil and the other investors; what is good for the Northwest Territories? Will this government finally and aggressively focus on what we need, not what works to the advantage of the pipeline proponents, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, considering the significance of this project to the Northwest Territories, is the Minister, is the government going to be more specific and be more aggressive about the kind of support we would like to see the federal government taking? Of course, there are lots of different options, all of them that make sense in certain areas, but which are the ones that make most sense for us for the long-term future of the Northwest Territories? Is the government going to be taking that case to the federal government and promote our interests in this project, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a constituent, Mr. Jim Peterson, a former president of the NWT Tourism Association and a sports hunting and fishing outfitter, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Madam Chair, another aspect of the volume of projects being carried over is that the expectation was that these would be completed within a given fiscal year and a time frame. We have already, of course, passed the budget for 2007-2008 and the hundred more projects, new initiatives that we want to get done this year. But yet we find ourselves dealing with many, many projects unfinished from the previous year. So a concern here, Madam Chair, is that our capacity to handle our own new work, let alone the stuff that’s unfinished from previous years, is going to even more compound our capacity...

Thank you. What does the Minister mean by market participation, Madam Chair?

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Please provide a detailed accounting of the number of nursing graduates in 2006-2007 at Aurora College.

How many job offers were made to these graduates?

What is the number of placements that resulted?

Mr. Speaker, I want to note that the names of the graduates are not requested in the interest of privacy and personal information. I'm only seeking the numbers and results. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.