Bob McLeod

Thank you. We are in fact having those discussions between Aurora College and the diamond mine management through our MOU process, and this is an area that we have identified as a barrier and this is something that we’ll be working very hard to resolve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Through the MOU on mining that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and myself have signed with the three diamond mine companies, we’ve been focusing on three areas, one of them has been training. So through that process we are examining ways to train more people, more Northerners to go through programs that are designed specifically for employment in the three mines and other mines as they become open and processing. One of the things that we’re doing is identifying barriers that prevent any sector from being able to access training. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize two hardworking Pages from Yellowknife South: Braden Redshaw and Alyx McLean. I’d also like to thank all of the Pages who have served here in the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.

If all the diamond mines money doesn’t go into the Heritage Fund we should be able to have money for training. One of the priorities for our government working with the diamond mines is to make sure the people of the Northwest Territories know what is available to them and what the mines will do if they hire people in the Northwest Territories to work for them, so that they know what kind of benefits are there and whether the travel will be covered and so on. I think that the best thing for us to do, and the diamond mines management have gone and made tours to all the regions and I think we...

The Member will be pleased to know that I do have a ministerial advisory panel made up of the leading figures of business and the leading associations in the Northwest Territories. I will pose that question to them.

Our focus has been mainly to invest in and help develop northern businesses and northern entrepreneurs. We also have funding to promote the Northwest Territories as a great place to invest in. We have limited resources, so as much as we can, we use the media to multiply the effects of the money that we spend in that regard. We do work with businesses that are interested in moving up here and I think that our predominant approach is to develop our northern workforce and our northern businesses.

I’ll be pleased to accept any suggestions that the Member may have. We were intending to look at what other jurisdictions were doing, as well, to see what we could incorporate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member will be pleased to know that I have already committed to do an independent review of providing support to the NWT film industry. Your fellow colleagues have already indicated the need for that and we’re very pleased to be able to undertake an independent review.

If the Member is wanting to know what we were doing to attract people to move to the Northwest Territories, he should have asked that. The Minister of Finance did announce in the previous budget that we are undertaking a program to attract more people to come and work and live in the Northwest Territories. So we are working and signed an MOU with diamond mines, we have set targets to increase the number of workers that live in the South and getting them to move north. We have also signed on to immigrant nominee programs so we can get people who are moving to Canada to come and work in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Member seems to want us to take on the provinces and he seems to think that the provinces are doing a great job. I agree that the provinces are doing a great job, but they have significantly more resources to work with.

The Province of Alberta, for example, has trade missions around the world. They have their own aircraft fleets that they can fly around to attract businesses. They have tax credit programs and tax initiatives. They have funding so that they can subsidize businesses to locate into their provinces.

The Member also mentioned Saskatchewan, where the...