Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The orders are suitably broad to allow us to deal with the circumstances or issues that may come up. It’s always up to the parks officers to exercise good judgment. I guess if somebody feels that the order has been unreasonable, the ticket issued has been unreasonable, they are well within their rights to contest that in court and to not pay it and to go to court. So in terms of additional resources, we don’t believe that that is necessary at this point. Currently if an order is given and it isn’t adhered to or isn’t followed, we end up having our parks officers call...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 11, Tourism Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few questions there. There was no one specific incident that lead to us deciding that it made sense to come forward and provide this tool for our parks officers, but with increased activity levels around our major centres, there has been an escalation of unruly behaviour at some of our parks that has been troubling. There is a trend here over the past couple of years, as I mentioned in my response from Mr. Ramsay. There have been a number of things that we have been doing to try to alleviate this. This is simply one more tool that we are providing our parks officers...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure what I’m able to do in terms of making the Minister of MACA aware of this initiative. He’s obviously right beside me, I know he has heard the questions and, Mr. Speaker, there’s not much more that I can say other than if there’s a community-based proposal, we’ll certainly work with the community. It is an interesting idea and it’s a fascinating and compelling story and if there’s a way for us to support Deline as the birthplace of hockey, that is something we’d be prepared to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Mr. Chairman, it’s a bit of a two-parter here. We’re going to make the changes to this bill, but then the next step is to change the regs of the Summary Conviction Procedures Act, and that’s the act that the tickets will be written under, under the authority of that act. So not actually under this Territorial Parks Act. Those regs have already been drafted, we’re just waiting for this bill to be passed and the assent of this bill, and then we can move forward with those. So, yes, parks officers will be able to issue tickets. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t aware that anybody who played in that game was still around to talk to.

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But seriously, Mr. Speaker, I think it’s a good initiative and I think there’s lots of reasons that we should champion an initiative like this. Of course, our department works with would be entrepreneurs who have business ideas. We want to support them. Our NWT tourism folks are the champions of our destination marketing and they would very much be involved. But I will, again, bring this to the attention of my regional people in the Sahtu who I am sure would be more than...

Mr. Chairman, thank you. With me is Peter Vician, deputy minister of ITI; and Mark Aitken, legislative counsel.

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. It’s tough for me to say if that would meet the program criteria and requirements. It is obviously a federal program, but as to our government’s support for that initiative, we have been very supportive. We’ve been involved in helping with the planning. We think there’s a lot of merit and we do think and would like to see regional interests more involved in the businesses in their communities and in their regions. So we’re firmly supportive of this and whether or not that will be eligible for SINED funding will be a decision that the federal government makes, but the Member...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, colleagues, I am pleased to speak before you to speak to the proposed amendment to the Territorial Parks Act. A recent review of parks issues identified the urgent needs for this amendment to the act that would be beneficial to both park guests and staff and make visits to the parks this summer safer and more secure.

This amendment addresses a problem identified by parks staff, the public, the media and indeed Members of this House, that of disruptive and destructive behaviour of individuals in territorial parks, particularly those in and around...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re still discovering that, or still analyzing that. As the House will remember, we reduced the budget, so the money is not there for the facility, but the plan was to reduce the…(inaudible)…allocation for attrition. That, by and large, has not happened. We are talking about the possible uses for some of that space that will probably require new programming and I think we need to have that discussion when we come forward in the business plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.