Brendan Bell

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t have a forecast of CPI going forward, but maybe what I could say is that, in the last number of years, the last number of contracts, I believe the UNW has always negotiated a higher increase than the CPI. In my recent memory anyway, that has been the case, so I would think that this is probably going to amount to lower increases going forward than the UNW will negotiate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The design was for 154 beds. I believe that’s the number of beds that are there now. My understanding, the latest numbers are in the neighbourhood of 128 and 130. I don’t have today’s numbers, but that’s fairly recent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With me is Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Assembly; and Mark Aitken, legislative counsel, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is National Tourism Awareness Week in Canada, a week aimed at raising awareness of the tremendous economic, cultural and social benefits provided by this sector to all Canadians.

In the Northwest Territories, tourism is a $100 million industry. That is the amount spent by the over 61,000 visitors to our territory every year.

Mr. Speaker, tourism dollars are new dollars to our economy and flow into our communities through our many valued tourism operators and outfitters. Along the way, this benefits NWT residents and businesses working in areas such as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is speaking of a lot of the work that as a government with a number of stakeholder departments and the RCMP, we came together after the urging of a number of Ingraham Trail residents to deal with some of the concerns specifically on the Ingraham Trail. So we are doing a number of things and I referenced them earlier when responding to Mr. Ramsay. We do have more of a police presence; we do have more involvement and more participation, cooperation with DOT officials who are driving that road quite frequently. Essentially, we have raised this up on the radar...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would; and, with your indulgence, I would also like to do the opening comments for Bill 4 at the same time as I do Bill 3.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, and Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act, implement many of the recommendations of the Independent Commission to Review Members’ Compensation and Allowances. The report of this commission was tabled during the last sitting of the House. I want to take this opportunity to again thank the members of the commission for...

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.

---Applause