Brendan Bell

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Law Foundation Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2004. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We are not insured to provide the service. The city already does provide it at the pool. I would also add that we don’t do it anywhere else in the territory. There are other beaches you can make exactly the same case for, I believe, such as the one in Hay River, which is inside municipal boundaries.

In terms of the safety issue, it’s a safety issue before the hours that a beach would be supervised, say at 10:00, and after the hours the beach would be supervised, say 6:00 p.m., if the city, for instance, chose to provide life guarding services from 10:00 until 6:00...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am very confident that over the next 18 months we will have a number of discussions around the impacts and implications of this move of TTC. Certainly I am prepared to sit down with the Social Programs committee, of which the Member is the very able chair, have a discussion around the kinds of program impacts that might be seen and we can do a review, if that’s what the Member is interested in, and make sure that we have done everything we can to mitigate any loss for any program. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don’t believe we have any indication from Alison McAteer House that they will no longer be able to operate our 1-800 number line. I am certainly willing to sit down and discuss that with them. I think there are a number of months before any transition has been proposed. We do have some time to work out any of these operational challenges and we will certainly be able to be prepared to do that, but, as a first step, I will make sure we contact Alison McAteer House and discuss implementations for the provision of their service. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Again, it is our preference as a government to support the companies that are leaving tangible benefits behind. Of course, it is very difficult to wade into the corporate structures of companies to determine exactly what the ownership structure looks like, unless we’re conducting something other than a competitive process and we need to go in and negotiate a contract. Then, as I’ve said, there are a couple of tests and filters; support from the MLA in the region. It’s difficult when development arms of bands are involved in joint ventures that may be less than...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As a government, we follow a very well defined set of procurement policies. When it comes to preferential treatment for companies, negotiated contracts, those types of things, obviously we rely on political support from the MLA in the region who generally, I think, is very aware of which companies are providing meaningful benefit to the region. That is certainly a filter or one test for us, Madam Speaker, to make sure that in fact we are doing business with the right companies. We can't prevent anybody from bidding on work. It is a competitive process and...

Madam Speaker, I would like to update the House on the implementation of the Protection Against Family Violence Act.

This new law came into effect on April 1, 2005. It gives people new choices to deal with family violence. Any time of the day or night, a person can call the RCMP or a toll-free crisis line to talk to a family violence counsellor. They have several different choices and in emergencies, the police or counsellor can help them apply for an emergency protection order. A justice of the peace considers the history of family violence in the relationship and can make orders that will...

Thank you again, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Mental Disorder Review Board Report, Minister of Justice, February 2005.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The answer is no. We don’t do it anywhere else in the territory. We aren’t going to start doing it at this beach. We aren’t going to go out and decide we are in the life guarding business. It isn’t our jurisdiction. The city can do it if they choose. I believe the cost is $20,000. They have lifeguards available that they use at the pool. They are set up to be able to do this. They are insured to be able to do this. Obviously it would cost them some money and I respect their decision to not staff lifeguards at the beach because that would mean having to reduce...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don't believe the city intends to provide life guarding services this summer at the beach. It's been a couple of seasons now without lifeguards at the beach. I think the Member knows the history. We provided, in past, a contribution that the city turned around and used to provide life guarding services. Obviously we are not in that business and don't do that, but we had provided a contribution in the past. The city felt that it wasn’t significant enough. We entered into a negotiation which eventually failed. The city left that negotiation feeling that if we...