Brendan Bell

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...

Madam Speaker, I also wish to table the following document entitled Annual Report on the Activities of the Rental Office, 2004. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the approach, as the Minister of Finance has indicated, was to make the capital investment required to get the facilities up and running. The government would make that capital investment and it would be recouped through fees that would be collected. So I am not sure of the length of time in terms of the RFPs and how long contracts would be awarded for. The idea is to be able to operate on a break-even basis. We don’t want to subsidize this on a go-forward basis. So fees would pay for the operation and fees would also be used to recoup our initial capital...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Fair Practices Office Annual Report, January 1 to June 30, 2004. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you. Just to be clear, the fees that are applied to the containers, once the recycling takes place, only some of that is recouped by the consumer. The rest of it goes to pay for the operation of the program. So there is a deposit and some of it is refundable and some of it is not. The amount that’s not, goes to pay for the program, both for operations and also to recoup the initial capital investment made by government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I can give the Member my assurance that this will be absolutely an inclusive model that people right across the Northwest Territories will be able to take advantage of. The tourism sector will be broadly represented. All communities and regions will have representation in the new model. In terms of new money, we are talking about going forward with the business planning process and will handle that in due course with communities to talk about what will be appropriate. Obviously there are some decisions to be made as a government and as a Cabinet. In the coming months...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of the things that we sought out to do when we sat down to do our analysis of roles and responsibilities of the department, vis-a-vis the industry association, was to better understand who is doing what currently, to talk about who should be doing what and to address some gaps.

One of the gaps that we felt in tourism in the Northwest Territories was regional representation; in fact, regional impact on the ground across all regions of the Northwest Territories. We think that there are compelling arguments to be made for tourism money to be spent everywhere and...