Brendan Bell

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, be read for the second time.

Madam Speaker, this bill changes the definition of “employee” to include persons who perform services as appointees, volunteers and students and persons who perform services under contracts and agency relationships. Employees are prohibited from disclosing personal information without authorization. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our message to everybody who is interested in seeing this project move forward and to all northerners is that this government's support for the project is unwavering. We believe that the people on the ground in the communities are eagerly anticipating the project.

We want to see this happen, we want the economic benefits that can come from a development like this, but we want to make sure it’s done in the appropriate manner. We’re very confident that the environmental review process, the cooperation plan that’s been laid out, is a comprehensive review process that...

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill, 3 An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a very comprehensive and broad response required to that difficult question. It is a priority of the government to start to address the cost of living in the North, and it’s one that cuts across many departments and many aspects of life in the North. Obviously we need to make more land available for housing developments. We need to pursue opportunities like hydro to make sure that the cost of electricity across the North isn’t so onerous. There are many things that we need to do. We need to focus as a government on a number of these issues, but there is no...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Judicature Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, in much of this discussion, we tend to want to focus on the hypothetical, the what-ifs. We don’t know what’s going to happen and obviously we can’t chain people up and force them to work or force them to live somewhere. We have to do our best to make sure that it is an environment that people want to live in; that’s what we are here to do. We are here to improve life, reduce the cost of living and make sure this is the best place in the country to live. I believe it is. Will some people want to move south because they have now seen a window? I don’t know. I guess hypothetically...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a difficult issue for us to address, but we know what we need to do is get more northerners trained, especially for the jobs that require a high level of expertise. The fact of the matter at that specific mine is 70 percent of their workforce -- I think it’s 72 percent, in fact -- are northerners. The other 30 percent currently come from the South. Had we had that expertise locally available in the North, there would be no one coming in from the South. That is our goal. That’s why we have programs set up like the ASEP program that the Minister of Education has...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 6, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2005, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it’s a very important question, and I want to reiterate that this closure was done as an economizing measure. We felt that in terms of efficiency, in terms of making the best use of our funds, we could adequately handle remand prisoners in the facility and the general population if they weren’t of high risk, and high risk inmates could be transferred to the North Slave facility. But there is no doubt that this was based on the assumption that we could actually save money doing it. Admittedly, it’s not a program enhancement. If money were not an object, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Tourism 2003-04 Annual Report. Thank you.