Brendan Bell

Mr. Speaker, I think there are things that we can do as a government to assist the RCMP and there are a number of things that we have been involved in doing. One that I would point to is the use of our officers at our corrections facilities to escort prisoners as compared to asking uniformed RCMP officers to do this. So we’ve come up with an arrangement that allows the RCMP officers to stay on the ground, as the Member has indicated, in the community and not have to do this escort of prisoners function.

The RCMP have civilian staff who handle most of the clerical work and they have RCMP...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I would like to commend the Member for his hard work on this initiative.

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He has been encouraging this government to do some work to officially recognize Deline as the birthplace of hockey. I am happy to say that an event has come up in London for Canada Day it will be participating in. The GNWT, through my department, is supporting NWT Tourism in bringing over a ball hockey team from Deline. We will put on a bit of a show and an exhibition of their incredible hockey ability. I understand the Member himself will be suited up and put a number of balls...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think any options have been ruled out. We’d be willing to sit down and talk to prospective stakeholders, prospective partners, about a model that would best solve this problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member's concerns about the site that we’ve been looking at. He has, on the floor of this House, I think at least on one other occasion some months back, raised his concerns about the site, particularly that it was in the flight path. When we looked at options and land that was available to us, this site seemed to make a lot of sense and it was nicely situated close to Fred Henne Park on the shore of Long Lake; it looked like a very good place. We knew we’d have to do some work on the site, but we sat down to do some consultation with some of the...

Mr. Speaker, I’m more than prepared to come and talk to the Social Programs committee about such an initiative, but I am concerned that we set up some sort of paper shuffling exercise involving the RCMP, a long, drawn out process that really does nothing, Mr. Speaker. I think we all share the same thoughts, and that is to get as many RCMP officers on the ground and make sure their time isn’t spent frivolously doing unnecessary paperwork.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would say that I haven’t heard from the RCMP this concern. They have a number of opportunities to bring this to my attention. We meet very...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will certainly inquire as to the suggestion that it’s uniformed, I believe that the suggestion is that it’s uniformed police officers who are handling travel arrangements for witnesses. I think it’s probably clerical staff at the RCMP, but I could be wrong and I’ll certainly check into that. If that is the case, that would be an example, I would agree. Certainly there’s got to be a better way for us to utilize our uniformed staff. So on this committee, we participate with the RCMP. One of the major initiatives, as I’ve indicated, was to find a way to handle prisoner...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very important for us. When we look at our tourism numbers overall, we break them down by country of origin. Number one, in terms of the most frequent visitors, are Americans, but close behind that, Mr. Speaker, are those from the United Kingdom. So we think there is a great potential for growth. We would like to get more people from England, from the United Kingdom, to come over. This is an excellent opportunity for us to do this. This is a real unique event that we are putting on. All the provinces and territories, Mr. Speaker, will be present at those...

Mr. Speaker, that was the thought. Of course, we have a supplementary appropriation coming up soon. I can’t pre-empt that, but presumably there will be some questions and some discussion around this budget item which has changed from the initial proposal and we can talk about that at that point. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Partnership Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons we like this project is because of the legacy it can create and, first and foremost, 50 or 100 year industry for people up and down the valley in terms of oil and gas exploration. There are logical infrastructure contributions we think can be made by the federal government. We’ve been advocating that for some time. Now what we do need to see from Imperial and the producers is some detailed breakdown on that costing. There's no sense for us advocating for roads that will have little or no impact on the project. We need to see this detail. They have...