David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to pick up where I left off with my Member’s statement today and that’s in terms of the rapid growth of the public service here in the Northwest Territories and I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board, the Minister of Finance, what plan, if any, the government has to address the rapid growth of the public service here in the Northwest Territories? I stand up here today as a Yellowknife Member. I know the vast majority of the government jobs are located here in Yellowknife and, again, I wouldn’t want to say...

This is cause for alarm and for some reason the government doesn’t seem to be paying attention to this. We have nearly 4,500 employees in a territory with a population of 42,000 individuals. If you do some math and take out the individuals that are under 20 years of age, you come up with one in every 4.5 people who work for the GNWT. The growth goes from 2,750 employees in 1999 to close to 4,500 today. The total costs are up from $251 million in 1999 to close to $400 million today.

During the next few months certainly we’ll be negotiating with the unions for a new collective agreement. I’m not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to pick up where I left off with my statement. That is to talk about the secondary diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories and the fact that, to date, on the Sirius deal, this government has lost $3 million. That is all I can talk about today with the government, is the fact that we have lost $3 million, but I just want to say that it is going to end up costing the government substantially more than that, Mr. Speaker.

As a preamble, what I understand is that we have a socioeconomic agreement with BHP. Whether the 10 percent allotment of rough...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government we have an obligation to our residents and I believe the government has an obligation on this side of the House to explain what happened, to explain what went wrong. It is, of course, costing the government a tremendous amount of money, Mr. Speaker. At the appropriate time on today’s order paper I will have questions for both the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board Secretariat. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to bring up the topic that Members of this House will hear me speak a great deal about over the next few weeks. That topic, Mr. Speaker, is diamonds, and today specifically how they relate to our secondary industry here in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, in 1997, as a city councillor, I was honoured to be a member of the City of Yellowknife’s Diamond Task Force on the development of a secondary industry here in the Northwest Territories. That committee, with the help of the GNWT, made it possible that we could move forward with a cut and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I see it, this is our territory, it’s our future and it’s our economy. There are many good reasons why we should revisit this, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Finance Minister, does he believe the secondary diamond industry here in the Northwest Territories is indeed our industry or is it the producers’ industry and we are going to continue to let them call the shots? Let’s take the industry back, Mr. Speaker, and let’s revisit that, as the Finance Minister had stated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for his response, but I would just like to know, when the negotiations for a sales agreement between the Leviev Group and the producers goes sideways, for a government that has sank millions and millions of dollars, time and effort into a secondary industry here in the Northwest Territories, cannot stand up and do something about it, I don’t understand why we didn’t step in five months ago, six months ago and demand of the producers that they come to an agreement with Leviev. We have lost millions of dollars. I would like to know...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to extend a welcome to Chief Peter Liske who is with us today. As well, I’ve got constituent Garth Wallbridge and constituent Ms. Julie McNiece and it’s always good, Mr. Speaker, to see Mr. Villeneuve’s parents here again. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Friday, February 11, 2005, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that this Legislative Assembly, by virtue of section 3 of the Elections Act, recommends to the Commissioner the appointment of Glen McLean as Chief Electoral Officer for the Northwest Territories; and further, that this appointment shall be in effect until June 30, 2008.