Glen Abernethy

Once again, to the Premier, it’s great that the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation is planning to do some of those information releases, but the government is still on the dime for this to a tune of $160 million. I think we have a responsibility as a government to share some of the information with the public, because they are asking us as well.

So once again, I’d like to get the Premier to commit to developing some sort of communications plan about our role in the bridge and the costs to the residents of the Northwest Territories and Yellowknife.

I too want to recognize Todd Parsons, president of the Union of Northern Workers, and a resident of the Great Slave riding; as well as Vivian Squires, a resident of the Great Slave riding; and Lydia Bardak from city council.

Me? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I liked the sessional statement. I enjoyed listening to it and I enjoyed reading it afterwards, but I also agree with the comments of my colleagues. There are some areas that obviously I and we feel could have been a little bit stronger. For me, I am not going to go over what my colleagues have already gone over, but there are a couple of areas that I wanted to address, as well.

On page 5 during the statement, you said it’s important that we have an effective and efficient government. This is critical to me. Our employees are our most valuable resources. Without...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. As I discussed in my Member’s statement, Education, Culture and Employment is providing grants through the NWT Arts Council to northern artists. When people go out and provide their product or finish their CDs or do their paintings or whatnot, what is done by ECE is basically an e-mail saying congratulations, this has been done, we’ve gave the person a grant, it’s great, whoo-hoo. It seems to end there. This is sad. There’s an opportunity for ITI to work closely with ECE to get this information...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further, to the Minister, the host society is in a planning phase; they’re going to be delivering the games in March, which really isn’t that far away. If they could get some sort of commitment that they will be receiving the money, then they can continue with the planning. If they’re not going to be getting the money, they’re going to have to cut programs, which is going to affect the overall delivery of the games. So I would like a commitment from the Minister to get some sort of response to the host society as soon as possible, as early in December as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to add to Mr. Hawkins’ Member’s statement made yesterday on the arts. Specifically, I’d like to talk about the disconnect I perceive between the support provided by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to artists and the lack of follow-up with these artists, whether they are musicians, painters, writers, sculptors, or involved in crafts, by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, who may be able to partner with these artists to promote the NWT and strengthen tourism across the Northwest Territories. If we give people a reason to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware of the document that you are talking about. To me, it didn’t address the artists that are out there being supported from the Arts Council. Like I said, there are a lot of musicians out there that have received money and are out there struggling to get their name known. It wouldn’t take very much for us to give them a little bit of a nudge through some of our marketing campaign to get their name out there and to utilize them, to ask them along when we are going out on tradeshows and whatnot as representatives of the North to say this is the type of music...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it is approved, when do you think the money might be able to flow, or when does the Minister think the money might be able to flow to the host society? Because, as I said, they need the money; they need to get going and we want this to be the best games possible, so cutting the money would be a real disappointment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this question is addressed to the Minister of MACA. Ms. Bisaro spoke earlier this week about the Arctic Winter Games and the benefit the 2008 games will provide to Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories. One of the biggest challenges for the games has been the need to raise enough funds to host the games as expected by the Arctic Winter Games International Committee. The budget for the games is $6.6 million. Of that, $2.6 million has been contributed through various other government organizations -- federal, territorial -- which leaves $3.1 million...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the problems I see with a survey that’s conducted over an entire public service is it gives you a general or an average, which would suggest that maybe morale isn’t awful, but maybe not that good. But it doesn’t identify those pockets where there are toxic environments. Is there any way that you can dig deeper into the surveys broken down by area in general to identify those areas where there is a toxic work environment where a significant amount of work needs to be done to bring up the morale and improve services to the public as a whole?