Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Historical Resources Act, be read for the first time.

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act.

Mr. Speaker, when this whole incident occurred, they had to go through the court proceedings, and they had to be remanded because there was a court appearance that was coming up. There was a need to hold this individual in the North because of the court proceedings. That is part of the reason why we had to.... We do have the facility in the North, although it may not be fully secured. Because of the safety factor of the facility, that’s part of the reason why we had to have these ladies in remand.

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 5, Professional Corporations Act.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This certainly has been an issue within our department. That particular individual had been placed in the Fort Smith facility in remand. They were waiting for their court hearing. That is part of the reason they were stationed out of the Fort Smith facility.

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 4, Public Library Act.

Mr. Speaker, currently the business plans are in process right now, and with the PTR this is all preliminary. We need to do more groundwork in this area, because we do have PTRs in different areas as well. As I indicated earlier, we need to work with the community educators, the school boards, the councils at the community level and our government department to move forward on that matter. We need more time to deal with the PTR issues. But, certainly, we do provide program delivery in the community at the current time, and I think it has been successful. We’ll continue to deliver that program

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with second reading of Bill 3, International Interests in Mobile Aircraft Equipment Act.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With the Department of Education, Culture and Employment there have been some concerns in areas of delivery for funding allocation to enhance or promote aboriginal language and cultural areas — the programming. We did issue a Ministerial directive in 2004 to deal specifically with the delivery of these courses where the elders also could be hired in this area. It does highlight specific areas of aboriginal language and instruction programs and also involves our community resource people. Those are the areas we’re focusing on right now.

With respect to the PTR the Member is...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Historical Resources Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Historical Resources Act to empower the Minister to perform functions now assigned to the Commissioner. In addition, provisions pertaining to the Northwest Territories Historical Advisory Board are repealed, and the remaining provisions are renumbered.