Rocky Simpson

No, it wasn't a question, just comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to touch on one line item here. That is the "Advance the Hay River to Fort Providence transmission line." In Hay River, we have Northland Utilities, same as Fort Providence, but we get our power from NTPC, from Taltson. The other issue we have is the franchise agreement, which has been going on for I am not sure how many years now, three or four, maybe five. I am not sure how much money is being spent on that. If we would have saved that money or given it as rebates, we would probably be better off. Sometimes competition is good.

I heard the Premier say that...

That wasn't too bad. The final one, so hopefully it will be a yes here. It is an easy question. Will the Minister of Health ensure that her department keeps me in the loop as well, and updated on what's happening?

Thank you, Madam Chair. In talking about messaging and getting the message out there that we are open for business, I believe that we have to send a positive message. If we keep saying that we have no money, we can't do anything, then I don't blame people for wanting to come here. With the mining industry, I know I made a statement a while back, and I got a few nasty notes from some of the guys. They have to realize that the resources in the Northwest Territories are owned by the people of the Northwest Territories, this government, and Indigenous groups. When mines are developed and put on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for health a couple of questions. I am going to go to something that was brought up in the last Assembly, and it was to do with dialysis. In the North, it's an issue getting that service, and in Hay River, we have a dialysis unit, and it's kind of running at half throttle. We're looking after eight people when we can be looking after 16, and it's partly due to funding.

What I'm hoping the Minister of health -- I've got three questions for her. I'm hoping that the answers will just be one word, "yes," "yes," and "yes." We need...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to touch on tourism, as well. This last weekend, I had the opportunity to go down and take a look at a facility in Hay River, and there are a couple of them there. It's interesting because I go down there, and I know housing had gotten rid of these houses, quite a few of them there in an area called "Disneyland," because the houses were unfit for habitation. Well, they are all down there by the lake now as little chalets and cleaned up and beautiful and get rented out for whatever. There is really an opportunity for tourism in Hay River, but, again, they are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I would like to pay tribute to Mrs. Rita Rowe, a long-term resident of Hay River, who was surrounded by family and passed away peacefully on February 14th in Hay River. Rita was born on June 22, 1935, on a small farm in Lonesome Pine, Alberta, to Mary and Arthur Lockhart. She was the youngest daughter with 14 siblings. When Rita was just 12 years old, her mother passed away, resulting in Rita going to live with her sister in Edmonton.

At the young age of 16, Rita went looking for work, which found her on a plane heading to Yellowknife. Her adventure was just...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, when I look at this, the first point there of working with community governments to identify and advance economic opportunities, there is an area there and how we will do it. There is job creation, right there, and that is job creation probably without -- you don't need trades, and you probably don't really need an education. It's basically for anybody. I think that that's an area that this government has to really grasp and run with right off the bat here. We can't wait.

With respect to the agricultural side, I talked to people this last weekend in Hay River...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to talk about the modernization of the NWT airport infrastructure. I am concerned, and if MLA Martselos was here, she'd probably be speaking on this, as well. The airport in Smith was narrowed. My concern is that if we are going to do it to one, they may pick on Hay River or they may pick on somebody else. To me, what we are trying to do is make the North more acceptably accessible. I have lived here for so long; I see where we take stuff away. Once we do that, we never get it back. That scares me when we look at these type of things, and it wasn't us that...

Thanks for that answer. I guess the problem I have is that, the way the economy is right now, what's happening is we're getting an influx of southern business coming in and taking work away, so we've got to do something different in the interim. If we have companies in the North that are willing to partner up with Indigenous groups to do, whether it's highway work or whether it's building, or whatever, I think we should seriously look at that, because then that way we know that the work will be staying in the North.

I guess I'm looking for a commitment from the government to seriously look at...