Sandy Lee

Thank you, Madam Chair. My apologies; I mixed up two different items there. For Yellowknife air terminal building I’m just not sure why the money was spent in this way in that we have been aware since the September 11th attack that there have been lots of requirements being imposed on various airports, the Yellowknife Airport being one of them, to upgrade their facilities and baggage areas and better security and such. I’d like to know why it is that this was not incorporated into a main transportation budget and what transpired that required this to be spent, the money to be allocated in this...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to be clear, I just want to make sure. I would like to have confirmation from the Minister that this doesn’t have anything to do with the 22 mobile homes we bought to encourage the markets in communities so that employees who come up north to work could have places where they pay their own rent. I just want confirmation that this doesn’t have anything to do with that program. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. May I just ask the Minister as to whether this is a yearly increase or is it something that comes periodically? How often does the commission review the salary of judges? Thank you.

Thank you. I think it's open to debate whether or not there were any other spaces, but for now, Mr. Chairman, I just want to concentrate on this item in front of us, $115,000 for a lease improvement that was approved on August 22nd. What I'm gathering from what the Minister is saying is that this amount was approved in advance without knowing the details. It's an approximation of what it would cost to do lease improvements to make the space suitable for the office. Would the Minister say that there's a very good possibility that we may need more money to improve, especially given that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand, from the information, $350,000 of $855,000 is being used for office renovations, but I still don’t have the information on the remainder of that $855,000. Could the Minister provide that, please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With all due respect to all the people who are waiting in line for Legal Aid lawyers, we know this has been an ongoing thing for many years. We know the current practice is anything the Legal Aid clinic cannot handle, they get farmed off to private lawyers. That’s how this gets done. It’s quite troubling that something like this is done by way of a special warrant which really ties the hands of the members here because once this has been allocated, there is nothing we can do about it and $115,000 is gone. I have a problem with that and I believe the use of special...

We have been negotiating this for as long as we have been a government, as long as we have had a Legislature here, as long as we became a responsible government and no longer populated by appointees from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. Every Member of this Legislature who ever ran and got elected has had on their agenda devolution as their major task.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe what is happening with this pipeline is so huge, we are spending a lot of energy and time talking about how we get the most financial benefit, how we get resource revenue sharing. All of that is important. We have many people spending lots of resources working on those to get the best deal possible. I think there should be the same effort, energy, and resources put on by this government. You get the money from the company, but is the government working with the partners that could work out a specific plan to get ready for the pipeline development? Are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The report, for example on page 5, has a whole section on community wellness. This is not just a women’s issue, but it is done by the Status of Women Council. It is coming from a woman’s perspective, which I believe also is always a better and enlightened perspective.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, if you read through this community wellness section, it really provides the government with concrete steps that the government could take to get the people ready for the megaprojects. It talks about child and homecare services, improve the information services like a helpline or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. I would like to conclude by recognizing the very good work done by the Status of Women Council of the NWT who, in July of 2004, released a report titled Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Terms of Reference of the Mackenzie Gas Project. It is an excellent report with two very neatly organized tables included in the report that tells us what we need to do, what the mitigating steps are that we could take to get our people ready and to make sure that our people benefit from it in a maximum way. I would just like to say that all...