It doesn’t appear to be that we are making much progress there. I know that we have our negotiators, but we still haven’t heard much about what’s going on in that area. So while I support and I know that everyone here supports the economic gains and economic benefits that will come from the pipeline, it is really with heavy heart, because we have no guarantee that we are going to get our share of the resource revenues that we want to see and that we still don’t have power and control over things that we need to have in order to make the right public policies and guidelines and regulations...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to speak to this motion. Mr. Speaker, obviously the pipeline train is coming toward us and it’s probably actually right at our doorstep with the filing of the application just a few days ago. There’s no question we, as a government, are feeling squeezed because there are lots of things that we wanted to have in place before this pipeline project becomes a reality in order that our jurisdiction and our people receive the maximum benefits out of such a megaproject, a project that would be ranked worldwide as one of the biggest projects of our time. Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do believe we must come up with a more concrete and more focused response and preparedness for what is going to befall upon us socially and with this megaproject. I think we have to do more than just business as usual, Mr. Speaker, because there are some specific issues and specific fallouts that we are going to have from this mega resource development from transient workers. We are already seeing increased use of crack cocaine and more prostitution, promiscuity. This report is talking about things like that. People use easy money frivolously on gambling. We are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ve been sort of tasked, I guess by Members on this side, to question the social impacts of the departments, which I am happy to do because I know that it is one that is a concern of all of us on this side and I think I will direct my questions to the Minister responsible for women, the honourable Minister Dent. Mr. Speaker, I realize that social impacts of mega resource development projects are not women’s issues alone, but there are a lot of issues that we need to deal with and there is no question that these important issues are not being discussed at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, indeed the news is out about the Northwest Territories diamonds, oil and gas, and our exceptional economic situation is making good copy in southern newspapers. Our economic growth is almost 10 times greater than the rest of Canada, and our employment rates are also breaking all records already without the pipeline. In Yellowknife, we have full employment, statistically speaking, already.

Mr. Speaker, the future indeed looks very bright, but there are many in our communities who are very concerned about the social impact the explosion of booming economy...

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I think what the Minister said about the fact that there is a union member in the appeal process, I think the Minister knows that that union member or whoever sits is not there to represent the employee who is going through the appeal. The union member is there as sort of a prop to make sure that the employee…They have a very negligent role to play, which is a complaint of the union. Second of all, Mr. Speaker, this government has not been forwarding a lot of legislative proposals. It hasn’t been a crowded agenda. I believe that Members here are always ready. A...

That’s right.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question today is to the Minister of FMBS. It is further to the questions that I asked yesterday, which I am afraid I wasn’t as clear, so the Minister was able to get away with very vague answers. I want to re-ask that. Mr. Speaker, I learned recently that, in fact, the appeal process we have for the GNWT employees are very one-sided. It is a process that the union has not agreed to. It is a process where union representatives can’t even sit in on an appeal of an employee and that there are lots of areas step by step in the appeal process that the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not still clear as to what went wrong with this budgeting process. Was there something discovered in the two years that this has been in operation that something was not built in physically, or was it just a simple case of underestimating the cost of fuel, power and maintenance?

Thank you. The Minister mentioned that the government has folded in the insurance costs for health boards and I’m assuming that coverage covers the health centres and public buildings that health boards run. I’m just wondering, how does the government take care of the school insurance. Is the government at all responsible for educational boards’ insurance?