Bob McLeod

I am pleased to announce that my colleague the Minister of Environment and myself have had the opportunity to meet with some of the businesses that operate on a territorial-wide basis, particularly of how we could use commercial subsidies that have been identified to help reduce the cost of goods for businesses that are operating not only in the Sahtu, but throughout the North. So this is an area that we are still working on, and certainly most of the businesses were very eager to work with us and to find ways to not only to reduce costs of the products they sold, but to make their businesses...

We are looking at the priority lists, because affirmative action covers a number of different areas which deem to be priorities in the hiring of this government. Certainly it includes not only affirmative action employees, but also women in the workforce, all hard-to-hire areas and people with disabilities, and they’re broken up into different categories and we are looking at it to see if there are ways to make it more effective in our hiring practices. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When those developments happen in the Northwest Territories, we will certainly make sure that the benefits to the people of the Northwest Territories are maximized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It’s still very early in the summer. Today is June 1st. Normally what we’d do is we’d send out a call to all departments, generally from the Premier and the Ministers to endeavour for the departments to hire summer students. Last year we hired 282 summer students, 84 Progressive Experience Program students and 26 relevant experience students. So we are looking at continuing to see more summer students being hired over the remainder of the summer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In our government we believe in letting our managers manage and we do have affirmative action policies that our managers have to apply. These results are reviewed on a regular basis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Kristin Chapman, Youth Bowling National Champion, and her parents, Blair and Yolande Chapman.

Also I’d like to recognize Jenny Bruce and Carol Beck, both board members of Northwest Territories Tourism Association, and Jerry Lapierre, executive director, Northwest Territories Tourism Association.

And Andy Hutchinson, executive director, Northern Frontier Visitors Association.

Finally, I’d like to recognize Wilma Degrew, my new constituency assistant.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Mr. Speaker, this is Tourism Week in Canada. It is a chance for us to highlight the tremendous importance of this sector to our national and local economies, and to our lives as Canadians. More than any other sector in the Northwest Territories, tourism offers spin-off benefits and the potential to establish and grow viable and sustainable ventures in every one of our 33 communities.

Last season, tourism contributed over $137.9 million to the Northwest Territories economy; not just to individual owners and operators, but to service suppliers in accommodations, transportation, the food and...

I’d be pleased to share the results of our summer student hiring with all of the Members in this Assembly. We have, in the past, looked at reducing summer student wages so that we could hire more summer students and we have looked at maybe using the minimum wage for summer students. Certainly, we know that we are not the only employer in the Northwest Territories; there are other employers that we feel should do their share of hiring summer students. We also have programs that will allow...where we contribute to the private sector hiring summer students and also boards and agencies. Certainly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, summer students that are interested in looking for a job with the Government of the Northwest Territories can register on the summer student database and have their names registered. Departments identify summer student jobs and the relevant experiences and skills required, and all departments have delegated staffing authority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.