Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, rare earth elements are being increasingly sought for their importance in the development of green technologies. 

It is rare earth elements such as dysprosium that allow electric motors to remain lightweight and small, yet deliver the efficiency and power required for modern vehicles.  Europium is used in florescent lighting which cuts energy use by 75 percent compared to incandescent lighting. Terbium is used in energy efficient fluorescent lamps. Yttrium is used in almost every vehicle on the road. Yttrium-based materials improve the fuel efficiency of engines. 

Despite continued...

We want to work with the standing committees and we also want to get out very quickly so we can find a way to come up with a revised investment policy that’s transparent, that meets everybody’s requirements, because we’d like to get this money out there and working. So we’ll get out there quickly to get it to the stage whereby we can get the money working. We definitely want to work with the Members.

Certainly, we’re very pleased and we want to continue to work with the committees. One of the things that we’ve looked at is investing the money in the government business programs. This is another area that we can look at, recognizing that the loans programs that we have with the government, there’s a loss ratio of about 14 to 20 percent loss, which we have to come to this Assembly to write off, so we take that into consideration.

We’d be very pleased to continue to work with the standing committees. We also have the Ministerial Advisory Panel on the Economy that we will be consulting with on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a very long list. I don’t know if everybody is still here, but I’d like to start by recognizing the executive director of the NWT Tourism, Mr. Jerry Laprieur; the executive director of the NWT Chamber of Commerce, Mr. John Curran; the president of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Jon Jaque; the president of Canadian North, Tracy Medve; vice-president Kelly Kaylo from Canadian North as well. I’d like to recognize Gord Clarke, the treasurer of NWT Chamber of Mines. Constituents: I have Anne Juneau, constituent of Yellowknife South; Gayla Wick, constituent...

The loan that we’re talking about is a northern company that we’ve invested in. We’re very pleased to and what we are trying to do is use that fund for that. We would be very pleased to work with the committee to do exactly that.

I should point out that the Opportunities Fund is funded through the Immigrant Investment Program and the $400,000 that was invested by the immigrants has to be repaid within five years. The type of investments that we think would work best are companies that can pay a fairly high rate of interest, that can pay it all back within a five-year period. Also, the federal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would like to work very closely with the committee as well. I’ve written to the chair of the standing committee and advised her of our decision on the most recent proposal, and indicated to her that we will be working with the committee and whatever other parties that we feel should be consulted with to develop investment policies and revised procedures. Thank you.

Thank you. I’d like to recognize my wife, Melody, of 35 years, and my oldest grandson who turned five on Monday and he’s not here because it’s his birthday present, we’re just trying to get him started early. Also, some relatives and friends from Fort Providence: Irene Lafferty, Chief Berna Landry, elders Danny Squirrel and Sam Elleze. My Yellowknife South constituent Gayla Wick, and a long-time colleague, Floyd Adlem.

Thank you. I’d like to recognize my wife, Melody, of 35 years, and my oldest grandson who turned five on Monday and he’s not here because it’s his birthday present, we’re just trying to get him started early. Also, some relatives and friends from Fort Providence: Irene Lafferty, Chief Berna Landry, elders Danny Squirrel and Sam Elleze. My Yellowknife South constituent Gayla Wick, and a long-time colleague, Floyd Adlem.

Mr. Speaker, the Member referred to the human resource strategic plan that we’re developing, which will be a ten year strategic plan, with our ultimate goal to reaffirm that the GNWT public service is the best place to work in the Northwest Territories. It’s unclear to me what kind of retribution these summer students would be fearful of. We do provide them with an opportunity to respond through exit interviews. As we go through our consultation, if the general feeling is that we should provide a blog, an opportunity for them to respond, we are quite prepared to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government we are very pleased that we were able to offer summer student employment to 281 summer students. I’m quite surprised to hear it appears the majority were disillusioned, because of the fact that we’ve taken extra steps to ensure that summer students were gainfully employed. We provided orientation opportunities for them, and we worked very closely with all of the departments to make sure that their employment was meaningful and allowed them to gain some skills that they could carry forward.

As well, we do provide the opportunity for exit interviews for...