Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity for final supplementary. Mr. Speaker, the report suggests that the workforce at the plant, for whatever reasons and maybe for valid reasons, has been reduced from 10 to four, and there are no longer operators beyond 5:00 p.m. where it used to be monitored 24 hours a day. There seems to be a lot of morale problems. There always is when there are changes going on in a facility like that. There are people who have been working there for many decades. I would like to know if the Minister would speak to the corporation to make sure that all...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are the 17 new positions for this year? What has caused the need? Why is it coming up as not previously authorized? If they were old positions, why wasn’t office space for them considered in the previous budget? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, even if the plant is not in full use, it is situated practically in the middle of the city, next to a lake that people frequent for recreational uses and for other reasons. It is important that that facility be monitored and the safety is taken care of so that environmental disasters don’t happen that affect the people. Mr. Speaker, I understand that extra security would monitor it, but you still need operators on standby in case something happens. I don’t know if the security is enough. Mr. Speaker, there are varying numbers as to how much oil was...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that this item is here because it’s been moved forward by two years because the experts are saying that unless something is done to fix this, there might be an environmental disaster happening. I don’t know to what extent. Could I get the Minister to tell me about the time frame? Is the work being done already? I would hate to see anything like that happen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to also take this opportunity to welcome the participants of the National Young Worker Safety Conference to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. There are many who are coming from south of 60 and from around the world, and for them I am sure this will be a great experience to see the North and meet the youth of the North.

Mr. Speaker, I could tell you a number of them are also coming from the North, and their participation at the conference has been made possible not only by the big sponsors mentioned earlier, but by many small businesses who...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Then can we have an indication as to whether this is just the start of a lot more operational money that we are going to be approving? This is just to take care of things that need to be taken care of this year or in the interim before the next budget comes, because we know later on in the supplementary appropriation we have requests for a big capital funding that is going to go to the airport. I just want to know if this $40,000 for the Yellowknife Airport is stage one of many stages that are going to come and how much the final tally will be. Thank you.

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...