Whitehorse, Yukon

Wednesday, December 18, 1996 - 1:30 p.m.

Speaker: I will now call the House to order.

We will proceed at this time with prayers.

Prayers

DAILY ROUTINE

Speaker: We will proceed with the Order Paper.

Are there any tributes?

TRIBUTES

In Remembrance of Les Butterworth

Mr. Jenkins: I rise today to pay respects to a long-time Dawson resident who passed away yesterday. Les Butterworth first arrived in Dawson City with his family in the mid-1930s from British Columbia, at which time they built and operated greenhouses on Fifth Avenue in our community. Les left Dawson City to serve in the Second World War with the Canadian Armed Forces. Upon his return to Dawson, Les began employment with the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation, the company, and worked his way up to the position of dredgemaster.

Les also worked for White Pass as the Dawson agent and, prior to his retirement, was responsible for the maintenance of Diamond Tooth Gertie's in Dawson City, which he loved very much. Les was also responsible for keeping the Legion alive in Dawson after the end of World War II and for starting it up in Dawson some 10 years ago.

I also remember Les as being a very active member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers, Lodge No. 1, as well as a devoted member and officer of the Klondike Visitors Association.

Les and his wife were Mr. and Mrs. Yukon just a few short years ago. Les is survived by his wife Myrna and their two daughters: Robbie in Fairbanks, Alaska and Lorraine of Dawson City.

I certainly will remember Les for his cheerful personality and his sincere interest in helping others. His contribution to the Yukon was appreciated by all Yukoners. We will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Myrna and to his family.

Speaker: Are there any introductions of visitors?

Returns or documents for tabling.

TABLING RETURNS AND DOCUMENTS

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: I have a couple of documents for tabling.

Speaker: Petitions.

PETITIONS

Petition No. 2 - received

Clerk: I have had the honour to review Petition No. 2 of the first session of the Twenty-Ninth Legislative Assembly as presented by the Hon. Member for Watson Lake on December 17, 1996.

This petition meets the requirements as to form of the Standing Orders of the Yukon Legislative Assembly.

Speaker: Petition No. 2, accordingly, is deemed to be read and received.

Speaker: Are there any petitions to be presented?

Are there any bills to be introduced?

Are there any motions?

Ministerial statements.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Human resource information management system (HRIS)

Hon. Mr. Sloan: I am rising today in my capacity as Minister of Government Services.

I am rising in the House today to make a government policy statement about a "good government" initiative, which will improve efficiency and processes, speed up the process of human resource actions and bring about a fundamental change in the way that business is undertaken in the government.

Commonly referred to as HRIS, the human resource information system is a new initiative that is really about change. It changes the way that information is shared in order to manage human resources. It changes the way that we handle data so that it can be information, and it changes responsibilities for managing data so that time is saved.

The foundation of this initiative is a new piece of software which will replace the existing systems. Instead of having several different systems in the central agencies and other systems in departments, this one integrated system will be used.

The software is just the beginning. Reviewing all the payroll-related business processes of the government has taken place over the past six months using internal resources. This exercise has demonstrated how the new software tool can be levered to make significant change in the way business is done within the government. It is clear that fewer resources will be required to accomplish the same work due to the new efficiencies in the redesigned workflows. This means that existing resources will be available for better management in other areas.

A similar review will be undertaken in the new year for non-payroll-related functions. Benefits from streamlined processes are also expected in these areas.

So, what difference will the new software really make? Well, processing will take less time and be more accurate, resulting in fewer resources being used for internal support activities. It will be possible to offer new or improved services within existing resources.

There will be increased ability to respond to questions about resource use, both from the organization and from the public. It will be possible for decision makers to access information about human resources designed for specific actions, including training information, employment equity data, recruitment status and merit increase data.

Standardizing processes and practices will result in a level of consistency and accuracy of data.

Success is not limited to what will come in the future. This project was established as a "turn-key" project, which means that employee training, software and hardware upgrades, and printers were all included in the project plan and have been delivered.

The project was designed to use internal resources for project staff and business experts so that shared learning is retained within the organizations. This is somewhat different from many previous projects where there was involvement by the users, but the project was undertaken more independently, most often by outside resources. This approach will provide a larger, more knowledgeable group of employees with understanding of how business needs have directed the development of the software tool. Departments have contributed business experts to act as advisors and ensure that organizational needs are met.

The benefits of this program will be realized as departments change the way they do business, review employee assignments to eliminate unnecessary steps, and train employees.

I look forward to making future reports in the Legislature about the progress of change in the way the personnel-related business is undertaken within the government.

Mr. Jenkins: The human resource information management system was a Yukon Party initiative last year. It had a budget, approved in this Legislature, of $3.4 million. The HRIS was implemented to address concerns raised by the Auditor General. There were two major problems: firstly, the current available information was no longer adequate to support effective personnel management, either corporate or within the department. Secondly, the current stand-alone systems created a costly duplication of efforts and were unable to support the information needs for effective human resource management.

The upgrading of government computer systems is a necessary part of good government and it is ongoing. Here we have a newly elected government that condemned virtually everything undertaken by the Yukon Party, and now the Minister stands up in this House and has the gall to pat himself on the back and take credit for this Yukon Party initiative.

Mrs. Edelman: I was really pleased to hear about the efficiencies provided to the public and to the department staff through this system. Systems is a department that works behind the scenes in government and so often does not get the credit it deserves in providing client-based, tailored programs for the various government departments. I hope they will be given some public acknowledgment of the role they had to play in developing HRIS.

Although I strongly support the use of technology, I also have a caution for the Minister. I hope he will be very careful with issues around security with this type of sensitive, personnel information in the database. Quite often today we are faced with moral or ethical questions that are not answered before we take on new information-age projects.

A government-wide protocol and information access needs to be developed as soon as possible, if there is not one already, and reviewed constantly as new technologies emerge.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: I do not mean to refute the Member for Klondike, but I was not really trying to take credit for this. My goal in bringing this statement forward is to make the House aware of this initiative coming forward.

The system itself has two phase-ins. The first one will be coming in the new year. It will be with regard to the payroll critical functions, dealing with such things as classification, position management, time recording, leave management, benefits management: those kinds of things will be coming forward early in the year. The second component, which is the non-payroll critical functions, will be coming forward in April. They include such things as staffing, labour relations, training development and employment equity kinds of issues.

My goal in bringing this forward now was to make the House aware of where the status of this project is.

With regard to the comments of the Member for Riverdale South, I would like to assure her that security of information is a goal and that, in the supplemental budget, there is a component built in for security of information, as well as a study for security of information management in general.

In addition, what the Member said about people in systems has tremendous relevance: they are sometimes sort of unsung heroes. The one aspect of this project that I think is particularly interesting is the fact that, even though it had a lead from Government Services, it drew on many departments of government. I should commend the group over there led by Janet Mann for the way this project was managed.

It is an interesting model. We could be looking at applying this model to other joint projects throughout the government.

Speaker: This then brings us to Question Period.

QUESTION PERIOD

Question re: Gambling

Mr. Ostashek: My question is for the Government Leader on the issue of gambling.

When the hon. Member and his colleagues were in Opposition, they were vehemently opposed to any expansion of gambling in the Yukon Territory because of, as they said, the dire costs that were involved in it.

I would like to ask the Government Leader this question: will he be advising the Carcross-Tagish First Nation that his government is adamantly opposed to any further expansion of gambling in the territory? Will he be doing that?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I had the opportunity yesterday in Question Period to express our position on the expansion of casino gambling in the territory. I think that was very clearly done. As I was certainly listening to the radio, I could not think of anything that could be more clear. I think that we are going to be talking to the Carcross-Tagish First Nation at this point. They are certainly able to read the law as well as anyone.

I would like to encourage First Nations to get involved in economic enterprises. My first communication with the Carcross-Tagish First Nation on this project will be to encourage them to get into business, to become more self-sufficient and to start up activities that produce jobs and economic benefits for their community, members and for all people in the territory. That will be my first communication with respect to this project.

With respect to the question of gambling, our position is clear. We do not want to promote an expansion of casino gambling in this territory. We have taken that position. That has been a long-held position of the New Democrats.

Mr. Ostashek: I thank the Member for that. I thought that he would probably be making a stronger statement by relaying it to the Carcross-Tagish First Nation. Nevertheless, I want to continue, because the Government Leader left the impression with the public yesterday that they may be able to go ahead with casino gambling without him being able to have any say in it. That is the wrong impression to be leaving with the public. I want to ask the Government Leader if he is aware of section 8.5 of the model self-government agreement, which states, "A First Nation shall not confer any duties, obligations or responsibilities on government." Surely the construction of a gambling casino, whether on native land or off native land, would confer some responsibilities and obligations on behalf of the territorial government.

Is the Government Leader not aware of that clause?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I think the Member may be interpreting the clause very, very broadly indeed. If a First Nation sets up a business that, say, creates 500 jobs, and consequently there are economic spinoff benefits that create a housing shortage and the need for more lot development, I do not think it would be reasonable to interpret that clause in the agreement as giving a right to the Yukon government to shut down that particular economic enterprise. That may be the orientation that the Yukon Party wants us to take, but we do want to encourage realistic business projects to go ahead.

We have expressed ourselves clearly on the subject of casino gambling. We have done a legal analysis of the situation, as we understand it to be. I have asked lawyers in both land claims and Justice to do a review of the situation. They have given me their response, which is as I related it yesterday.

Mr. Ostashek: I am not taking a very broad interpretation of this at all. I think the Government Leader is taking a very narrow interpretation and is trying to sit on the fence now, when it comes to expansion of casino gambling that may or may not take place on First Nation land. His position is not nearly as strong as it was when the NDP were on the Opposition benches.

I draw to the Government Leader's attention that they are one of the negotiating parties to the self-government agreements. They have a tremendous amount of say as to what is in those agreements. If I look at clause 8.5 in the Champagne-Aishihik agreement, it states quite clearly: "Unless otherwise provided in this agreement, the exercise of powers by the Champagne-Aishihik and First Nations pursuant to this agreement shall not confer any duties, obligations or responsibilities to the government." The Government of Yukon, as a signatory to those agreements, has input at the self-government table and if there is going to be a casino included in that self-government agreement, this government and this Government Leader have a tremendous amount of say in it - does he not agree with me?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: First of all, I do not know how anyone can take the statement that we are not going to be encouraging expansion of casino gambling as fence-sitting. That is pretty clear. I did not say, "Well, we might consider it under the right circumstances." I did not say, "Depending on the proposal, we might review it in the fullness of time", or anything like that. I was very clear about what our position is with respect to casino gambling.

Yesterday, in Question Period, I was trying to relate an answer on the legal question about what options the Yukon government has to have any say in the matter. I summed up our position, as advised to me by our lawyers, as to what our options included.

The Member across the floor presumably feels that his time in public government has given him some legal skills and he is now interpreting the agreement in a particular way. I can undertake, in the spirit of Christmas, to take his new interpretation - an interpretation that did not come up in all the discussions I had with the legal community already on the subject - present it to them and see whether or not there is any validity whatsoever to the claims he has made.

Question re: Gambling

Mr. Phillips: The government is not clear in this issue at all.

On Monday, the Minister of Justice made a statement saying, "I am going to let him know that I am going to give serious consideration to any ideas of that nature, whether it is to increase legalized gambling or sell tax-free gas."

I asked the Minister of Justice to explain that and the Government Leader jumped to her defence, but did not give me an answer. He just said that I misunderstood what the Minister said. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice to explain to us today what she meant by her statement that she will give serious consideration to the idea of increased legalized gambling or selling tax-free gas. I do not want the Government Leader, but rather the Minister of Justice, to answer the question.

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I think the time has come already, in a week and a half, where we do not have any substance in Question Period. The questions were asked very clearly over the last couple of days and the answers were given very clearly on this subject over the last couple of days.

Now the second question - which generally means that it is given some importance or significance - is about whether or not the Minister of Justice was saying, "seriously consider", meaning to seriously promote and give credence to a proposal, versus "seriously consider", meaning seriously review the implications of.

The way she interprets and the way we interpret the answer, as evidenced by my answer yesterday, is that we were going to, we are and we did, seriously review the implications of the proposals as we understand them - both the tax implications and the implications with respect to casino gambling. We did seriously consider those in the sense that we did seriously review them. We gave some answers already after giving some serious consideration to the announcement by the Carcross-Tagish First Nation.

Mr. Phillips: All the Government Leader told me yesterday when he jumped to his feet in defence of his Minister was that I misunderstood the response. He did not give me an answer at all. The other answer he gave yesterday was that it may not be this government's call.

Is it or is it not the government's call? That is the answer I wanted from the Minister.

I would like to go back to the Minister of Justice on this, and hopefully we can get her to answer her own questions.

On April 27, 1994, the then Minister of Justice, then the Member for Mount Lorne, rose in this House and said, "It is also significant that the only economic plan for generating revenue that has received the territorial government's serious consideration and study has been forcefully opposed by Yukon First Nations: an expansion of gambling facilities, including video lottery terminals." She went on to say, "Despite overwhelming evidence that the social and economic impact of gambling is especially devastating to the poor and disenfranchised, and that First Nations would suffer disproportionately from increased exposure to gambling, this government has nonetheless been a proponent for this fast and easy way to increase revenues."

I would like to ask the Minister of Justice if she is going to send a strong and clear message to the Carcross First Nation in the same tone that she sent a strong and clear message to us when she was sitting in Opposition?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The Member opposite did misunderstand the response; the Member opposite did consider the answer and he did interpret the answer wrongly as being an intimation from this government that it was considering supporting casino gambling. Presumably, the tone of his questions is such that he is now implying that the Government of Yukon would support casino gambling because it is being promoted by a First Nation but would not support casino gambling at the time when the Yukon Party was promoting gambling in the territory.

We have been consistent in our response. We have said that we do not support an expansion of gambling. We have said that time and time again.

With respect to the situation in Carcross, the First Nation has made no presentation to us at all, to my knowledge, on the subject of expanded gambling or even the use of a gas station to sell tax-free gas or any of the other quite legitimate proposals that they have put on the table to bring employment to their members. None of that has been presented to us. Our position is very clear. It is consistent with the law.

Mr. Phillips: It appears that the Minister of Justice cannot answer her questions in the House.

I am concerned about the position that this government is taking. The Government Leader says that they will not promote gambling, but I want the Government Leader to take the position he took before - or at least ask him if he still has the same position - when he opposed increased gambling in the territory. Instead of promoting it, is he prepared to tell everyone - First Nations and otherwise - that he does not and will not support gambling in the territory and will oppose it, as he said when he was in Opposition?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The corollary to not wanting to promote an expansion of gambling is also that we do not want to see an expansion of gambling. I point to the word "expansion" so that the people in Dawson, due to the very liberal interpretations the Yukon Party is putting on our answers, will not have to worry. The KVA is not going to be shut down by the Yukon government, but we do not want to promote an expansion of gambling. We do not want to see it.

The point I was making yesterday, which is supported by our legal community and is quite contrary to the point being made by my colleague, the Leader of the Official Opposition - the backroom lawyer in the Opposition ranks - is that this may not be our call. That is the point I made already in the Legislature.

Question re: Ombudsman, process for selection

Mr. Cable: I have some questions for the government relating to some appointments that will be made in the near future, as we may just be rising today if we can get our adrenaline levels down. It would be useful to get on record where the government is coming from.

The first question is for the Government Leader. It relates to the appointment of the Ombudsman - the replacement for the interim Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman wrote to the Speaker last month and copied the various Members. He confirmed that he was leaving on March 31, 1997. He recommended that the Members get together at an early date to establish a process to be followed in selecting the next Ombudsman. This would give him - the Ombudsman - time to orient his successor prior to leaving on March 31. When does the Government Leader propose to sit down with the Opposition to work out a process for the selection of the new Ombudsman?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The only reason my adrenaline may be up is because I am excited about Christmas and I really want to enjoy it with my family, as I am sure all of us with families would like to practise our Christmas spirit in the same fashion.

I am more than happy to sit down or to ask representatives of the party caucuses to sit down as soon as possible to talk about the procedure for selecting an Ombudsman.

I have had a brief discussion with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly indicating that this will probably happen as soon as a Member Services Board is struck. There will be a need to consider some options that the Clerk may like to present so that we have something to work with in our first gathering together.

As soon as possible, we can sit down and talk about the selection process. I would like to see - as is the tradition - the process and the final selection agreed to by all parties.

Mr. Cable: The present Ombudsman was hired from Alberta - with the support of all parties, of course; it is a legislative appointment rather than a government appointment.

I am sure that the Government Leader, when he was the Leader of the Official Opposition, got the same flack that I got about hiring an outsider, particularly from the dreaded Province of Alberta.

Would the Government Leader get on the record and indicate what he is going to bring to the table when he discusses the issue with the Opposition. From the Government Leader's standpoint, are we looking at hiring a Yukoner for the position?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I believe that that was the all-party understanding that we reached last year: that we wanted to see a local person hired as the Ombudsman, but we recognized that we needed to get an experienced office up and running first and that was not possible in the short time frame that we had, and that we could not select an Ombudsman from the territory in time.

Of course, I would point out that this was not unanimously agreed to in the Legislature, but it certainly seemed to be an all-party agreement.

I will be encouraging the hire of a local person, but I do acknowledge that this would be a very difficult challenge for the all-party committee or for whoever does the selection.

Mr. Cable: The next question is for the Minister of Justice and relates to another appointment - the workers' advocate. This is a government appointment, as opposed to a legislative appointment.

In view of the controversies that have surrounded the Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board, is she prepared to work with the Opposition on making this appointment?

Hon. Mr. Harding: I will be responding as the Minister who is conducting the consultation surrounding the advocate. Thus far, we have simply put out a proposal on the advocate. As it is envisioned in the proposal, it would be selected through the Public Service Commission. It would not be a political process in which there would firstly need to be a buy-in by the three political parties of this Legislature. It is envisioned that the politicians will not be party to the selection of the workers' advocate; however, it is a consultation process, and if ideas are put forward that make some sense and have some utility, they will certainly be considered when the final decision is reached.

Question re: Hospital Corporation Board operations

Mrs. Edelman: My question is for the Minister of Health.

Just after the election, I attended a public meeting of the Hospital Corporation Board. At the meeting, there were approximately 50 people, the vast majority of whom were hospital staff. A series of questions were raised with the board and many more were left unanswered.

Has the Minister met with any of these staff about their concerns about Whitehorse General Hospital and its operations?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: The short answer is yes. I have met with representatives from the certified nurses assistants. I have had some contact with the registered nurses. As well, I have met with the Hospital Corporation Board itself. Some discussions were held with the board about how these issues could be resolved.

Mrs. Edelman: It seems that the Minister wants to refer these staffing matters to the Hospital Corporation Board. According to the chair of the board, the Hospital Corporation Board does not want to interfere with the day-to-day operations of the hospital, yet the hospital management takes direction from the board.

When is the Minister going to step in and at least define who is in charge at Whitehorse General Hospital and determine how staff can work as a team with the department, the board and senior management to provide the type of quality health care services that we want to continue to enjoy in the new hospital?

When the NDP was in Opposition, it called for an investigator to be appointed by the Minister, as per the Hospital Act, and it said that such an investigator should investigate the day-to-day operations of the Hospital Corporation.

Is the Minister prepared to honour that commitment to investigate some of the concerns that hospital staff still obviously have about the day-to-day operations of the hospital?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: That is a fairly extensive question. Yes, there is a role for the Minister in this regard. However, recognizing that the hospital board is an independent organization, what I proposed to the board - I would prefer not to use the term "investigator" because it does have a pejorative connotation - is that we would be willing to provide assistance in terms of bringing someone in to take a look at the overall systems of operation, the management of the hospital, perhaps provide some suggestions on issues such as staff relations and to give advice to the board itself on how this could be improved. The offer has been made to the board, and we stand by that offer.

Mrs. Edelman: That is good to hear because there is some immediacy about this concern. The Minister may be aware that certified nursing assistants and nurses have the option of not working in what they consider to be an unsafe working environment, either for themselves and/or for their patients. It is their opinion generally that if the staff-to-patient ratio is out of whack - if there is not enough staff for the patient care - then that is not a safe environment.

I know these concerns about safety were relayed to the Minister. It is my hope that there is going to be some immediate work to at least get this staff ratio dealt with by the hospital board or by someone at the hospital before there is a death as a result of the improper ratio of staff to patients. I am very concerned about this, and I think this is something that is going to happen as soon as we go into the new hospital in January. I hope there will be an immediate investigation about what we can do. This is not a new concern. It is a very old concern, and it is one that the NDP previously expressed a great deal of trepidation about. I would like to hear how the government is going to deal with that soon.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: With regard to some of the concerns the Member has raised, some of the things that the hospital is cognizant of and very aware of are some of those safety issues. For example, issues surrounding the question of pediatric and psychiatric spaces have been resolved, to some degree, by physical and staffing arrangements. In Emergency they have made a commitment to keep extra staff on in the interim to see if problems do arise.

In my conversations with the hospital, I think they are committed to keep monitoring the situation. Just today, for example, I received notification that the needle exchange is going to be taken out of the hospital. That is one example of safety that the nurses working in emergency had real concerns about. So, I believe that the hospital is making honest efforts in that regard, and they will be monitoring it.

Question re: Gambling

Mr. Jenkins: I have a question today for the Minister of Health and Social Services, following up with some further questions on the issue of gambling in the Yukon. The Minister of Justice is on record having said that serious consideration to any ideas regarding increased legalized gambling would be given. She is.

Given the Minister of Justice's statement and given the Government Leader's flip-flop back to a softer position, they have changed their position regarding this one issue alone - one very important issue.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what position he is taking because there are a number of social implications associated with gambling.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: In the grand old tradition of Diamond Tooth Gertie's, it looks like if one does not win on one table, one tries on another.

Let me just try to respond to the Member for Klondike's rather esoteric question. With regard to the whole question of gambling, we are very cognizant of the social costs. As a matter of fact, it may be of interest to the Member that on Monday, Health Canada did bring out a position paper on gambling in which it suggested, for example, that all VLTs be only in casinos rather than in gas stations, corner stores - as has been the situation in some of the southern provinces, particularly in the maritime provinces - because of the social impact. So, we would be very concerned about the impact expanded gambling, particularly with regard to lower-income people.

Mr. Jenkins: I thank the Minister for his response. When in Opposition, many of the hon. Members voiced concern, and serious concern, about the proposed ideas of expanded gambling opportunities in the Yukon and said that increased gambling is associated with increases in substance abuse, social assistance and crime.

Should more gambling casinos be introduced to the Yukon, what measures will the Minister implement to cope with the social problems that would arise?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: We still have serious concerns about the whole question of gambling, and certainly the information the Member is bringing forward is not new information. We know the social costs of gambling, where there is considerable empirical and anecdotal evidence that, in places where increased gambling has come into play, there are social costs. There are human costs. And we would be very concerned about that, but once again I have to say that, in this case, the Government Leader's comments with regard to our input into the whole question of expanded gambling, particularly on First Nation land, may be somewhat dubious, so I have some concerns in that regard but, yes, gambling is a concern for us.

Mr. Jenkins: I appreciate the Minister's response, but it seems as if there is somewhat of a fluctuation in the position of the government. It seems to be quite fluid. The hon. Member and formal colleagues stood steadfast against gambling, but now a proposal is being put forward by a First Nation and the Yukon government appears to be changing to a much softer stand. Why is that softer stand being taken?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: Is it my understanding that the Member for Klondike wishes a ban on all gambling in the territory? Is that the drift of it? If so, I am certain that many of the people in-

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that many of the individuals in KVA might not be quite as enamoured of his position. I am taken aback that he would want to take this away from a community such as Dawson. However-

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Sloan: I am getting there.

Speaker: Order please. Let the Minister answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: There really is no inconsistency here. The Government Leader made a statement about a government-to-government relationship where we have to be cognizant of the fact that the First Nations have certain privileges and rights on their own land. For us to begin to interfere in this really violates the spirit of the umbrella final agreement. Are we concerned about gambling? Yes, we are concerned about gambling. We would have concerns in many regards - social assistance costs, human costs, family costs - and it would be something that we would want to monitor very closely.

Speaker: The time for Question Period has now elapsed. We will proceed with Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

MOTIONS OTHER THAN GOVERNMENT MOTIONS

Clerk: Motion No. 27, standing in the name of Mr. Fentie.

Motion No. 27

Speaker: It is moved by the Member for Watson Lake

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Government of Yukon should be commended for its new approach to resolve important forestry policy issues through the creation of the Forest Cabinet Commission; and

THAT this House commend the government for adopting an approach to resolving difficult policy issues based on the principles of public involvement and consultation, and respect for First Nation governments.

Mr. Fentie: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to present and speak to this motion regarding the forest commission.

During the election campaign, our party committed to conducting government's affairs in a better way and announced at the swearing of the government the creation of four Cabinet commissions to develop comprehensive, long-term policy.

It illustrates that we are a government of innovation and vision and most certainly a government living up to that commitment.

The mandate of the forest commission is to develop a comprehensive, sustainable, made-in-Yukon forest policy.

To achieve this goal and maintain our government's commitment to involve Yukon people in the issues that affect them, the development of forest policy will be completed in partnership with the federal and First Nation governments and in consultation with conservationists, forest users and other stakeholders. We believe that the best policy comes from decisions by consensus by different interests.

As Members can appreciate, government departments have a number of ongoing issues they address and it is not always possible to focus our particular energies on one issue.

Recognizing the importance of the development of a Yukon forest policy and the stringent time lines of devolution on the horizon, our government has formed a forest commission.

The commission will consist of a deputy commissioner and two other people seconded from other departments. Their focus will be to head a Yukon government team in partnership with other governments and stakeholders in developing a single approach to forest policy and management in the Yukon.

The development of a forestry policy will be a challenging task, as Yukon's forests are diverse, and different groups have different ideas about forest management. In order to be effective, it must address tenure, stumpage, inventory, environmental concerns, long-term sustainability and recognize the holistic nature of our forests and their intrinsic values. It must also lead to maximizing the benefits for Yukoners.

The need for a Yukon forest policy was a concern frequently heard before and during the election campaign. In the community I represent, our forests and industry have suffered over the past few years under outdated federal timber regulations and the refusal of the previous government to assist the logging efforts of Watson Lake operators.

The demonstrations by Yukon loggers and the concerns expressed by people throughout the Yukon about the federal government's handling also emphasize the need for local control of this resource. Particularly with the devolution of resources on the horizon, a forestry policy is needed shortly to ensure a smooth transfer of responsibilities to the Yukon government. Moreover, the forestry policy will guide the future expansion of the industry and in this way assist in the economic diversification of the territory by promoting the development of secondary and related industries.

The forest commission, like its counterparts, is intended as a temporary entity, and ultimately we will be judged by the public and this Legislature on the outcome of its work.

I accept and approach this challenge with a positive attitude. I assure this House, the people of this territory, and specifically the people of Watson Lake, that I will apply myself to the very limit of my abilities to successfully complete this task.

Ms. Duncan: I appreciate the remarks of the Member.

I would like to look at the actual wording of the motion in my response to the comments. The motion reads: "THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Government of Yukon should be commended . . ." - an interesting choice of words. Offering a commendation is usually done after an act is completed, such as a commendation for bravery. One does not do it while a person is thinking about it or talking about it. It is done after the act has been done.

It may be that the government, upon completion of this work, is deserving of some commendation, but I would suggest to the Member that this motion is somewhat premature, as the work is not complete.

The work itself was of interest to me. I have several books and papers spread out on my desk. Referring to my political science textbook about the development of policy, and looking at the generic mandate work of the commission that was afforded us, I would suggest to the government that the actual ways of work of the commissions are not clicking.

Are they developing white papers that the public will discuss, with options presented in this House? Are we going to see legislation? The ways of work of the commissions are not entirely clear to me. These comments apply to all of the commissions.

I think forestry is an incredibly complex issue, as evidenced not simply during the election campaign, but as it is discussed elsewhere. There are issues about harvesting the resource. Who gets to harvest? I have a sense that the small operator who has been in business for many years in the Yukon is being lost in this whole discussion. I am not talking about the large-scale question of whether or not we should have such and such a project. I am talking about the mom-and-pop operation. I feel that the consideration of those operations does not seem to be paramount in this.

Where harvesting takes place and at what price are critical issues. This is not our resource. I remind all Members in this House of the word "stewardship". This resource is merely entrusted to us by future generations. That is not to say that we should not harvest. I think that we need to look at the forest resources as gardeners and farmers do. Although it takes considerably longer to develop the crop, it is harvesting of a resource. Let us be wise harvesters.

The state of the resource itself is another facet. The spruce beetle kill in Kluane has to be examined carefully. I have not heard a clear consensus from the community on that issue. Nor is there a wide sense in the public domain that all the creative options have been examined.

Forestry is also about how we harvest. Should there be exports of raw logs? Should we insist that all of the processing be done in the Yukon? How are we going to proceed in this area?

The issues are not simple. The Cabinet commissioner definitely has his work cut out for him. I am looking forward to the final product.

Hon. Mr. Harding: I thank the Member for her comments.

She is quite right. The work on the development of forestry policy as we committed to in the campaign is far from complete. As the forestry commissioner has been learning since he hit the ground running in the election campaign, there are many, many different viewpoints in the Yukon surrounding this issue. It is broken down not just by culture; it is broken down by philosophies and by region.

There are also other breakdowns that have to be considered. There are communities that have very strong viewpoints and very strong bents toward development. There are communities that are very, very, very environmentally conscious. All of these factors make consensus tough to build and it is going to be a real challenge.

I think, though, that with a political point person at the helm of the commission, people who have been working on forestry issues for the last couple of years will provide some political leadership, political direction and be able to bring together in the same room some people who have not participated in these initiatives to start to work on some of the nuts and bolts of the forestry issues and tackle some of the tough questions out there.

I was a participant and I attended many of the consultations, one in particular, in Watson Lake by the Yukon Council on the Economy and the Environment on forestry. It was a process that frustrated me somewhat in the sense that it was good to have everyone together, but it was a bunch of people talking to the YCEE and then the YCEE went away and came back with something and we lost control of the process. What we want to do with this process is try to get buy-in from all of the different stakeholders. We want to involve First Nations governments because they have been expressing significant frustration - as we head, eventually, toward devolution - with not being able to participate in all the facets and the things that are envisioned with devolution.

I believe we have to get to the nuts and bolts of the forestry issue. It has been very helpful for me, as the Economic Development Minister, to have a commission in order to start channelling some of those differing viewpoints so that they are aware and they realize what we hear.

If I had tried to do this myself, it would have been difficult, not insurmountable, but very difficult for me and the Renewable Resources Minister together, because we have departmental responsibilities and they sometimes tend to take a lot of one's attention. One could focus on a project like forestry policy development, and it has been done before, but I think it would be much more difficult.

I think it is practical and I think it is pragmatic to use the talents of someone who knows the players, who knows the industry and who is learning the different issues of the people in the conservation community, whether it is intrinsic values, or learning what their concerns are about protected spaces, to head up a team to deal with this. I think giving it political attention, before it comes to the political level as an issue with our government caucus, is a good thing.

The Member is right; the motion commends for the merit of the initiatives of establishing the commission. There is tons of work still to be done. I think it was a good move on behalf of the government to assign a political point person to it. I believe the cost effectiveness is going to be solid. We are not going to have to hire a mediator. We are not going to have to pay stumpage subsidies, things that were offered to help resolve the situation left by the previous administration.

We feel that there is a lot we can offer on a government-to-government basis in a cost-effective manner to try and bring the different levels of government and the stakeholders together. That is the same sort of process that we want to use with regard to DAP, energy policy development and local hire. It is participatory. It is at a citizen level, not so much directed at the bureaucracy, and it is very, very tough to do, but it does bring the most lasting results. I think experiences such as the Yukon Mining Advisory Committee were also experiences of a process like this one that we would want to use, and I think the results from YMAC were fairly good.

So that is the reason we are doing this. It will keep the Members busy. They are not receiving any more pay for doing it. They are simply doing it beyond their normal MLA duties and I think that is a good thing as well.

It takes more time and more effort but, at the end of the day, people get elected to participate. We invite the Opposition to participate in the process as well and to work with us on this new innovation. We are looking for position papers and for them to participate and join us in trying to develop this process. We want to take the Opposition's input into account as well.

As the Member said, the issues are many, the issues are diverse and the issues are tough. Exporting logs, manufacturing here, value-added, what is our vision for future - that is all going to have to be part of where we want to go with our policy.

That is in a broad philosophical sense. Then we have to look at the nuts and bolts, right down to tenure, and stumpage costs, and how our system is going to work in that respect.

There is a lot to do. It is going to take some time. It is going to take a lot of political work and, in many cases, a lot of political capital, but in the absence of doing it the government would pay a bigger price because it is clear to us that people wanted some action on forest policy development in the Yukon, regardless of who was the steward of the resource at the time. People care about their forests and their jobs, whether the feds or the Yukon have control of them, and I think we have a role to play, heading up to eventual devolution, which is the ultimate goal - to have that happen in a very smooth fashion.

I support the motion.

Mr. Ostashek: It will be no surprise to the Members opposite that I do not support the motion - not for one minute.

There are a lot of fallacies here. We have a government that is being very, very arrogant after only being in office for two months and is using its legislative majority to push through whatever it wants, with no concern for what the Opposition has to say.

They bring forward these four identical motions in order to pat themselves on the back for all of the good stuff they have done when, in fact, they have not done anything. They do not even know what they are going to do yet. They are making up the rules as they go along. That is the sad part of this. These are not well thought out or cost-effective vehicles for putting policy together.

I believe we have already pointed out in the debate and questions in this Legislature that this is a very expensive process.

The government has increased its deputy ministers by 25 percent for these processes. Four new deputy ministers have been hired. That, in itself, is a cost of over $500,000. I do not care how they cut it or what they stand up there and say. It is not hard to figure out what the costs of deputy ministers are.

As my colleague from Porter Creek South said, "Here we are patting ourselves on the back and we have not even started down the road yet."

I would probably be able to support an initiative like this from the government if it were not trying to be so arrogant in trying to bull it through this House and get its own way regardless of what the Opposition has to say.

I only draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, what has transpired in the last week in this Legislature. We have on the Order Paper a motion to send the idea of these commissions to the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges for full debate and to bring recommendations back to this House. So, what does the House Leader for the government do this morning? He threatens the Opposition House Leaders that if we are still in this Legislature tomorrow, they are going to debate Motion No. 36, which basically means that the motion to send the commissions to SCREP is redundant. He threatened the House Leaders. Is that how they ask for cooperation?

Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Ostashek: I think the Government Leader should remove the Government House Leader for incompetence and for acting in that manner.

This is a very arrogant government and a very short session of the Legislature. Members of the government might say the nice words that the Opposition wants to hear, but they really do not mean them.

This government made up its mind long before this Legislature convened that it is going to go ahead with these commissions no matter what the Opposition says, and now it wants the Opposition to endorse the commissions. Well, I am sorry, I cannot endorse the commissions on these terms.

There are many questions that need to be answered about these commissions before I would even consider endorsing them. The questions have not been answered in this Legislature. The feeble attempt that the Government Leader made by giving us a little two-page document that is supposed to be the terms of reference for these commissions and cover everything they are going to do, simply does not answer the questions that I have about these commissions.

If the Government Leader had come forward and said that he is going to put his caucus to work developing policy on behalf of the Cabinet and make recommendations to Cabinet, then that is a laudable route to take and a route that is worthwhile for backbenchers to be participating in. This method was used effectively by the Pearson administration during the early 1980s when he had a large caucus. They literally reviewed everything the government was going to do. They made recommendations to Cabinet and they were very busy.

My friend and colleague, Mr. Brewster, the previous Member for Kluane, said that they were tremendously busy reviewing regulations, policy development, legislation and helping Cabinet Members do some of their work. However, they did not go out and set up four commissions. They did not hire four more deputy ministers at a tremendous expense to taxpayers, and they accomplished a lot.

Had this approach been taken by the new government, I would endorse it wholeheartedly. As I said, I am not trying to belittle the backbenchers on the government side. I am not trying to stop them from speaking in this Legislature; they have every right to speak in this Legislature. Even our Standing Orders say that if they want to question the government they can ask a question during Question Period. No one is trying to muzzle them.

However, I do have some difficulty when they do not have Cabinet authority when they are standing and answering questions that I am asking of Cabinet Ministers. Ultimately, the Cabinet Ministers have to be responsible for whatever policy is put into place. It is their responsibility as Cabinet Ministers and they cannot slough it off to commissioners.

I am very troubled about what is going to transpire in this House when the commissioners have the right to answer questions. Let us be clear:they are going to have that right, regardless of what I say in this Legislature and regardless of what my colleagues in the Opposition benches say, because the government is going to push the commissions through whether they are a good idea or not.

The government made up its mind a long time ago that it is going to put these commissions through and it does not matter what the Opposition has to say about it.

We keep hearing Members on the opposite side try and defend these commissions by saying that they are going to be cost effective. We have already proven to the public, without any doubt, that the $1 million will be a cheap figure, every year, for these commissions. When there are four deputy commissioners and deputy minister salaries, that takes up $500,000 alone. Aside from that, we will have additional staff - let there be no doubt about that. These people will be seconded from departments.

The government is not being upfront. They are trying to hide the cost of these commissions by hiding them in departmental budgets. Before any of that is relayed to us as legislators, so that we have a chance to comment on it, they put forward four motions patting themselves on the back for what a great job they have done. That is very arrogant.

The Government House Leader says that we wanted to debate. We had an agreement between House Leaders to send this to the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges. We had an agreement. Then he tried to bully and threaten the House Leaders, saying that if we are not out of here today, the government would bring forward Motion No. 36 for debate tomorrow. What a way to conduct themselves.

I have many questions about these commissions.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Ostashek: Are these commissions going to have the authority to spend money? Who is going to be responsible for that spending? There is no department. Where is that money going to be recorded so that we, as representatives of the people, have the right to say whether or not we agree with the amount of money being spent?

The Government Leader said that people would be seconded from departments. Surely, these people are not just sitting in departments doing this work. He said that there are four people doing forestry work in Renewable Resources and Economic Development. Three will be on the commission. The government will save money. I am sorry, but I do not buy that. These people are doing other work in the departments, as well. They are not working full time just on the development of forestry policy.

Furthermore, if these commissions are as efficient as the government would like us to believe, at least two of them - possibly three - should be finished their tasks before the spring session of the Legislature. There has already been a tremendous amount of work done in the areas of forestry, DAP and energy. What these commissions need to do now is pull it all together.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Mr. Ostashek: The Government Leader is laughing. He does not have any plans of his own, so the government has to steal from what the previous administration did.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Speaker: Order please. Let the Member finish his statement.

Mr. Ostashek: It is just like what the Minister of Health and Social Services did today with his big ministerial statement on the policy of the new government.

It is a sham, and a very poorly disguised one at that. Many people in the public are not buying it, whether the government thinks so or not. The government may think that they are, but they are not. They are watching to see what happens.

I think that it is incumbent upon the government to let Yukoners know exactly what these commissions cost. If they believe this is where their priorities are, then let them be up-front about the cost of these commissions and stop trying to hide them in departmental budgets. That is what the Government Leader said he was going to do. He said that he was going to hide them in departmental budgets. The departments are going to be responsible for the expense; yet, from what I understand, the deputy minister of the department is not going to have control over what the commission spends. Who is going to have control?

There has to be costs associated with this, other than what we can see for the hiring of the four deputy commissioners. There is office space for those commissioners. There has to be support staff. These things all add up.

I see a confusion of responsibility by these commissions. I just do not buy it. There has been nothing said in this House that convinces me that they are a good way to go. I believe that the government would have been wiser to postpone these motions commending themselves and patting themselves on the back for the great job that they have done until the Yukon public has had a chance to see the results of some of the work that is going to be completed by these commissioners.

We heard the commissioner who is going to be responsible for the development assessment process stand up in this House yesterday and say that he is pulling all of the information together on everything that has already been done. They do not want to recreate the wheel. I heard the commissioner on energy say the same thing on energy policy - the commission is going to gather up everything that has been done, and it does not want to spend any money to recreate the wheel. That is fine. That is good. There needs to be more work done in each one of these areas. However, they are trying to leave the impression to the general public that nothing - or precious little - has been done in these areas.

Now they want to come around and solve all the Yukoners' problems in a very short period of time. If they were going to do it in a short period of time, they would not need these commissions.

I say to the Yukon public, "Watch. These commissions will not disappear. Those deputy commissioners will not disappear. They may complete one task; they will be assigned another task. This will be an ongoing cost to the administration of the new government that has been sworn in."

I do not support these motions. I am very disappointed and disturbed at the actions of the government in trying to bull this through the Legislature. I am very disturbed with the tactics of the Government House Leader in trying to threaten the Opposition House Leaders, that if we do not get out of here today, he will bring forward the -

Point of order

Hon. Mr. Harding: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Speaker: Point of order has been called.

Hon. Mr. Harding: I must take exception. There was no agreement between the House Leaders, and the Yukon Party has consistently opposed this, after days and days of debate in this House. I should not say there was agreement between House Leaders that did not exist. The Liberal Opposition said they supported the commissioners being able to speak.

Mr. Ostashek: On the point of order, there was an agreement that Motion No. 9 would be debated after the supplementary budget debate.

Speaker's ruling

Speaker: I find there is no point of order.

Mr. Ostashek: I will not be much longer on this, because we do not have enough information to critique this in an honest fashion. Until we get that information and have a chance to debate this in the spring session, it is an effort of futility to try to get information from this government. It is going ahead with it. It does not matter what we say. That will be it. It will use its majority, and time will tell if these will be good or not.

Speaker: If the Member for Watson Lake speaks now he will close debate. Is there any further debate?

Mr. Fentie: In regard to the comments of the Member for Porter Creek South, I think this government should be commended for getting involved, and that is something that was not happening with the previous government.

The concerns the Member stated will most certainly be dealt with in the development of policy, including the mom-and-pop operations, which will definitely be addressed. We have to develop policy to be able to address all those concerns. That is why I think we should be commended. We are getting involved.

It is always interesting to listen to the comments from the previous Government Leader. It shows a consistent lack of vision and is certainly one of the reasons the Yukon Party is no longer on this side of the House.

The previous Government Leader has stated that these commissions are a costly farce, and I completely disagree. The commissions are a method of focusing government on one specific issue that is extremely important, and we take the view that it is a very high priority to develop a forest policy for this territory.

The forest commission, like its counterparts, is and will be paid from existing budgets. We stated that over and over and over in this House. No increases are expected. The staff that is needed to develop policy in these areas will be seconded from the departments. I would also remind the Member opposite that the forest commission, like its counterparts, is a temporary entity, not ongoing, and will cease to exist with the completion of a Yukon forest policy.

In listening to this debate, it clearly exemplifies that the previous Government Leader never understood the importance of forests to the Yukon. Time and time again, operators from the Watson Lake area and from the Yukon approached his government for assistance with their efforts in dealing with the federal government. These people were continually turned away because the Yukon Party said it was a federal issue. They blamed the federal government and said there was nothing they could do. It is a funny thing, once the election was called, the previous Government Leader had changed his position entirely and promised $1 million in stumpage subsidy and also promised to hire a facilitator to deal with the federal government. Where was that assistance two years prior to the election?

Considering the expenditures the Member was willing to spend, the fiscal conservative position he now is espousing and his perception that the commission will be of great cost is unfair and misleading. Over the last four years, the Yukon Party government failed miserably in their attempt to develop a long-range plan for Yukon forests. Not only did they refuse to work with the federal government, but they began to develop a parallel process. They alienated everyone who was involved with the policy development. The Liard First Nation, the Council for Yukon First Nations, the Yukon Conservation Society, and the forest coalition all abandoned the Yukon Party's forest policy development.

They rightly believed that the government was not listening to their input. The Yukon Party's process was flawed, and led to a flawed policy.

The goal of this forest commission to develop a forest policy is an objective that will benefit all Yukon people by involving the people of this territory. It will provide a plan to guide the management and sustainable development of this valuable resource.

Speaker: Are you prepared for the question?

Some Hon. Members: Division.

Division

Speaker: Division has been called. Mr. Clerk, will you please poll the House.

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Agree.

Hon. Mr. Harding: Agree.

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: Agree.

Hon. Mr. Keenan: Agree.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: Agree.

Hon. Mr. Fairclough: Agree.

Mr. McRobb: Agree.

Mr. Fentie: Agree.

Mr. Hardy: Agree.

Mr. Livingston: Agree.

Mr. Ostashek: Disagree.

Mr. Phillips: Disagree.

Mr. Jenkins: Disagree.

Mr. Cable: Disagree.

Ms. Duncan: Disagree.

Mrs. Edelman: Disagree.

Clerk: Mr. Speaker, the results are 10 yea, six nay.

Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Motion No. 27 agreed to

Speaker's ruling

Before proceeding to the next motion on the Order Paper, the Chair wishes to draw Members' attention to the second paragraph of Motion No. 27, which has now passed this House, and Motions No. 28, No. 30 and No. 31. The wording of the second paragraph is the same in each case.

Annotation 558 in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms states: "An old rule of Parliament reads: 'That a question being once made and carried in the affirmative or negative, cannot be questioned again but must stand as the judgment of the House.' Unless such a rule were in existence, the time of the House might be used in the discussion of a motion of the same nature and contradictory decisions would be sometimes arrived at in the course of the same session."

The House has reached a decision on the question that reads:

"THAT this House commend the government for adopting an approach to resolving difficult policy issues based on the principles of public involvement and consultation, and respect for First Nation governments."

It would, therefore, not be in order to place that question before the House again during this session.

Annotation 566(4) in Beauchesne states that: "The Speaker has the unquestioned authority to modify motions with respect to form."

The Chair, therefore, orders that the second paragraph be dropped from Motions No. 28, No. 30 and No. 31. With that deletion, those motions may be called for debate.

Clerk: Motion No. 28, standing in the name of Mr. Hardy.

Motion No. 28

Speaker: It is moved by the Member for Whitehorse Centre

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Government of Yukon should be commended for its new approach to resolve important local hire policy issues through the creation of the Cabinet commission on Yukon hire.

Mr. Hardy: I am pleased to finally have the opportunity to speak directly on the importance of the work we will be undertaking through the Yukon hire commission.

As many Yukoners know, and as many of my colleagues across the floor can appreciate, high unemployment, especially in small communities and rural areas, is a major concern in our territory. During the election it was brought to our attention time and time again by all of the communities, and the ridings in the Whitehorse area, that there was a need for the government to do some direct work to increase opportunities for Yukon people - to enable Yukon people to have a future and jobs.

We believe, as do many Yukoners, that this government can play a major role in addressing a very complex issue, and this government is very committed to doing that, and so am I. There is much we can do to ensure ample employment opportunities for Yukoners here at home and to help create sustainable communities.

I would like to give an example of what is driving us to become proactive in local hire, in creating a local hire commission. The example I am going to use is a big project that is ongoing right now and was started a little over a year ago. It involves roughly $30 million. I have been monitoring that job since it began. The first real disgrace I can say about employment on that job was the fact that two local companies never had an opportunity to even bid on the project.

It sent out a warning signal that we were not maximizing our resources to ensure that the people who live here have the opportunity to benefit from them. The two companies were denied the opportunity, local companies that have a very good track record of local employment and spending in this community were denied the opportunity to bid, but firms from outside were given the opportunity based on very weak arguments. That sent an indication throughout the community to the construction industry that maybe they were not wanted here.

I have some figures here that show how many Yukoners are being employed. I will go through some of them just to reinforce the importance of local hire and what we are missing on this one job, as an example, because this job is a large one and it is easy to look at the figures. The figures are available and are current right now. It indicates, throughout the whole Yukon, the need to ensure that people have the opportunity to work, through training and whatnot.

PCL Constructors is doing quite well. It is a union shop, and it has to hire local through a union shop. It has to hire from a hiring board. Some people may not understand how unions work, but that is how they do it in construction. There is a board list with local people on it, and when they want someone they call down and are dispatched out. Their numbers are roughly 93.5 percent local hire. That is really good. It is a small margin of slippage, but understandably in some areas perhaps we did not have the people available, or that could be some of the specialty people for quality control the company ships from job to job, especially on hospitals.

Let us look at another union shop, Shendel Mechanical. It is the same thing: it has to hire from a board. It is not as good. Their work is a little bit more specialized. Interestingly enough, this company made a strong commitment in our negotiations with them to train people. The union was able to place approximately seven apprentices on this job, which is unheard of anywhere. Normally, if one gets one or two apprentices, one is doing well. They were willing to take seven apprentices and train them. They did bring in some people to work with the apprentices. We managed to get, on an average, 18 to 20 plumbers working in that area. They got up to roughly 65 percent.

Then we start to look at other areas. We looked at some of the non-union companies working there. Almost all these companies are from Alberta, interestingly enough.

When we look at some of the other figures, we have figures of 26 percent, 4.2 percent and 27 percent local employment. Then there is 39 percent, 26 percent and zero percent local employment - not a single local person working for one company. What a shame it is for the people up here who need employment. What a lost opportunity. There was no will on the part of the previous government to ensure that local people got employment there.

One other example that I would like to point out on this job is the example of three local companies that were actually allowed to bid and they had to bid as subcontractors so they received a small part of the work.

Just as an example of what happens when the government hires local people, there is 100 percent employment of local people that get the work. When 100 percent of local people get the work, they hire 100 percent of local employees.

Three local companies got work on the project and there was 100 percent local hire, which is very good. It does pay to invest in our local companies and it does pay to put in conditions of local employment. That is what this commission is about. This commission is about going out and looking for ways and means to enhance and strengthen local employment and to give more opportunity to our youth and to trained people who are unemployed.

During the campaign, at almost every doorstep I went to, people mentioned employment. It was impossible to avoid the issue.

We, as a government, are responsible for ensuring that when money is spent, it benefits the people in the Yukon. That is what this commission is about.

What has the government done so far? We have had some preliminary assessments done about possible legal constraints and the good news is that they do allow for a number of specific actions to achieve our commitments. There is margin there for that and we are going to be investigating that further.

We can make changes to existing programs. We are looking at that and at what is already in place - directives and regulations - and further options for putting Yukon people first. As was said earlier, we are not going to try to reinvent the wheel. There was no wheel there in the first place, because there was no desire to invest in benefits for local people and companies. We are going to start with the spokes and build out from that. As for consultation, we will be going out to consult with people. We have already had some consultation with groups.

The business incentive policy review committee is an example. We met with them, and asked them to come along with us and work closely with us. They have agreed. There is an agreement to expand the business incentive policy to bring in more people to get more knowledge and reach out further so that it is not just a very small group of people that has been working very hard on the business development policy, but to bring in some new people just for this project. We are not trying to change the business development policy forever. During this period and on this work, we are going to expand it to allow more contribution and more consultation. We feel that we will get a better product if we do that.

The representatives on the business incentive policy include the Yukon Chamber of Commerce, Building Trades Council, Yukon Federation of Labour, Yukon Contractors Association and a member from the public at large.

The reasons include the fact that 41 percent of all Yukon government contract spending went outside last year. That is a lot. There is a real cost to Yukon taxpayers on that. For every full-time job going outside, it costs the Yukon taxpayer roughly $5,000. It does not count all the losses in sales to local businesses, which also pay taxes. There are a lot of other factors, including the fact that social assistance costs go up. An unemployment rate of 8.4 percent, 9.6 percent and 12 percent is nothing to crow about. To get it down to eight percent is nothing to crow about. It is not a great deal. Eight percent of our working population is unemployed. Is that great? I do not think that it is.

I also think when this commission has completed its work, one of the recommendations I would like to put forward is that the work never stop. I do not mean the fantasy of the Member for Porter Creek North that these commissions will go on forever, and that the lower-class people back here in the backbenches - as he likes to refer to us - want to continually work on commissions. We do have options. We can become real estate salesmen. That is an option.

We can do other work; we can sell items. We have made a commitment to commissions. We have made a commitment to what we feel are four key issues that the Yukon is facing. When my commission is completed, I hope this government and future governments continue working on local employment, always trying to find a way to do it better.

Ms. Duncan: The Cabinet commission on local hire, the motion calls us again to commend a new approach. I have already dealt with the issue of commending. The approach is not new. It is not new at all, as my colleague from Porter Creek North has pointed out. I omitted that from my last remarks; it is not new at all. I would dare to suggest that we have seen far more work accomplished by task forces than we have by royal commissions; however, that is splitting hairs.

I would again say to the Members opposite that the way the commissions work is not clear. What is the final product? Cabinet commissioners stand up and talk about policies. I would refer you to a Canadian political systems textbook that states, "...most major policy decisions, the actual detailed formulation of specific policies is normally accomplished by the individual departments of the public service."

That is fine. They want a Cabinet commission to develop policy. "Often, through the medium of white (or 'coloured') papers, the departments set out the few policy alternatives which are most feasible in technical, administrative, financial, and even political terms." I have no problem if that is what the Cabinet commissions are going to do - if they are going to set out white papers with options for public discussion, but that is not clear.

The work of the commissions has not been made clear in the generic mandate handed out: "develop interim terms of reference ... develop final terms of reference ... liase and coordinate within the Yukon ... fulfill the mandate...". Well, what is it?

Work procedure: "consulting and involving interested individuals ... researching and bringing together existing information ... refining and integrating the information ... preparing reports and recommendations ...", yet he stands and talks about policy. I would request, again, please make the ways of the work clear. The Minister of Economic Development talked about involving the Opposition. How and where? That has not been spelled out at all to anyone, least of all the Yukon public.

I also would dare to suggest to the Members opposite that the ways that work for each commission may be different. You are dealing with vastly different, complex issues. One generic mandate is not going to cover the way each of the commissions should work. In any event, it is not particularly creative, given the complex issues being dealt with.

What is local hire? Is local hire ensuring all trades people employed on site are registered with Yukon medicare and hold Yukon drivers' licences and are part of a local Yukon union? What is local hire? Is local hire writing government tenders in such a way that Yukon businesses only need apply? Is local hire writing tenders consistently over and over again? I heard at the door that tenders are not released consistently. Some call for Yukon fair wage scale and some do not. Let us be consistent about it. Is local hire, finally - following up on the suggestion made years ago by the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce to the same party who sits opposite - the very simple act of including a suggestion in Government of Yukon pay cheques saying that calling 1-800 costs your Yukon neighbour his or her job? Buying your goods outside is not local hire.

These sorts of suggestions are out there. They have been out in the public for years and the former NDP government had an opportunity to follow up on them, and did not. Instead, we got a lengthy investigation by the former NDP Premier.

Out-of-Yukon companies are used on specific projects; why are they being used? Is there any method for us to evaluate the reason we ended up with them? Why have we got an out-of-Yukon supplier? Why is the Yukon representative for a major company not being used, or why is there not one?

Local hire is not simply a question of ensuring local unions and local union people are used or hired on major projects. It is far, far more than this. The Member opposite is smiling - it is more than that, and it is a very serious subject. It also deals with the issue of training. Why are people coming up from outside? Have we not offered them the training or do we not have a qualified Yukoner able to do the job?

Yukon hire, local hire - this Cabinet commission is about people and it is about doing the job of government right, which involves the departments of Government Services and Education most particularly. It is also about our economy and the way that we, as Yukoners, handle it.

I would commend to Members opposite in particular, a program on television the other night called Mavericks. It talked about three communities in Canada that have turned their economies around incredibly. They did it without a dime of government subsidy. Subsidies are a huge issue and they are not simply grants or loans, they are far more than that. It is a huge issue and it is something that I would caution the Member very strongly about, because they come in many different forms and their ramifications are wide and varied.

The Members opposite may be wondering why we have not supported these motions. In my opinion, the wording is not appropriate for what you have asked this House to do, and you have not made your object clear. The ways of work, again, I would state for Members opposite, of these commissions are not clear.

The issues are incredibly complex, and for that reason the mandates and the ways of work need to be clear, as well as who is involved and how.

That deals with your approach. You have asked us to commend the new approach. It is not new and it is not clear. For that reason, you cannot, at this point in time, have the support of this caucus.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was just trying to be somewhat courteous to my friend across the floor.

I would like to speak to this motion just a little bit from the perspective of one who has taken an interest in this particular area over the last little while. Shortly after the election, following up on some of our commitments with regard to local hire, I directed Government Services to take a look at some of the issues involved surrounding the question of maximizing local content and maximizing local input into a variety of things, not only local hire but also local business opportunities. What came out was a very interesting sort of cross-departmental approach. As the Member for Porter Creek South has pointed out rather well, it is not just a question of labour market issues; it is also a question that involves economic development, government services and education. It also involves justice, health and social services and community and transportation services, and it opens up a whole variety of complex legal arguments, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, NAFTA, and the agreement on internal trade. It is not simply something that has to be entered into very lightly. As I reviewed some of the submissions from Government Services, it became apparent that there were a number of options, a number of things that we could be doing to maximize local content and local labour. However, as the Government Services reviewed these, they identified departments that would be involved in this, what some of the options would be, and what some of the initiatives would be that would have to be undertaken. As I reviewed this, the import of a commission on local hire became greater and certainly, in taking a look at this, I can see where this commission will dovetail rather well with initiatives we have in terms of local content and local business.

I tend to agree that when we are talking about local hire we are not just talking about particular trades or businesses. I see the whole question about local hire and local initiatives as being the basis for our future.

Coming from an education background, I became very cognizant of the fact that many of our young people here need opportunities in which to flourish in their own home territory. I feel that unless we can provide those opportunities by support for local labour, by support for local business and by support for local entrepreneurs, we will seriously lose an entire element of what I like to refer to as intellectual capital.

For example, the people who are involved in the artistic or the graphic arts pursuits and people who are involved in engineering and technical pursuits, and the increasing number of information-age types of businesses, I think, need the ability to flourish up here.

I think there are ways in which we can promote this and ways in which we can provide those opportunities. Those opportunities may come in a variety of ways. They may come in terms of training and increased use of apprenticeship programs; it may come in the way of constructing regulations and ways to develop it. For example, it may come by enhancing business incentive programs, which is another way.

What I have come to be aware of is the vast complexity of this whole issue and how many departments it involves. I think this is why the commission is a good way to approach this: to take a look at all of the parameters that are involved and try to propose some options.

One of the things that we have become aware of in taking a look at this is that there are legal arguments involved, and I am sure I do not have to remind the Member for Riverside about some of the issues involved here - for example, agreements on internal trade and things of that nature, some of the landmark court cases. But, by the same token, there are ways in which regulations can be used and can be used effectively, and in some cases modified to perhaps achieve those things where we may be restricted in a legal setting. I am not rejecting legal challenges, but I think there are ways in which we can do it effectively through regulation and through policy. That is why I feel that the idea of a commission is an effective tool to take a look at how we can do this on a whole variety of fronts: how we can approach training, how we can approach contracting, how we can approach labour regulation, how we can approach worksite regulation or worksite management to create a maximum potential.

I am very concerned that we are not giving our young people here the support they need to flourish in their own home area. Toward that end, I believe that the idea of a local hire commission is an idea whose time has come. This is not to say that there are not good initiatives that have been going on. I think there are, and I think people are to be commended and previous governments are to be commended on some of the initiatives that they have taken, but I think we can build, and unless we are in the process of building, why are we here? We have to build on what has gone on before. We have to maximize the potential for our youth and the potential for the future.

For those reasons, I feel that this commission is an effective tool. I look forward to working with it from the point of view of Government Services and I support the motion.

Mr. Phillips: On this side of House, we commend the concept of 100 percent local hire, but we do have some problem with the motion that is before us today.

I think that both times the Member for Porter Creek South spoke about the motion, she laid it out by saying that people do not receive the commendation before they do the work; they receive the commendation after they do the work. I think that spending time here today to pat themselves on the back before they go out and do the job may not be the right way to approach the issue.

Another reason I have a problem with this particular motion is because of what was said during the election campaign. The Leader of the New Democratic Party spoke out about local hire and was very strong on the issue. In fact, he said, "If we have to break the law, if we have to challenge the Charter, we will." The way in which one challenges the Charter is to do something that becomes a case where the law is broken, there is an issue and it has to be decided by the law.

I have a problem with that. My problem is that no Member of a parliament should be recommending that we challenge a law. I do not recommend to people that, if they do not like the speed limit, they should challenge the law. This is a law that is in place now.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Mr. Phillips: The Member mentioned gun laws. I will tell you what I said about gun laws. I said, "I do not like the law." However, when I was asked by the media if I would obey the law, I said, "Yes, I will obey the law." Will I register my firearms? The answer is yes, I will register my firearms. Will I recommend to anyone else that they should disobey the law? No, I will not recommend to anyone else to disobey the law, but I do not like the law.

The NDP government has come in with this proposal for local hire, yet what we see here is a government that - in fact, the Member for Whitehorse Centre talked about the jobs at the hospital. Well, guess who brought PCL to the Yukon in the first place? It was not the Yukon Party government. It was a New Democratic Party government that brought PCL to the Yukon. There are all kinds of other things that his former colleagues did - and even the Government Leader. I think when he was the Government Leader, they went out to Edmonton and to various shops in the south and promoted outside contractors in Alberta to come to the Yukon and bid on Yukon jobs. That was done under an NDP regime. I do not know if Members recall that, but they went outside with the specifications and plans. I remember the local contractors association was very upset about it and so were the local unions. However, the NDP government did that to encourage competition. Many of the firms that became aware of the jobs in the Yukon are still here today and are coming back and, as the Member for Whitehorse Centre says, taking Yukoners' jobs. So, I guess we can thank some of his colleagues for that particular move.

The other problem I have with this motion - and this is one that causes me a great deal of problems. It does not have so much to do with what the motion says, but more with what we are doing with these motions on the Order Paper today. I guess the problem I have is that a motion was put on the Order Paper when we started, and that was Motion No. 9. Let me go back even further than that.

Even prior to Motion No. 9, the government brought forward a motion on the Order Paper to set up various committees of this government to look at issues. One of the committees we set up in government is a committee called SCREP, the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges, where various issues are discussed. Since that time, Members from both sides of the House have been appointed to the committee. The committee is supposed to take its work very seriously.

One of the first motions that appeared on the Order Paper was Motion No. 9 from the Hon. Mr. Harding. I am sure the Members opposite will agree with me.

The problem I have is that the first clause in Motion No. 9 is " consider the recognition that should be provided to Cabinet commissioners in the Standing Order of the Assembly". That is, to consider how we should put the recognition of these commissioners in the Standing Order. Should they have recognition and how should that recognition be there?

I was quite surprised last night. After motions were tabled, there was a motion tabled by the Hon. Mr. Harding - Motion No. 36. Motion No. 36 states that "the Standing Orders of the Yukon Legislative Assembly be amended by adding . . ." - and it goes on to talk about all the Cabinet commissioners. I thought Motion No. 9 was going to let the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges - the committee that is so important that they thought they would refer it to it - decide in what form it would come back to the House and what standing these commissioners would have. That is unfair. It is unfair to me, to the Liberal Opposition and to the Members on the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges on the government side who were to sit down and supposedly discuss this issue in terms of whether or not they would answer questions or give ministerial statements. It is unfair. I am sure the Members on the side opposite would agree.

What are we here for? The Members are here to work in a democratic process, where we have parliamentary committees that do useful work. There is nothing to discuss in the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges. The motion is here. The majority is there. This is in-your-face stuff. The courteous thing would have been to wait until we had come back after the SCREP meeting, where the majority is there and one could have one's own way anyway, and then present this motion to us - not shove it in our face before we even start to talk about the issue.

The government does not want to hear what I have to say about it. The government is not interested in what I have to say about it, because there is a motion on the Order Paper that the Government House Leader threatened me with today. He said he will deal with it tomorrow if we are not out of here. That is fairness from the side opposite.

That is down-your-throat government - just take it or else. I would recommend - and I will if they do not - that if one wants to be up front with me, with the Liberal Members and with the Members of Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges on that side of the House, then remove the condition in Motion No. 9 that says refer it to the Standing Committee on Rules, Elections and Privileges, because there is no intention of doing so anyway; they have it in the bloody motion. Pardon my language, Mr. Speaker.

He had no intention of doing it anyway, so quit playing games with us. Quit wasting my time in SCREP. I will talk about the other issues that are referred to SCREP. I have no problem with that.

At the very least I thought we were coming back in here with new Members, a new approach and with a new attitude, and that we were not going to have this strong, adversarial, in-your-face approach any more. Yet, we had this jammed down our throats last night where we had no choice - this is what you are getting, folks.

They could have at least been sly enough to hang on to it until we came back into session in the spring and then spring it on us as a result of the SCREP meetings so that maybe I could get a paragraph in or say a word or two, but they decided that that was not right.

This approach is not right. I hope that it is not the approach that the Government House Leader is going to take, or that the government is going to take, when dealing with other motions, amendments to motions or even recommendations that other committees have in other roles that committees have. It is unfair. It is unfair to me It is unfair to the Liberals and it is unfair to the other SCREP Members.

I want to go back for a moment to the issue of local hire and the concern that I will express to the Member who brought the motion forward.

Is the goal of the commission 100 percent? If so, that is a laudable goal, but I really believe that it is not achievable. It is not achievable in other provinces in this country where many goods and services and companies are available. From time to time, as the Minister of Health said, there are technological things, there are products, there is timing, and there are some things where there is just no way - no matter what we build into it, for one reason or another, there may not be somebody here, and we are finding that now with some things, as the Member will admit, and there has to be more training. We will be a long time trying to achieve the 100 percent.

The matter of agreements on internal trade in other provinces was raised by the Minister of Health as well. I would point out to the Member that I have a son in the construction trade. He is going to school right now, and he is working over the Christmas holiday at a construction job in British Columbia to make money. He is not coming home at Christmas. I hope we do not put something in so that the British Columbia government decides to retaliate so my son or daughter, or another Member's son or daughter, cannot work in British Columbia or Alberta, or cannot move around the country.

The Members laugh at that but I do not think it is so funny.

I have also talked to some companies in the Yukon who export out of the territory. They export to the Northwest Territories, Alaska and British Columbia. They have a manufacturing business here and are worried about limitations that might be put on them if we start retaliating with limitations on companies coming in here to build in the territory. There are window companies, for example, who compete with outside companies; and if we say that products used in Yukon buildings will only be Yukon-made products - well, the local company here exports to the Northwest Territories, to Alaska, to British Columbia, Atlin - there will be a lot of questions. It is just not a simple solution to this problem.

I will give the Member an idea. I do not know if he wants to do anything with it, but it was mentioned to me by local businesspeople that, if one wanted to promote local hire, when one is sitting down negotiating with one's employees over the next few weeks and months, do away with the Yukon bonus. They take it and fly outside to other parts of the country. Perhaps some Yukoners will stay here and spend their dollars here in local businesses. That is an option the government can look at.

There are a lot of issues surrounding local hire. I think the Member mentioned the one job - the hospital - that he was concerned about. Overall, he mentioned zero-percent representation in some firms, but some of those firms had one or two employees, and some of the bigger firms - he said 93 percent - had 30 or 40 employees. It is a little unfair to start quoting percentages if one is not telling the numbers on the other side. The overall numbers were that around 50 percent or 60 percent of the people who worked on the job were local. I would like to see it higher. I am sure other Yukoners would like to see it higher, but sometimes that is hard to achieve.

He also mentioned other jobs. He mentioned some of the other local jobs - the Tourism business centre across the road. There was about 98-percent local hire, local purchase, local product, local everything. Most of the Beringia Centre is all local. I think the exhibits for it are mostly local.

It is easy to pick on one project, and I suppose there will be a day in this House where it will be absolutely beyond the control of the Member for Whitehorse Centre, and even the Minister responsible of Government Services, and a job will go to an outside firm. It will be a big difference of $400,000 to $700,000, and they will agonize over it in Cabinet, but there will be a budget to balance and other things to do.

It is not an easy decision. There will be some tough decisions to make, and I will be able to rise on this side of the House, and say, "What happened to the 100 percent? PCL is back."

However, those of us on this side cannot support the motion. I think that I have laid out several reasons why.

I do have some concerns that I have expressed about the concept of local hire. I think that the Member for Porter Creek South expressed some concerns as well. They are valid ones. What is local hire? It becomes a real problem here.

I will give the Member an example. I will use a personal example. We are from a separated family, and my daughter lived outside for many years. She came back up to work here this summer. She wants to come back next summer. If she wants to get a job on a construction site, can my own daughter work on a construction job or another job in the Yukon?

These are tough questions. They are going to come up. It must be determined who fits into local hire and why these people fit into local hire. It gets as complicated as when you start to jig around with the Students Financial Assistance Act - who is a student, who is eligible and who is not eligible? It is a really complicated issue.

Although I do not support the concept, I hope, overall, that we are successful with getting more Yukoners on Yukon jobs. I think that the approach that the government is taking is a very costly one. There is a much better way to do it. We will not be supporting the motion as presented by the Member.

Speaker: The hon. Member will close debate if he speaks. Is there anyone else wishing to speak?

Mr. Hardy: There are lots of questions. Wonderful. There are lots of questions from both the Members who spoke. That is excellent. Those are the same questions we have and there are a lot of them. I agree with a lot of the questions and some of the suggestions and answers that I have received from the other side. Those are wonderful, but it keeps coming down to the fact that we have too much leakage. There is too much leakage in terms of people not getting an opportunity to work here. It is almost starting to resemble a fly-in zone in some areas of the Yukon, where firms come in with a whole crew, drop the crew down to do the work, unpack and then pack up and fly out again.

I will give Members an example - the Member is shaking his head over there. An example is the White River bridge. There was $7 million or more. I phoned them about employment for people in the Yukon. I was not asking about union employment. I never even mentioned it. I asked what opportunities there would be for local people. Their answer was interesting. "We are going to bring our crews in. We will hire three or four people just to keep the government off our backs. That was all we need, so we are going to bring our crews in. And if we do not bring them down from Calgary, where they are stationed, the headquarters in Western Canada, we will bring them from Alaska because we have guys working on a bridge up there right now, so we will just run them right down into this project."

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Mr. Hardy: I hope they hired local there, as well.

We are losing, because so many jobs have gone outside. The Member for Riverdale North mentioned a couple of examples of local jobs where there was a large percentage of local hire. That is true. It is excellent. We can talk about the French school. Figures change again.

I have worked in the construction industry as a representative for the last seven and a half years, but I have spent the last 20 years in the trade. I know there is leakage there.

I know local people who are trying to get jobs and the training they want, young people trying to start in the industry and cannot, and the lineups of vehicles from outside, with people coming in and willing to work cheaper because of the difficult situations they may be facing in Alberta, or Manitoba, or Saskatchewan, or whatever. They will work for a lot less. They are in difficult situations and we would like to help them all, but we have to care for our home, as well. We have to start with our community. We have to make it healthy. We have to make it beneficial for the people who live here before we reach even further and help other people. We have to care for the people here, and that has not been happening.

There are lots of questions. The Member for Porter Creek South talked about a white paper, a big document at the end of all this. That is wonderful. Unfortunately, I have seen so many policy documents plunked down, scanned through, and stuck up on a shelf, which is where they sit, collecting dust. We have tons of them here not being used. We hope to have a slightly different approach - more proactive, more involvement of the people, going into the communities to find out what is wrong and what they need, what their concerns are. Consultation is so important.

There are a lot of good suggestions from the Member for Porter Creek South. I wrote a lot of them down. There were lots of questions, and they are ones I had, questions we will be trying to find answers to. People I have talked to are committed to this. Lots of contractors are very committed to this. Some have concerns. I have heard the same concerns the Member for Riverdale North raised. We will have to try to address those and make sure it is not such a situation where there are repercussions.

I can tell the Members right now that in just about every province in Canada there are local hire initiatives. I saw a document on the Porter Creek school, a tender package - our school in the Yukon that was tendered. It was written in there that the only people who could bid on this portion of the project were residents of Alberta. This was for a Yukon job.

I think it was a typographical error. It was written by a firm from Alberta. They wrote it up using some of the language they use down there. What do you call that? I call it local hire.

I do not know about internal trade deals. In a lot of those cases, what is said and what is done are two different things. We have a global market. Everyone is promoting the global market - to stay competitive, we have to reach out. The world is only so big, but we have to keep reaching out. What is it causing?

In Canada, it is causing tremendous unemployment and strain on social programs, a downward spiral in wages and benefits, and a lowering of our society. But that is good. We say that is natural and has to happen. I do not believe it is natural, and I do not believe it has to happen. I do not buy into this globalization as an end to solving our problems, because it has not - it is failing. We have to look at a different way of doing it - a better way.

The International Labour Organization estimates that 30 percent of the world's labour force - about 2.5 billion people - is either unemployed or underemployed, and it is getting worse. Those are 1995 figures. On a global picture, it is not getting better. We have to be proactive and take a hand in this. We have to try different methods to succeed. Perhaps we can do something here that works and that can be an example for other areas that need help.

The Member for Porter Creek mentioned a CTV program. I suspect Eric Malling was the commentator. He did a wonderful report on New Zealand - a completely distorted report. He made a comparison that Canada is like New Zealand. New Zealand was crashing and burning. Even though they have a credit rating of AA - which was not mentioned - he made it sound like it is a Third World country. It was very sordid, but lots of people bought into it. No government money? Fine. Low wages? I bet. Very low wages - people working for less and less. Less gets spent on the economy. Spread the wealth out? Probably not - more to a smaller few.

I would like to see the show and inquire into it. Be very careful about watching a show and thinking that all of the answers are there. I do not believe they are. We have to reach out to the communities. We have to reach out to the people involved - the contractors, businesses, unions - and government has to be involved. That is our role. We should be trying to supply labour, help labour, and help people get started. The Member mentioned training, and she is right. Training is a huge part of this. It has to be done.

The Member for Riverdale mentioned the NDP government going outside to get more prices and more bidding. That was at the request of a former colleague of theirs, and it was in the papers. It was advertised. He was very vocal about the previous government seeking prices outside because he felt that the local contractors were ripping off the government, and it became quite an issue. I do not believe, in the end, that the local contractors were ripping off the government.

However, I do thank the Members across the way for their questions, because those are the questions I have, and they have given me some I had not thought of yet. As long as we keep asking questions about local hire, keep investigating, then we are going to keep trying to improve the conditions for people to be employed here.

Motion No. 28 agreed to

Clerk: Motion No. 31, standing in the name of Mr. McRobb.

Motion No. 31

Speaker: It is moved by the Member for Kluane

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Government of Yukon should be commended for its new approach to resolve important policy issues through the creation of the Cabinet commission on energy.

Mr. McRobb: Like my colleagues, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak in this Legislature and I look forward to future opportunities responding in Question Period.

The Member for Riverdale North referred to Motion No. 9, which will give us that right, and I hope he will support that motion and that we will have the right to respond in Question Period as well as on motion day and in Committee of the Whole.

The motion, as it reads, I support entirely. It is also my opinion that our government should be commended for its new approach to resolving important policy issues through the creation of the Cabinet commission on energy.

The Opposition Members seem to think that this is a little premature, but I invite them to take a second look at the wording of the motion as it refers to the new approach to resolve important policy issues through the creation of the commissions.

Perhaps the time will come when the commissions will fill their mandates and implement their policy areas when there could be another motion before this House to commend us on the significant policy areas we have developed for the benefit of all Yukoners. I think the Opposition could be more constructive by saving their comments for that day.

I would like to talk now a bit about the energy commission to give Yukoners a better understanding of how it will work, in addition to responding to some of the negative comments from the Opposition over the past week or two. My three co-commissioners and I had to sit and bear it during Question Period and during Committee of the Whole because we are not permitted to respond. I hope that will be resolved soon.

The objective of the commission is to develop a comprehensive energy policy. Over the past four or five years, this Legislature has heard that term on numerous occasions, referred to by the Member for Riverside: comprehensive energy policy. Some of the former Members in this House have referred to a comprehensive energy policy. Where is it?

Even the former government, during its first sitting in this Legislature four years ago promised this comprehensive energy policy before year-end. There was no comprehensive energy policy because the previous government did not have the political will to develop the policy and involve Yukoners in a comprehensive energy policy for their benefit, and for the promotion of economic development in the territory, the preservation of our environment and for the benefit of consumers of electricity.

The energy commission, in working toward the comprehensive policy, will be dealing with a number of significant policy issues, and I will speak to those issues in a moment, but first I would like to speak about the team that I will be involved with.

It has a small staff consisting of me and my deputy commissioner, the past president of the Yukon Energy Corporation, who, I might add, was the longest serving president of that corporation. He was in that position for a good three years and he brings that experience to the energy commission.

In addition, there will be three staff members from the energy resources branch that comprise a total of two person years or PYs. These staff are highly qualified, have years of experience and are familiar with most of the issues that the energy commission will be dealing with.

In addition, we can take advantage of my own personal experience over the past six years attending several hearings and several meetings on behalf of consumers of electricity in particular.

All in all, I think that we have a very good team. Like myself, the other members of that team are looking forward to the challenges ahead.

I would like to refer now to some of the issues that we will be dealing with. The first one that I would like to talk about is energy supply. There have been many debates in this Legislature in the past six years about energy supply. When you look at what has actually been accomplished in regard to energy supply, our policy regarding energy supply is embarrassing. There has been virtually nothing accomplished.

This commission will seek to change that. I can promise you that it will change that. We will have a policy about energy supply that will guide the Yukon in future years. This includes what types of energy supply options should be considered. Should the Yukon government give preference to a coal plant or other alternatives such as wind, wood, chip or small hydro. I know that the Member for Riverside has past experience in the development of wind energy. I commend him for his work in that important area and I hope that he can give his input when the opportunity arises to discuss how we will develop policy regarding energy supply in the territory.

Another important component is the question of investment risk. Who should pay for expensive new projects? Should it be the electrical ratepayers, the taxpayers or industry? Who should backstop project financing? This is the ultimate question. Who should pay?

In conversations with some departmental staff, I am aware that the previous Minister responsible for the Yukon Energy Corporation was advised on several occasions to make a decision. There was no decision. That will change through the work of the energy commission. We will develop a policy on this very important question and bring it to Cabinet for a decision.

Energy conservation is another important component. Demand-side management has been virtually ignored over the past four years. This has come at the cost of extra diesel generation that all electrical consumers in the territory have borne and will have to continue to bear through at least the next year.

The commission will develop a policy that will ensure conservation measures are included, so that consumers have the option of reducing their energy consumption through the use of these conservation measures. This is a very important part of the comprehensive energy policy.

Energy management is another important component. Throughout the election campaign and even previously we heard many Yukoners speak their concerns about the management of the Southern Lakes - Marsh Lake and Tagish Lake - as well as Aishihik Lake. Yukoners want a say in how these resources are managed. They are not satisfied with decisions being made strictly by the utilities. They want an opportunity to give input into that decision-making process. The commission will tackle this question and include input from Yukoners for this important component in developing its policy.

Last week, Yukoners learned about how our government is extending and improving the rate relief program. We heard about built-in incentives for reduced usage - how our government will end the discrimination to the communities and rural Yukon, which do not have the same benefits as consumers on the main hydro grid. We have brought them to the same level in addition to creating built-in incentives for reduced consumption.

The energy commission, within the next year, will consult Yukoners and develop a policy on rate relief that Yukoners want.

I look forward to participating with them on that issue.

The final component I want to identify is the Yukon Utilities Board process. The previous government claimed to have streamlined the process. They streamlined the process, apparently to save costs to consumers. Well, did we see power rates decline? The answer is no. Did we see utility profits increase? The answer is yes. Did we see increased dissatisfaction from intervenors in the Yukon Utilities Board process? The answer is yes.

The previous government's streamlining was, in fact, a streamlining of profits for the two utilities. This government will examine this issue and will bring fairness back into the process to encourage the involvement of Yukoners to help decrease the monies the utilities want from them to operate and run the system. In addition, this will build our local knowledge of energy issues in the territory and reduce the reliance on outside consultants, engineers, experts, and so on. I am sure my fellow commissioner on local hire is pleased to hear what this commission will be doing.

I want to talk now about public consultation. Our government believes in listening to Yukoners. We know that we do not have a monopoly on good ideas. That is why we believe in inviting Yukoners, holding meetings, listening to what they have to say, and acting upon these good ideas. It is called meaningful public consultation. I am not referring to the same meaningful public consultation that was found in the previous government's four-year plan in 1992. I am referring to "meaningful" public consultation. That means allowing sufficient time before the meetings for participants to review the information. It also means first providing relevant information so that they can become informed on the issues.

The energy commission plans to do this by bringing together interested parties to find out who they are, what issues they are interested in, when they want to deal with them, what type of process they want to participate in, and so on. Once we find out these important components, we will be developing a schedule and include everyone on the team as we tackle each one of these issues that are very important to electrical consumers as well as to the future of the Yukon Territory.

I invite the Opposition Members to give this a little more thought than they did on their previous two votes and support this motion because it will benefit all Yukoners. If indeed that is what they are here to do then this could be a unanimous vote. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

Mr. Jenkins: I, too, have some concerns with the process and the resulting outcome from these commissions. Motion No. 9 dealt with the SCREP committee. That motion was totally usurped by Motion No. 36, amending the Standing Orders, bringing forward to the House today the commissions before they are even dealt with in SCREP. It just de facto creates these commissions and the resulting four new Cabinet Ministers under some sort of quasi-oath, creates four new deputy minister positions who we are told will have a job until the job is completed. So much for cooperation and following reasonableness and fair rules for this House.

With respect to the Yukon and the energy situation, there are really two major issues: the generation and supply of electricity, and its regulatory body, the Yukon Utilities Board.

At the present time, the Yukon has the best of both the private sector and government involvement in the generation and supply of electrical energy. The private sector operates the system and the prime power generation is owned by government. Electricity supply is done in a regulated monopoly where profit is a cost. The only time that a major disruption occurs is when the government gets involved, and the government considers the profits of the Yukon Energy Corporation that flow through to the Yukon Development Corporation as general revenue dollars and spends them outside of the jurisdiction of this House. That is when we have energy problems in the Yukon.

With respect to oil, gas, coal and thermal power generation, these are all very costly undertakings that require large capital dollars. More important, before these projects can be embarked upon, there must be a market for the power that is generated.

May I suggest to the Members opposite that they consider grid extensions. If they would extend the grid from Carmacks to Mayo, they would address a number of issues. They would reduce the dependency on power generation in Pelly Crossing and Stewart Crossing, and more important, they would find a home for some 3.5 to 4.5 megawatts of hydro energy that is now water over the dam. Mayo can be extended from five megawatts to 10 megawatts, with very little additional disruption to the environment in that area.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, this project requires large capital expenditures - more than can be justified in the existing rate base. However, it can be done if there is a political will and a majority of that party in the House. The government of today has these tools. I would hope that more than a cursory overview be done. If the attitude demonstrated by the Member opposite in addressing the capital cost were taken back in the 1950s when the Whitehorse hydro plant was put in place, we probably all would have little Honda generators in our backyards.

As I said earlier, the tripod on which an economy is built is the supply of energy, the supply of transportation and the supply of communications.

Alternate energy sources that have been explored, such as wind generation and power generation, do not work in any area where the temperature and dew point come together. The potential for natural gas and the piping or trucking of it to the respective communities are issues that can be addressed within existing frameworks.

Demand side management, in light of the recent announcement made by the Minister responsible for the Yukon Energy Corporation, is out the window with the extension of the rate relief from 1,000 to 1,500 kilowatt hours. That extension does not do anything for demand side management; rather it encourages the consumption of energy.

I cannot support this expansion of the public service by the public sector. The outcome is not going to be what we had hoped for. All that we are going to be creating with these commissions is more government and the resulting costs associated with more government, which are ultimately borne by the taxpayers. Thank God it is not the taxpayers of the Yukon in total; it is the taxpayers of Canada.

I am sure the government will use its majority to ram these commissions through the House.

We talk about forward planning. I suggest to the Members opposite that the approach they are taking is anally myopic. The exercise of good government is to supply the highest consistent level of service at the lowest possible cost to the end consumer. I ask that Members do not lose track of this goal.

Hon. Mr. Harding: I really am pleased to follow that performance on behalf of the Member for Klondike.

The Member, as a new Member of this House, could not be any more negative or any more tunnel-visioned if he tried.

He just made a reference to the fact that these commissions are going to be more government. Actually, what they will be is more efficient government, and we will probably be doing more with less, which is something quite opposite to the approach taken by the previous Yukon Party government, who developed very little in the way of substantive energy policy.

Yukoners do want comprehensive policy development, and that is precisely what these commissions are all about. We want somebody, a political point person, to take this bull by the horns and to try and come up with some answers to the tough problems out there that are facing us, concerning energy supply, encouraging conservation, the way our corporation runs, our relationship with the private utility in the territory - to talk about what the government role is in this whole equation, what the privat