Mr. Silver:   I have a question about the new F.H. Collins Secondary School. When the government of Yukon decided to award the contract for construction of this school to an Alberta company, the minister said at that time — and I quote: “The final objective here was to tender a project that would create local jobs and promote economic activity.” Local companies told me at the time that they were quite worried with the decision to go with an outside contractor and that would probably result with very few local people getting hired. I did write the minister this fall to see if those concerns from those local companies had materialized.

Can the minister confirm that to date there have been only 29 Yukoners working on-site at the F.H. Collins replacement project?

I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to also pay tribute to Veterans’ Week.

Each year in the week leading up to Remembrance Day, we are asked to take time to remember those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms and liberties that are a fundamental part of life in Canada. Unfortunately, those sacrifices seem closer to home this year than in past years with the recent deaths of Corporal Nathan Cirillo as well as Warrant Officer, Patrice Vincent.

Mr. Silver:   For two years now, I’ve been asking questions of this government’s plan to improve our Internet connections to the rest of the world. We have known what happens when our fibre optic line to the Outside is cut. The government’s preferred option for a secondary Internet connection would see a link from Whitehorse though Skagway to Juneau and then on to Seattle. The minister said this spring that this was his preferred option and the Premier reiterated their support in a letter to the editor recently.

Yesterday, the government of N.W.T. announced the construction of a fibre optic line from High Level, Alberta to Inuvik. This opens the possibility of creating a link from the Dempster corner through Inuvik instead of going through Seattle.

Mr. Speaker, is the government open to considering this all-Canadian option?