Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a Business Incentive Policy that the government goes by. However, there are some clauses in there and I think we need to discuss those. I brought it up in the House before about how we have businesses from the South that win the BIP process by having some companies, one, two and sometimes three, in their proposal. What is the Minister going to do to fix that? Sometimes small business doesn’t even get to do the work they were asked to do in the proposal, they are just used to get the BIP points.

What is the Minister going to do to effect the change so our small...

Obviously, the coroners that we have across the Northwest Territories are very effective in the fact that they deal with the scene at the time, whether it’s a crime scene or it’s a scene where… They’re sometimes one of the first few people on the scene, so they can share their own personal experiences or what they’ve seen that the general public doesn’t get to see. I’ve seen those kinds of presentations on various levels of areas and I always find to be the most effective in educating our youth about…(inaudible)…behaviour. So I think it’s something that this government needs to maybe look at...

Mr. Speaker, when this government goes into sole-source contracts or negotiated contracts with a big firm or company, are there any provisions put in these negotiated contracts where the main contractor has to have a certain percentage of local subcontractors, the smaller guys, the guys that have the small businesses? Is there a percentage in that negotiated contract when any of the Ministers or when the Minister goes forward and proceeds with a sole contract? Is there a percentage set out so that when the small businesses in the communities and across the Territories get a piece of the pie...

In terms of this budget, I know, especially when you have to go into a small community and it takes a lot to cover the cost of going into a small community plus any other expenses that may occur, it doesn’t leave much room for one of the staff members or even the coroners in the communities to do any type of awareness prevention, education around these recommendations that we see in these reports.

Is there a budget for education awareness within this office, and if so, can I ask how much of that budget is geared towards awareness and education? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the great pleasure and opportunity this weekend to attend some of the Junior Cager basketball games that happened here in Yellowknife. At this moment, I would just like to congratulate the East Three Elementary boys’ team who went undefeated this weekend, going six wins, no losses. On that sixth win that they had yesterday, they claimed the NWT territorial championships, the first ever for East Three Elementary School in any banner of sorts. I just want to say they had some great games, had some great competition and showed a lot of sportsmanship, but a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just kind of staying on the same theme here with the coroner’s office, the Minister might know that this is something that has been of interest to me with the recommendations and reading of these reports and some of the alarming statistics that we do see with that.

I know in other jurisdictions they have these death review committees that offer recommendations to the government, and that poses another option of bringing accountability to government and making sure these recommendations get acted on.

Going through the Department of Justice website, looking if we had...

I move that this committee recommends that a new territory-wide target of 45 days be established for average wait times for legal aid services; and further, to support this target, in the 2014-15 fiscal year an additional $200,000 be allocated to hiring an additional lawyer for the Legal Aid Services Board. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Maybe I can ask the Minister if there’s a protocol for each of our communities that requires assistance, because in some cases if it’s something really serious, you know, you wouldn’t want to put any other residents in the community at risk to intervene, so we’re missing that part of the initial intervening of an issue that might be happening. In that case, that’s some of our more critical times to respond. So, I guess if you could identify which of our communities have the longest response time, or maybe provide response times to Members that have communities that they represent, so they...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just one quick question I want to ask. I know we have some Members here that are concerned that we have some communities that don’t have any RCMP staff in those positions and I do understand that we do have a 1-800 emergency line. For some of the communities there might be some concerns with the health and safety of the residents, should something happen, or with domestic violence or something where we’re sending some of our inmates, who might have been in on serious crimes, back into their small communities, that might cause concern for family members or other...

Just for more clarity, I know that when the interns come – I think one – and they are put into working with the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories, one of their projects that they take is that they develop a paper or something as such. I was actually speaking to one of them who was in the position and they mentioned that they came across all these papers, so they are definitely there, reports and papers by interns that do have recommendations, so I do enjoy reading reports. I am not sure if I enjoy reading them, but that is part of my job that I do take that initiative to read reports...