Alfred Moses

There are a couple concerns here. Obviously, one from our local contractors not getting the awarded bid under some discrepancies with the Business Incentive Policy, but then also coming back, in their eyes or their perception, the southern contractors getting a change order without…(inaudible)…details. I’m glad that the Minister made reference to the Hazmat assessment, because right now we’re going to be going through some more demolitions with the Sir Alexander Mackenzie School, not to mention the Aurora College family housing units.

Will the Minister agree to fixing up the Hazmat assessment...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday I had the opportunity to attend a ceremony here at the Legislative Assembly, which was near and dear to my heart, and that was the World No Tobacco Day on May 31st of every year. It was really nice to see, although I missed part of the ceremony. It was nice to see that the Department of Health and Social Services and its partners were promoting not only talking about the commercial uses of tobacco but promoting the cultural and traditional uses of tobacco that we have in the Northwest Territories, and promoting spirituality, healing, respect, offering prayers...

Just a simple question, yes or no. Saskatchewan and B.C. do give out bonuses to their physicians as they hire them. A simple question, yes or no, is the NWT looking at offering bonuses for physicians that come out of school to entice them as an incentive to take a job here? Yes or no. Is that an option they’re looking at?

I want to make reference to something that the Minister had stated in his interview, and he says that doctors who recoil at the idea of working in a remote and isolated community and don’t want to work in those communities for a long period of time can have a home base in Yellowknife. That means that he’s saying that doctors who don’t want to go and live in our communities can live in Yellowknife and move back and forth. We also have the Minister of ITI who promotes tourism, and we want to promote living in our small communities and have all that good stuff of living in a small community.

Can...

The way it currently sits, there’s no incentive for these businesses or residents to really go into this with all the energy going back into the grid. I want to know with the subsidies, outside of the subsidies, would any of these businesses that are ready to go now, would they be able to get any kind of retroactive payback from knowing what we know now and when it comes through in the fall? Yes or no?

Glad to hear that the policy has been reviewed and looking at something in the fall. For businesses specifically that do create a lot of power and energy that will go back into the grid, would the Minister be able to give us an exact time and date so that these businesses can start looking at investing in some of these alternative energy sources that would lower their costs but also be able to get a return with the net metering? Would he be able to give us a specific date so that some of our businesses, our residents can start looking at investing in some of these alternative energy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Regardless of the conditions of the school and environment this weekend, I would like to focus my Member’s statement on celebrations and successes of the graduation celebrations that will be going on in Inuvik this year.

Regardless of how cold the halls may be and how dismal the school may look, I’m very pleased to say that the East Three School is going to have 34 graduates this year, which is historical and also one of the highest graduating classes that came out of Inuvik. You can’t put a price on education. You can’t put a price on the future of our students and our...

If we have doctors that recoil by not going into isolated and remote communities, I’m not sure if that’s the type of physicians we want taking care of our residents of the Northwest Territories or any positions in government, for that matter. So when we do the recruitment, if that comes as an option, I think that health authorities and the Minister should look at that twice before making a job offer.

The Minister did also mention about salary packages. I want to know what our package is in the NWT, how our salary package compares to other jurisdictions throughout the NWT that prevents us from...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It came to my attention here that in an article regarding doctor recruitment to be centralized, something that we’ve talked about and the Minister has alluded to on many occasions, having doctors come out of Yellowknife to do work in the small communities. I know they had a meeting last week with all the education authorities. So I’d like to ask the Minister of Health if he wouldn’t mind giving us an update on the outcome of the meeting, in terms of recruitment of physicians and how we’re going to be putting that towards the small communities that don’t have the...

The Minister did touch on another question here that I was going to ask about the standby charges, and he did mention that they‘d be looking at possibly getting away with the standby charges, which is also great. Seeing as we’re at the beginning of summer here and we’re into 24-hour daylight here, and any businesses in the Northwest Territories that want to access this solar energy while we have a longer day period, seeing as we’re going to be passing this policy in the fall time, is there any chance that any businesses that might try to get an initiative now be able to recoup any types of...