Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Negotiated contracts such as that proposed for Det’on Cho Corporation to realign Highway No. 4 play a critical role in the Northwest Territories. The Negotiated Contracts Policy is intended to lead to benefits which could not reasonably be expected through competitive processes which maximizes economic benefits for NWT residents and businesses, provides training and development opportunities, and supports the development of self-sustaining local and regional businesses. That sounds to me like a checklist of the merits of the Det’on Cho negotiated contract proposal for...

Thank you very much for that. So I just want to get back, the Minister of the Housing Corporation also made some comments a little bit earlier and I want to say that, and I’m tending to talk about the bigger picture here, so I want to acknowledge that the Housing Corporation has actually done quite a number of things in the area of energy efficiency and so on.

What is happening here is they are sort of at the mercy, as are all ratepayers, of what systems are available in our communities across the Northwest Territories. They are also in a very important position, being the Housing Corporation...

Well, Madam Chair, I’ve been elected to not necessarily bang my head against the wall, but I have to try until I’m no longer in this position.

The Minister says no, we’re just going to keep doing this. That’s just not good enough. We’re struggling to get an increase in our debt limit and I guarantee that this investment would pay back big time, pay back periods of whatever, five to eight years. How long have we been doing this? We know this is going to continue until we’re completely out of federal dollars, 2034 or ‘37, whatever it is, and how long have we been doing this? This just makes sense...

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I don’t disagree with him. There are cases when we need to respond, but there are quite a number of cases, as we’ve heard from the comments and as we will hear as we go through this, where I think we could have done a better job and we need to start doing a better job. It’s very tough. We’re talking services now. It’s very tough to say no at this point in time when the damage has been done. So that sort of behaviour and allowance perpetuates itself. That’s what I’m talking about.

There are a number of items where I think we could probably find general...

So this negative $11.3 million, that tells me that we’ve more than doubled that, is that correct? Are we now at $22.3 million into supplementary funding? Is that correct?

Thanks for that immediate info. I appreciate the Minister’s response there. I wonder if the Minister could just confirm that and give us that information for each of our regional centres at least, including Yellowknife. The added aspect I’m interested in is the number of nurse practitioners who are hired in the Northwest Territories and where they are who are not in nurse practitioner jobs. I’d like to find out what the size of our resource is that we’re not using very well, for whatever reason, then we can explore that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I know we graduate nurse practitioners out of Aurora College but I’m learning from constituents that we are actually hiring those nurse practitioners into regular RN jobs rather than nurse practitioner jobs. This is sort of following up on my colleague’s for Hay River North questions. We need to make good use of these nurse practitioners. What’s going on here?

Thanks for the response from the Minister. As the Minister noted, in my previous question, there’s a wide range of consultation going on with territorial and federal departments with regard to Prelude Lake, but there was no mention from the previous Minister how First Nations governments’ involvement will be ensured, and the public and stakeholder consultations. The boat launch itself is a jumping off point to the use of Akaitcho lands. Can the Minister assure me that the Yellowknives Dene First Nation will be included early in the work and the public will be informed and involved throughout?

I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there and I think I’ll hold up on that one and ask that he provide that to us as soon as possible. That would be helpful.

The last one I have on this page is the considerable cost, almost a 50 percent increase to the cost for children in residential care outside the Northwest Territories. This is a very, very sad state to me. The last time we visited this issue was when the Child and Family Services Act was reviewed by the Social Programs committee. At that time we were assured by the department that those numbers were on the decline and great progress was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of ITI and are with regard to the management of the Prelude Lake campground and boat launch. There’s a large and growing demand on these facilities and it’s probably the most popular park in the Northwest Territories. A large volume of parked campers, casual users of the boat launch, and those accessing both legal and illegal squats from the landing. Parking and dock use is maxed out and quality of experience is declining. In correspondence from the 16th Assembly’s Minister of ITI, the Minister said a new and comprehensive...