Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions have to do with the electronic records and document management system. According to the revised budget that we originally passed back in March of last year, the budget for that whole amount of document management was about $341,000 if my math is correct, which means we only spent about $19,000 out of that amount, which is a paltry amount of money. Now we’ve carried this over again.

Can we get an explanation why very little of that money was actually spent and why we’re seeing it as a carry-over? Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister going through that list here. Would I assume that at this point we would become barrier-free for complete public access, or are there other phases that we should be expecting or is this a one time? Thank you.

Thank you. So how many, I guess for clarity, just to understand the scope of the project, we’re putting a couple of automatic doors here in the Legislative Assembly, removing some glass and this is going to be almost $100,000. Am I correct in that assumption? Thank you.

Again, one final question. I mean, again, we’re looking at an appropriation here of a little under $1.2 million. Once this appropriation is approved, can the Minister assure us that that is a project that will be complete, that there will be no more further asks on that highway realignment?

Madam Chair, I have no more further general comments. Thank you.

Driving on that road recently, there were a number of boulders that I saw on the road that actually fell from some of the escarpments as the road was being cut through a lot of narrow passageway, and at that point in time there was a bunch of red pontoons around it, but there were a substantial size of boulders here. Has there been a full safety check on this road so that, again, it’s safe to drive because, again, these boulders looked fairly dangerous if one was to run into one.

So can the Minister elaborate? Has there been any one specific area of success? You know, we’re getting better projects? Are there more specifics to that or better estimates? Are we getting better control of our contractors, compliance with timelines? Can we maybe elaborate as to… I’m trying to foster what are those success issues here so that we can look at analyzing if we can use that in other areas of the government. Thank you.

Upon further analysis, it was evident that even the GNWT volunteer firefighters face similar hurdles when accessing special leave days to maintain their professional qualifications. This begs me to ask: how many other volunteer groups out there who contribute to the safety and security of our residents are affected with this inconsistent policy?

Can the Minister indicate to the House how he and his department will address this shortcoming? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I indicated in my Member’s statement we had an inconsistent application of our human resource five-day special leave provision for our civil air search and rescue and firefighter GNWT volunteers. More specifically, most of the required southern training for these volunteers occurs on weekends. So when these GNWT volunteers want to access special leave days for travel on a Friday and return on a Monday, they are denied by their supervisor. Currently, Mr. Speaker, that travel is not explicitly included in the five-day special leave, and it is within this...

Let me be perfectly clear. This is not a request for an increase of special leave days, only a consistent application of the Human Resource Manual provision by GNWT supervisors. I can assure you if there was more consistent application of this special five-day leave, this would encourage current members to remain within Civil Air Search and Rescue and help attract new volunteers to join and strengthen this valuable contribution and the safety of our residents.

Later today I will have questions for the appropriate Minister.