David Ramsay

I know and I appreciate all the work that the department’s done on moving along the capital plan, especially over the last two years when we’ve had funding from the federal government come in which has enabled us to get a number of infrastructure projects, especially in the area of Transportation, off the ground. I know it has been a big number.

Again, reading through the information that was given to committee, there are a lot of reasons why all these projects weren’t concluded. I just wanted to make sure, and I had to ask the question that I asked, that these projects are getting done and it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has reviewed Bill 8, An Act to Amend the Local Authorities Elections Act, and wishes to report that Bill 8 is now ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole as amended and reprinted. Thank you.

Thank you. In the interim, and I talked earlier about the closure of the runway that has instrumentation and flights, medevac flights, having to be diverted out to the International Airport. There have been 44 of them that I know of. Obviously, these recommendations haven’t been put into place. There are gaps in the provision of services for medevac flights that are diverted to the International Airport today. I’d like to ask the Minister is the government concerned about this and how are we acting upon the fact that these flights that are diverted out there, patients are arriving on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services related to my statement that I made previously. The former Minister of Health and Social Services, for whatever reason, didn’t want to get politically involved in the decision to close the airport in the centre of Edmonton, and for whatever reason she lacked an interest in getting politically involved. So I’d like to ask the Minister, she -- in questions I had to her previously -- had mentioned that the interests of residents in the Northwest Territories were going to be protected because we had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions today for the Minister of Justice. I wanted to ask him about smoking by employees at the North Slave Correctional Centre. Obviously being a corrections guard is a very stressful occupation, Mr. Speaker. A year ago they did away with smoking at that facility and now, if you are a corrections guard, you can’t smoke on the property at all, even though shifts are eight hours in duration and sometimes folks work double shifts. But other staff are allowed to smoke. If you look downtown, other government employees are allowed to just simply go outside...

I’d like to ask the Premier if he’s sure that our Member of Parliament was awake when the Premier told him whether there was a process underway addressing the borrowing limit of the Government of the Northwest Territories. Was he actually awake?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to speak today about Bill C-530.The bill and our MP, Mr. Bevington, were in front of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development on Tuesday, March the 8th, in Ottawa. I found that most of what our MP had to say about consultation with people here in the Northwest Territories and our government to lack, quite frankly, any semblance in reality.

In his opening comments to the committee Mr. Bevington used the word “legitimate” spending without actually defining what he meant by “legitimate.” Does our MP actually believe that sending a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The corrections officers aren’t the ones that are locked up. They are there working. They are doing their job. They are performing a function, looking after the inmates that are there. It’s the inmates that are locked up, not the corrections guards.

Again, I haven’t heard an answer from the Minister on whether or not the Department of Justice can try to address that issue that’s at the North Slave Correctional Centre in that... It’s close to 50 percent of the corrections officers in that facility that are smokers. They’d like to have an area where they can have a...

Mr. Speaker, I will just correct the Minister; they are not security guards, they are corrections officers. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to be treating our corrections officers in the same way that we treat other government employees. I know that they are there. They are captive employees for the period of time they are at the centre. Why is it that we can’t come up with a solution? Maybe it is a little ways away from the building, but a designated smoking area outside for use for employees, the corrections guards specifically that can’t leave that building, they can’t have a cigarette if they...

I thank the Premier for that. I wanted to ask the Premier, there may be a federal election on the horizon here shortly. I’d like to ask the Premier if the work of this review on the borrowing limits to the three territories, is that work going to be concluded relatively soon or when might we expect some movement in that regard on that process?