David Ramsay

I appreciate the Minister’s offer for suggestions. I’d be willing to take him up on that. Maybe we should be taking a look at the business planning process in its entirety and holding departments more accountable for what material is provided to Members during the business planning process and saying no. I mean, if FMB or Cabinet doesn’t want to say no, maybe the Regular Members would say no to some of this extraordinary spending that’s coming forward. I mean, that’s the type of discussion that we’re going to have to have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If that’s the case and this is just the Department of HR, if that’s the case and the government’s attitude towards budgeting: figure out what it costs and come back to us later. That change in how we fund the supp reserve and going from $25 million to $10 million, that’s just not going to work. Obviously departments are going come back for more than $10 million. Specifically I’d like to ask the Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, what exactly did HR spend the additional supp money on if they don’t have any money to be spending on the contract negotiations? Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a quick question on this page. I am wondering if the Housing Corporation and the government has given any thought to trying to take the Housing Corporation a little bit further away from government, a little bit more arm’s length. I have been thinking about this because housing is political. It is a political beast and constituents come to their MLAs and they want MLAs to intervene on their behalf whether it is arrears or other issues related to housing. I have given this some thought. It seems to me if you take the Housing Corporation as it is today and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to move an amendment to the motion. I would like to strike out the last paragraph and include the word “laptop” after BlackBerries in the first paragraph.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think there is an issue in some of our committee rooms with technology and there is going to be a cost associated with getting committee rooms up to speed with Internet connections and whatnot. I am not sure if this motion speaks to Members using laptops without Internet connections or with Internet connections, because the two are very different things.

I know committee rooms may only have one live Internet connection, so is it the first Member through the door that gets to plug their computer into that live Internet connection or are we going to do any further work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It wasn’t my intent to insult any of the Cabinet Ministers over there. Completely not my intent. That was not my intent and I apologize if some Cabinet Ministers took that the wrong way. What I’m saying is we have the ability on this side of the House. Some of you have served on this side of the House. We share ideas. We respect one another. When we come into this forum we can’t do that. There’s no free-flowing dialogue because Cabinet Ministers cannot speak like Regular Members. What I’m saying is we need to take a look at how this government operates and we need to...

I look forward to the work that’s underway in what the Premier was saying, but I believe we do have to work together. We have to stop driving these wedges between one another. The divisiveness has to stop. The adversarial approach has to stop. The way that I can see that really stopping is with Cabinet; and Cabinet having more free votes, less Cabinet solidarity, Cabinet Ministers able to speak their own mind. I don’t know if there’s anything written where in our system of government, in a consensus style of government, true consensus, there isn’t any Cabinet solidarity and there shouldn’t be...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve been looking for a sure sign of spring and I’d like to recognize our local golf professional, Mr. Gord Brayton, back to Yellowknife and to the House today. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak today about the state of consensus government in our Territory. Yesterday we witnessed hundreds of people coming here to demonstrate against Cabinet’s proposed Board Reform Initiative. A few weeks back we again had the gallery full with seniors and others opposed to the proposed changes to supplementary health benefits. These two issues and the way in which this government has conducted themselves speaks volumes about what is wrong with consensus government.

In the ranks of the Regular Members we have got to come to work every day and seek consensus...

I just got a note from one of the Social Programs committee members and they’ve got a written update from ECE suggesting there are still some problems there. I know the two reviews are different.

I just wanted to say -- and I promised I wouldn’t use my 10 minutes but I’m coming close -- but the fact remains, I just want to give the Minister and the Housing Corporation some kudos. There’s been a lot of good work done in the time I’ve been here, in the Housing Corporation. I think the management has done a good job to turn things around. We are, I believe, headed in the right direction when it...