David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak today about a growing concern that I have with how this government communicates with both the Members of this Assembly and the public.

On Friday I made a statement and had questions for the Premier about how it came to be that the GNWT planned, developed and delivered a billion dollar cost shared infrastructure proposal to the federal government without running any of it by Regular Members of this House. Nor did they have any meaningful communication about it with aboriginal governments. I believe this is yet another sad chapter in this government’s year...

Again, if I’m hearing the Minister of Justice correctly, if we want to entertain phone calls from inmates, we’re to let the Minister of Justice or the Department of Justice know that our name and number can be provided to inmates so they can phone us. Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice.

Being a returning Member, I remember back to the 15th Assembly. I received a number of phone calls. I know North Slave Correctional Centre is located in the riding of Kam Lake. Not a week went by when I didn’t get a phone call from an inmate incarcerated at that facility. Since the election last year those phone calls have evaporated into nothing. I don’t receive phone calls from North Slave Correctional Centre anymore. I’ve heard through various channels that the Department of Justice implemented a policy at North...

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Premier for that. I do believe that at the very least he had an obligation to tell the Members who were in Inuvik at the time that this was taking place. That didn’t happen, and that’s unfortunate.

From the time the proposal was made until Members were notified was, I think, 38 days. Again, I don’t understand why, if we’re making a substantive proposal like that, it would take 38 days to let Members know.

In his comments to me on Friday the Premier also stated that he was looking forward to getting together with the committee to go over some of this. Are we going to get...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to continue on with the line of questioning that my colleague Mr. Abernethy had. It gets back to the cost shared infrastructure proposal that the government put on the table.

Going back to what the Premier mentioned on Friday, I can understand that they have to get on with things. They have to do things. Move and move quickly, I think were the words the Premier used. Again, I understand that. But you don’t develop a substantive proposal, a framework as he calls it, overnight.

I’d like to ask the Premier: who put the proposal together?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to thank the Minister of Justice for that. I don’t know how this place is operating lately, because if a Member comes and complains to you, all of a sudden you can change a policy. That doesn’t make much sense to me.

I don’t remember this issue going through. I don’t remember this issue going through caucus. I don’t remember it being brought up anywhere, except for maybe somebody complained to the Minister of the day, and the Minister took it upon him or herself to say: hey; no more inmates are going to be able to phone their MLAs.

There’s something wrong...

If I hear the Minister of Justice correctly, a Member — it could be a current Member or it could be a former Member — complained to the Minister of Justice during the last government and said they didn’t like getting calls from inmates. So the government, in its wisdom, decided that no inmates can phone any of their MLAs. I’m glad to hear the Minister say that.

Now, I guess the policy is being looked at again. If Members want to receive phone calls from inmates who are their constituents, we’re to give our number and tell the Minister of Justice or North Slave Correctional or South Slave...

Mr. Speaker, it just gets back to my first question. I’m not sure if the Premier heard the end of that first question, so I will ask that one again. I’m just wondering: who put the framework together for the Government of the Northwest Territories to be presented to the federal government?

The best I can cobble together from the correspondence that was provided to Members and the timeline…. I think this framework was presented to the Prime Minister in Inuvik. That would have happened at the same time the Members of this Legislature were at the Gwich’in health and wellness camp just outside of Inuvik.

The question that I have: if the Premier, as the leader of our government, is going to make a substantive offer or a proposal to the Prime Minister while he’s in our backyard, why wouldn’t he at least tell us that he was doing that, Mr. Speaker?

I think part of the problem, from what I understand, in the past and the impasse that was there had to do with this fiscal capacity cap.

I’d like to ask the Premier: is the impasse that’s currently at play the capacity cap, or is it this new proposal the Government of the Northwest Territories has put on the table?