Floyd Roland

I don’t know if there’s a message that’s been given to those who are in charge of the policy end. I know it is open to all government employees across the Territory. Thank you.

What I’m aware of is the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, through the Department of the Executive, has been working with a number of groups across the Territories: the Status of Women Council, the Native Women’s Association, and the Dene Nation has also been involved in that. A lot of the start of this paperwork and this initiative has been based on work that’s been done through a national network and involves federal and provincial governmental and non-governmental organizations, including the NWT Council of Status of Women’s involvement there. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Bluefish replacement project is something that’s been planned for by the corporation. They’ve been looking at that facility for quite a number of years and, again, part of their corporate plan would be for the replacement of that asset. Within ongoing dollars we have available, we would also have to look at if there is higher cost on the project to see how that would be dealt with. I will get that information and provide that to the Member. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in situations where there was an unforeseen cost, for example, the Member used in her statement the high cost last year as well as the rate rider, that they’re termed as, when there’s planning for a certain cost of running our diesel plans, for example, those costs would initially be absorbed by the Power Corporation, but they would have to put forward a request to the Public Utilities Board for an increase or a rate rider. On an annual basis or an ongoing basis, there are times that general rate applications go forward to increase the overall cost of service and end up having...

As a government, we’re prepared to work with Members of the Legislative Assembly. I know there’s a lot of interest in different areas by all Members, whether it is a contracting issue or an income security question and so on and so forth for ourselves. If Members of this Assembly want to see some changes, we’re prepared to work with Members.

The Member has raised this issue on a number of occasions during this sitting. We’ve provided him information. I’ve said that if Members want to see a change to this, we would work with members of the committee. So if standing committee wants to write a...

Instead of going into a process of what my opinion might be on some of this work, what we would be prepared to do is take the items, for example, we have a number of contracting sources or ways of getting services from contractors out there, sole sources. One of them is by invitational tender, negotiated contract, public tender, RFPs, RFQs. What I’d be prepared to do is, if Members want to see a particular area looked at, I would be prepared to go to my Cabinet colleagues to see what areas were there and bring a paper back for discussion through committee. Thank you.

Again, before I can respond to that, I would need to get all the information as to what’s been done, what resources have been in place, the supports that are in place right now to make sure we don’t create an overlap or divert away from what other groups have there, what mandates might be established out there. So once we get that information we will be able to respond to the Member and get additional information as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would have to touch base with the appropriate Ministers and get that information or have those Ministers reply back to the Member in this area. Thank you.

Once again, the Member is asking my opinion, my view on something. Again, we have a contracting process in place. If Members want to see something like a registry occur in the Northwest Territories, we’d have to have that discussion as a full body and decide where we would go with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked a number of questions in that one item. There was a fair bit of information there and I’ll have to get back to the Member once I have a chance to review the Hansard as to all the details he’s requested in that question. Thank you.