Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a good question. Unfortunately, I don’t know if a room exists where this information can be displayed and shared. You’re right; the “G” Division has a long and distinguished history here in the Northwest Territories, from the lost patrol of Rat River, the Mad Trapper, travel up and down the Mackenzie River, travel into the Eastern Arctic when it was part of “G” Division. There is a real solid history here.

I have had an opportunity to travel to a number of the detachments and I’ve been in the detachments. Many of the officers in those buildings actually have a real...

I think, as a government, we’re already doing much of that. If you look at the buildings we’re building, we’re building them to meet or exceed some of the national building codes. We’re utilizing technology that is available to us to help us control costs and leave less of a footprint. But I hear what the Member’s saying and as we move forward with the Green Procurement Policy, I will make sure that his comments are considered and utilized where possible.

Right now contracts are administered by not just Public Works and Services, they’re administered by every department to some degree. Within Public Works and Services, the contracts awarded in ’12-13, by way of summary, to date, the Public Works and Services has only done 59 sole-source contracts, which is about 2.2 percent of all the contracts; 82.2 have gone out for request of proposal, and in 2013-13 none have been negotiated and we’ve got 199, or 14.3 percent, tendered. So very, very few within Public Works and Services are actually sole-source.

There are criteria for sole-source contracts...

I will get back to the Member on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I still think it’s a good idea, and to that end we’ve actually formed a working committee or working group that consists of Education, Culture and Employment; Industry, Tourism and Investment; Transportation; as well as Public Works and Services. We’ve had a number of meetings. We had some meetings prior to Christmas, where we actually had some input from art organizations in the Northwest Territories. The most recent meeting, trying to put together a plan – and Public Works and Services is taking the lead on the development of a program or policy – was just last week...

We plan to have this policy done long before the building is open. Interestingly enough, it is a great idea. I will stick to great.

In talking to some of the arts communities, different ideas were brought forward. One of the ideas that was brought forward was, rather than having dedicated space for a hanging or painting, it may be better to bring in screens that have rotating art on them so that we can see carvings, paintings, many different art forms on a rotational basis. That means we’ll get a greater degree of artists being presented on a regular basis. We can do things like this in...

Mr. Speaker, the Member’s timeline is a little bit different than the timeline I’m working on. I remember that a motion was passed in the 16th Assembly. Nothing happened. A motion was passed in the 17th Assembly, which is only about 18 months old, so we’ve been working on this for 18 months. We have a lot of good information. We have taken a lot of information to committee. We are working with committee.

Once again, the Member continues to refer to a mental health court. We’re not sure that that’s the option that’s going to be supported by committee, but we will be having those discussions.

At...

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, there are many options. Wellness court, mental wellness court or mental health court is one; wellness courts are others. We don’t know which type of court we are going to be moving forward with. We’re going to be bringing forth those recommendations to discuss with committee. Mental health court is just one example.

With respect to working together, the Minister of Health and I have had many conversations on this, and we have both directed our staff to be involved and to work on these exact initiatives. As I have indicated, there is an interdepartmental committee...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two people in the gallery. First I’d like to recognize Norman Dei, who is the father of Amanda. He is a long-time northern resident and long-time Yellowknife resident. He is a quantity surveyor for the Department of Public Works and Services. With him today is Sherry Otis. I’d also like to recognize Sherry Otis.

Mr. Speaker, the need for the programming that will be supported by the type of court, if any that are supported by this government, is something that we are working on with the Department of Health and Social Services. The committee is involved. They are working together. It is a committee of Justice, Health and Social Services. By March 31st we’ll have a better idea of exactly what programming is going to be required in order to support the different models. Until we actually choose a model, with support of committee, we won’t know exactly the programming that is needed, but we are starting...