Jane Groenewegen

I thought that the Cabinet actually made decisions on policies reflecting Ministers’ benefits. Anyway, moving on from there, I got the answer I thought was going to hear. I still don’t really know what the answer is. I don’t want to waste all four questions on the same topic, so moving on.

The capital living allowance for members of the Executive Council, I have no problem with that. Members are expected to live here on a full time basis, and that certainly requires a certain level of comfort and an amount of space. No problem. Home travel is absolutely reasonable. Members have got to go back...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks, colleagues. I am sorry; I am not feeling well today and not doing as good a job of communicating as I should be. As I said, I believe that we can get answers to these questions and we can bring clarity to these policies. I think it will be to the benefit of everyone, and that is what I intend to do.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to summarize for the record what we have learned about the process for the acquisition of a few replacement schools in Inuvik.

No one will dispute that the Inuvik schools were old and in need of being replaced. The process that ensued, however, raises questions for me about the role of Ministers and Premiers in performing their duties as Cabinet Ministers in relation to their work as representatives of their constituencies.

We don’t expect Minister’s constituencies to be passed over for enhanced program services or infrastructure, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting the motion as well. Certainly, it’s not entirely clearly defined how this is going to work. If people think that having a milk subsidy is too administrative a burden, then maybe we should just give it away. Maybe in a small community where milk’s expensive, we should just have a cooler full of milk that anybody can take and not just people ages one to 12.

People have mentioned some of the pressures on seniors. Everybody could stand to use a little more milk. I don’t know about everybody else’s kids, but I’ll tell you, when my kids were growing up, if...

Certainly it did exist in previous Assemblies. Just to note the difference, though, Regular Members do not accrue vacation leave, and we certainly don’t get paid out for it at the end of our term, but Cabinet Ministers do.

Mr. Speaker, also under the Ministerial Benefits Policy there is something called an entertainment allowance. It is a non-accountable $1,500 annual allowance for duty related entertainment expenses. I would like to ask the Premier: is that over and above the already existing approximately $1,000 a month that Members receive? So they would get the Members’ $1,000 non...

Mr. Chairman, I have a motion.

Was there a document that went from the FMB to the Cabinet, and who was that signed by?

Somewhere back a few answers I heard somebody say that there was a possibility that some work could possibly be undertaken. I was talking about the phases of the project and where things that need upgrading or retrofitting or changing — if anything could be undertaken while the kids are away the whole summer — to start looking at these things. I had mentioned ’09. I like the answer I got to the ’09 question, because I heard it was possible.

Then when other people started talking about accelerating, it got a little bit wishy-washy there. Let’s just talk about the possibility for ’09. If — and I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just having a hard time finding it. Page 7-7? Oh, okay. All right. I’m just looking in the wrong book.

First of all, let me say that Public Works and Services has done a very good job of providing information. We asked for numerous things, which were provided in a very timely manner. Mr. Miltenberger was quoted in Hansard last week as saying that he couldn’t get a list of the subcontractors on the Inuvik schools project until the appropriation had been voted on in the House, and in fact, that list was provided to Members today. So that was very good.

The analysis on...

If it’s going to be completed by the end of October, that gives us — November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June — eight months until the kids are out of school. Obviously, the best time to be doing work on the school is when the students aren’t there, because there are 400 students at Diamond Jenness. I don’t think it’s going to be very easy to find alternative locations for them to be getting their education. Some of this work needs to be done in the summer months when the school is not occupied. It may have to be done in a way where a certain amount of the work is done at...