Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to raise a point of privilege.

Mr. Chair, the committee today would like to continue on with the ’07–08 Main Estimates of the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Premier if there is any reasoning why, in his mind or that he knows of, it would have been a practice of this government for many years not to have Ministers use this House as a forum to promote the interests of their own personal constituencies.

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. I would like to ask the Premier if he provides any guidance or direction with respect to Ministers’ conduct in this House.

To the issue of this being given some kind of a priority here, we cannot afford to lose any more professionals out of our community. As I said, I believe that the lack of this legislation is something that has affected Hay River just this past week in a very detrimental way. What kind of time frame could we be looking at to have this legislation in place and approved in this House?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement today, we are probably the only jurisdiction in Canada that does not have legislation enabling professionals to become incorporated. I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice if this type of legislation is forthcoming in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Friday your Committee of the Whole considered a motion to delete funding from the Department of Justice for planning towards the renovation of the Territorial Women’s Correctional Centre in Fort Smith. In a very unusual step a Minister other than the Minister responsible for the department whose estimates were before the committee spoke to the motion. Mr. Miltenberger is the Member for Thebacha, which includes the community of Fort Smith.

In speaking to the motion, the Member made the following remarks, and I quote from the unedited Hansard of May 30, 2008: “And as...

Mr. Speaker, I fully understand why Members would be questioning things in Committee of the Whole. I would suggest that Ministers using Committee of the Whole as an opportunity not to be wearing their Minister’s hat, so to speak — to be promoting or expressing views on issues of their constituencies — has been extremely rare. It’s probably only happened a couple of times in my 13 years in this Assembly. So if we are going to have a change in that practice or that convention, I would like to ask the Premier if his voice will be the one that will represent the Members on the other side of the...

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has been in this House as long as I have. It has been a commonly accepted practice, if not a rule, that members of Cabinet do not use this House as a forum to discuss their constituency issues. Is that the Premier’s understanding?

To my question, I am not clear. Is there any proposed change to the support at South Mackenzie Correctional Centre for nursing support?