Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has made a commitment to work with committee. Unfortunately, I’m not on the committee that oversees his department so I would like a commitment from the Minister that he would allow me to be involved in setting those items which will be assessed and identified in terms of setting the benchmark with respect to savings. I want to make sure that every potential impact in terms of cost is included in that comparison when it’s done. Would the Minister commit to that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the projected cost savings of $400,000; the audit report indicated that with no persons leaving and no positions lost through attrition, that in fact the savings were only about $267,000. With the number of $267,000 in mind and given our budget planning process one year out unfortunately would mean that there would be no reinstatement of services until the following fiscal year. Would the Minister agree to an interim evaluation? If these numbers are all being tracked now, would he agree to an interim look at this in six months so that if the savings are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the indulgence of my colleagues here, I want to recognize at least half of the visitors in the gallery here. Mr. Delorey is going to recognize the other half. I know it is a large group, but thank you. Their parents are going to watch this tonight on APTN, so when I call your name, jump up quick so the camera can scan you because we have a lot of names to get here.

The parent volunteers who are here today with us are: Lori Lafferty, Kandace Jameson, Beth Green, Shannon Buckley, Dawna O’Brien, Dale Hoose, Brenda Hall, Max Rodway, Leslie Lobb, Gayle Croucher...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask about the recent announcement of Diavik diamond mine with respect to the waiving of the cost or the contribution of the employees towards travel to and from their work, so now employees who reside in southern Canada do not have to pay anything towards that travel. Certainly there was a very extensive socioeconomic agreement put in place at the time that Diavik and BHP were coming online, and our government, I believe, worked very hard to ensure that maximum benefits to northerners through the socioeconomic agreement addressing things like...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister believe that industry representatives, i.e., the producers group, would be lead to believe that this fund, whatever it turns out to be that would flow to our government and aboriginal governments, is going to lessen their responsibility in terms of the negotiations on the access and benefit agreements that are being proposed by aboriginal governments up and down the valley? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister, whatever the number was initially or might end up to be at the end of the day, was this amount of money considered to be some kind of an interim payment or down payment on a tentative royalty sharing program with the federal government? Is it considered a bridge or an interim down payment? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Bell.

Further Return To Question 14-15(4): Closure Of The South Slave Correctional Centre Remand Unit

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one thing I was never really clear about or assured of was in fact that when the change in operations was proposed that the Harrington Report, as it’s called, and the coroner’s report as a result of the suicide that took place in cells had been taken into account in terms of the operation changes, because I think the staffing of the remand centre, the way it was, was directly precipitated by those two reports. Can the Minister speak as to whether or not those things were taken into account when these changes were proposed? If they weren’t, would he commit...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Brendan Bell. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the decision that the government proceeded with to close the remand unit at the SMCC in Hay River. This was given a lot of dialogue in the last Assembly and the last budget session and, as the Minister knows, there was a unanimous motion passed to support this. Unfortunately, it was dealt with in a way that the closure proceeded. But that being the case, Mr. Speaker, that’s kind of history now; but I still have questions outstanding...