Joe Handley

Mr. Speaker, no, I have not gotten any reason why the Minister will not select the one individual we provided. The Minister did say, though, that if we give him one name, the answer is yes or no. He appealed to me, can you give me more than one name so I can choose. In order to get this position filled, I have agreed to. Yes, we will give you more names, if that is what you wish, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because this is a federal board, the federal Minister has the final decision on any of the members. We simply put forward nominations; he can choose to reject them if he chooses. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The assessment of workload is something that is complicated. My assessment is that people are busy. I can tell you personally I don’t end up with a clean desk very often in terms of my role as Premier, as well as Minister for the two departments and the work I do in supporting other Ministers on various projects, whether it’s on some of the hydro initiatives or other projects. Very often I am the one that has to take that final step in terms of pushing something with Ottawa, or with aboriginal governments, or wherever it may be.

Mr. Speaker, I'll continually be looking...

Mr. Speaker, that is really a question that should be directed to the Minister for the Power Corporation, so, if I can, I would refer it to him.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Dent has written a letter to the Minister responsible for literacy programs. That has gone out. Mr. Dent is planning to attend a meeting next week on Tuesday with the same Minister on this issue. A letter is being drafted from myself to the Prime Minister on this issue as well as other issues, and this is certainly being a core piece of that letter. That letter should be going out of here very shortly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't hear a question either, but one comment I'll make is that a Minister's travel is distributed. It's on the website, I believe. So we can make it available, and certainly I will check into whether it was 72. That is an awful lot of business done in Calgary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t have an exact number. We have done an analysis across our departments and it is well in excess of $1 million. Mr. Speaker, I might be able to, in a minute, give you a detailed breakdown by department. The biggest one, of course, is with literacy as the one that affects us most, and the Status of Women who would be the other group who would also face a fairly big…and volunteerism. Mr. Speaker, off the top of my head, I don’t have the exact amount. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly the tourist rebate issue is one that will be raised for sure. On the GST, I don’t know if we have raised that one, but I will certainly take it under consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think all of us on this side view Health and Social Services as a very important department. There is no question about that. We also consider environment to be very important. I tell you, in the case of the Minister, the Minister is there. I can vouch for him. He is there at 7:00 in the morning. He is there at night. I will talk with the Minister about whether he has had to miss meetings of Health and Social Services or Environment because he is just too busy with other tasks, but, Mr. Speaker, I don’t think I will have a perfect balance in terms of workload...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, our Financial Management Board Secretariat has done that kind of analysis department by department. As I said earlier, the biggest cut certainly for any department or program is with the literacy programs. That is a major concern to us.