Range Lake

Statements in Debates

Debates of , (day 18)

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to speak very briefly in support of the bill. I think it’s a bill that contains lots of provisions that would clean up, so to speak, or enhance or improve our election procedures and set more clear rules and guidelines on certain areas of election rules where there are more grey areas than we would want to have had.

I am in support of this bill. This is quite a lengthy bill and one of the things that it is doing is to set the time for the election and it’s now going to be known with certainty. I don’t think a lot of people who are not familiar with this...

Debates of , (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in following up with my Member’s statement and it’s to the Minister of Employment. I think that we’re all aware that here in Yellowknife the cost of living and the cost of doing business is very expensive and the booming economy sometimes works against small businesses who have to compete with the ever-reducing supply of labour and having to compete with big governments and big company packages sometimes. When they are looking to look overseas, if they have to, they run into more problems having really no service in Yellowknife to deal with this. I’d...

Debates of , (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As my final supplementary, there are so many different aspects of this and at the same time this is not new. I’d like to know if the Minister of labour and human resources, if the Minister will undertake reviewing this issue and come up with some sort of discussion paper or position paper for the communities to get engaged in. I think this is a very important area for the future of many industries here where we already have had a lot of people coming from all over the place looking for jobs and such. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If he is interested in hearing, getting advice from this side of the floor, Mr. Speaker, I could tell you that a fast-food chain in downtown are actually using personal referrals from an employee from Korea that worked there and she or he are being asked to look for people in Korea. I mean, they’re using personal connections because they felt that they were getting no help from the immigration office and the immigration office here is really equipped with enforcement of bad immigrants, so to speak, not really there to facilitate people who want to bring in employees.

Ano...

Debates of , (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I cited yesterday many reasons why so many of our small businesses are having such a difficult time. One of the main issues that I mentioned was the lack of labour, Mr. Speaker. We have a shortage of labour, skilled and unskilled, in every sector of our industries. I don’t think it is just in Yellowknife, but in other regions where there is a lot of economic activity. Mr. Speaker, the problem is particularly severe for fast-food and fast service businesses where the employees are not able to compete with the government or big corporations, although...

Debates of , (day 17)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With regard to the other side of the coin about the professional immigrants in Canada, not just in Yellowknife, who are not able to practice in their area -- whether they be engineers, doctors, pharmacists -- I mean it’s good that the Minister is looking at one file, but would he be willing to look at all of the qualification process in those professions, and nursing too, and dentists, and see if he could harmonize that process so that at least we’re able to use the resources that are already here; human resources. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs conducted a public review of Bill 7, Pharmacy Act, on September 5th, 2006, and October 16th, 2006. The committee would like to thank the representatives of the NWT Pharmacists Association, the NWT Medical Association and the Registered Nurses' Association of the NWT and Nunavut for appearing before committee to discuss the ramifications of the passage of the Pharmacy Act for all health practitioners in the NWT.

It became apparent to committee members at the September 5th public hearing that there were serious concerns on the part...

Debates of , (day 16)

After the hockey game in Deline. There is a lot there to promote.

The other factor is, I understand that we are talking about the Tlicho area with self-government. What this tells me is that it takes more. Now we are dealing with a different governance structure, but it doesn’t mean that the GNWT is out of the picture and that the GNWT doesn’t do that. It just means that we have other players at the table, but we all serve the same population. So whether it’s with the cooperation and involvement and partnership with the Tlicho Government and Wekweeti community government and community people...

Debates of , (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, he lost a Cabinet Minister last week because Members felt intimidated. I believe, Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if everybody knows. I would really like it if he could just repeat what he just said and if he could just do a public notice telling the people that, in fact, that is the case; that we all have to operate under the atmosphere of freedom and freedom from intimidation. Thank you.

Debates of , (day 16)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we saw last week, apparently it is not in practice. People have forgotten. I hear from the Premier’s answer that there hasn’t been any direct statement to either the staff or to the public or anybody who is interested in knowing about this that says that we are a consensus government and that we, as a government, respect the Members’ rights. Would the Premier make a commitment to do such a thing in a directive or policy way of any kind of document that he sees fit? Thank you.