Sandy Lee

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Further Return To Question 312-15(3): Treatment Of Contractors In Market Housing Initiative

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So could the Minister clarify exactly who, where, what subcontractors was BIP applied to? He indicated earlier that he wanted to make sure that 50 percent of the business stayed in the North, so they were entitled to BIP. But apparently the business that puts mobile homes together in Yellowknife, the Housing Corporation can’t afford. So I want to know exactly who got the benefit of BIP. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the Minister was not privy to this, but, in the midst of this debate in March, there were at least two NWT business people who do this for a living, who build up trailers. They could do it with their eyes closed. They were not even allowed to bid because the department insisted on going with the Edmonton firm. Would the Minister now look at the local businesses that can do the job and deliver them on time? Would he do that, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, my question is if the Housing Corporation can’t do any of these areas, power hook-up, gravel, lots, I think those are pretty essential items of building a house. If the Housing Corporation can’t do that, how can we have confidence that they can carry on with the other phases of this marketing initiative program?

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are to the Minister of Housing. It is in regards to the market housing initiative. I have been thinking and reread the notes of Hansard yesterday. I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is a complete outrage that, in last March, the government told us that the sky will fall if we do not waive BIP and if we do not order 22 mobile homes from somewhere in southern Alberta, Las Vegas 1-800 number, because we had to house the teachers and nurses. The Minister tells us yesterday that only 14 have been taken and they have no idea what went wrong...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can assure you that Mr. Roland confirmed that figure, the lease price per square metre, in Committee of the Whole in the House last Friday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what to pursue today, maybe I’ll just continue on with my Member’s statement. To the Minister of Justice, Mr. Speaker, on the issue surrounding low morale problems and high vacancy rate and high overtime and such, I see two problems there. One is that I don’t think there’s recognition on the part of the Minister, he’s never admitted or acknowledged that there is any kind of problem and the more he says that, the more our phone lines and our e-mails and everything is burning up because people are getting really, really frustrated. The second...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a final thought here. When you consider $266,000 approved in the last supplementary appropriation and $115,000 this time -- granted it’s capital budget -- one could only wonder what we could do with that kind of money if we were to give it to private lawyers to take on files. I used to have Legal Aid files when I used to practice and many cases are approved for $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000 for these sorts of cases. Most lawyers in town are willing to take on files at a real discounted rate. Actually, it’s way too low now for them, to the point where they’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak again about the low morale at the North Slave Correctional Centre. Mr. Speaker, a veteran of 20 plus years at the correctional services contacted me over the weekend to tell me what so many others have told me already. That is that, in all this time at the North Slave Correction Centre, he can honestly say that he has never seen anything so bad in terms of low morale, sick leave abuse, forced overtime, problematic hiring practices, lack of support, inmate-staff confrontations, and assaults and micromanaging. Mr. Speaker, it also...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for the record, I think it should be stated that the information Mr. Ramsay and I refer to in terms of the landlord agreeing to cover the majority of the cost comes from written information that we received from the Minister. We can’t really table those, I guess, but it’s stated clearly and I guess Minister Dent wasn’t made aware of that. But it has been provided to all the Members, this information that the landlord has agreed to pay a majority of the renovation costs because they feel that it is in line with what they had been planning for the mall where they see...