Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are also to the Minister of Public Works and Services. Mr. Speaker, I must say that every aspect of this contract for the new Legal Aid office is very questionable. Mr. Speaker, I know a little bit about legal aid files; I used to work on legal aid files. There are so many people who don’t get legal aid assistance, and when they do they are doled out two or three hours of legal aid service from a lawyer. Now we’re going to house this program in this most expensive area and I can’t wait for them to tell them, you know, we can spend all the money...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today to the contract DPW has entered into to set up the second Legal Aid office at the Centre Square Mall. Mr. Speaker, going by Minister Roland's answers to Mr. Ramsay's questions last Friday, it appears that Minister Roland is completely content with the situation that the proprietor who did not even meet the deadline was rewarded with a sole-source or, at best, negotiated contract, for what amounts to a maximum of a 15-year lease, in one of the most expensive retail spaces in the city, to open a second Legal Aid office.

Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my written question is to the Honourable Floyd Roland, Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board.

Please provide the detailed guidelines, policies or regulations that allow for a sole-source/negotiated contract to happen with a party that did not meet the initial RFP criteria for the contract in question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister should check his facts, because he has provided information to us that suggests that, in fact, they did call the business and say let’s work out a deal. Mr. Minister, I still want to know when they did meet the original criteria, so everything was zero based, so why do you only deal with those who applied for it who didn’t meet the criteria? The third one was late in the first place. That should have been just written off right away, and you should have started right from the beginning. Shouldn’t that be the common, sensible way to do that? I also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe a House motion to table that terms of reference could give him extra ammunition. He is correct in saying vacancies were between 10 to 12 and it’s going down to eight and seven, but I don’t think the Minister is really appreciating the extent of the problem and that’s what I was trying to say in my Member’s statement. The voice is growing stronger and stronger. One of the concerns I am hearing is the people who should be interviewed for this review are hesitant about speaking out. What is the Minister doing to ensure the staff involved, who should be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am trying to be very sensitive because this involves human resources, individuals and staff and such and I don’t want to name any names, but I must say the Minister is very good at skirting the issue either. He is speaking about finding out about strengths and weaknesses and doing a review. Could the Minister indicate what is the question he is trying to get an answer to? What is the problem he is aware of that gave rise to looking into this? Why did the staff of the department come to him and say there needed to be a review? What is the question?...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I saw earlier Mr. Dave Legros who is my constituent. I don’t know if he is still there, but if he is I would like to welcome him to the House. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the information I have is in the last year there has been at least a 20 percent vacancy at the facility. There are 50 correctional officers who work at the facility and there have been up to 12 positions vacant. What is going on in there is much like I was hearing from the hospital. Correctional officers are refusing to answer calls on weekends because they don’t want to have to go in to go to work. That sort of thing causes a lot of problems and there might be a lot of things behind that that the Minister has to address. Would the Minister table in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are also to the Minister of Justice with regard to my Member’s statement earlier today. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that the huge rate of vacancies at the Correctional Centre and the high amount of money that’s being paid for overtime is just one of the issues I am hearing that are contributing to a morale problem there that is affecting the operation of the centre.

I should also say that I am not speaking on the basis of one or two people who are talking about this; I have heard from many different people from different sectors in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to the statement by the Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay, I’d like to also speak about the Department of Justice and its human resources management, the morale of the department, the corrections division, and the North Slave Correctional Centre, in particular.

Mr. Speaker, I understand very clearly that the internal management of a government department or division should not be a topic of discussion in the Assembly as a normal course of business. I know that this is something that the Minister feels very strongly about, too. At the same time, Mr...