Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to join my colleagues of the Assembly today to recognize and honour the Honourable Anthony W.J. Whitford as he moves into the next chapter of what has been one extraordinary life. I know he will embark on his next chapter with as much joy, enthusiasm, love of life, love of people and a strong sense of public service.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think we could measure how much it means to him to be designated as an honourary table officer of this Legislature, as no one loves and can love this Assembly as much as he does and he has done over the years. One only has to see...

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman in question no longer lives here but he is an advocate for government’s action to encourage and promote and raise awareness on organ transplant and organ donation. In fact, he was quite surprised at how advanced our personal directive legislation was. He asked for a copy of that because that legislation goes further than other jurisdictions in terms of making options available through living will and personal directives so that people can make choices about whether or not they want to donate organs while they are able to make those decisions, and is not done in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I appreciated the Member’s statement on Stem Cell Challenge as well as the one from Mr. Abernethy. I would like to join them in encouraging everybody in Yellowknife to take the opportunity of this challenge and register and take steps into becoming a donor.

Second, the answer to the Member’s question, Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is part of the National Donor Registry System. We do participate in helping and assisting in that way. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I do agree with the Member that this and other initiatives or services or ideas that the government supports has to be made aware on an ongoing basis. When this personal directive, for example, first came out, there was lots of awareness raising, but I do take the Member’s point that it has to be continuous. The department is lending support to the Stem Cell Challenge for example. We will continue to do that. I take the Member’s point that we have to do that on an ongoing basis. I will get back to the Member on how we do that and how we could do this better. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Health and Social Services is always there. We are the ones that receive people who, next to income security, are in need of us, so we will be there to help them. I’m not familiar with the details of the families, but if the families were evicted and they were in need of our services, our workers will be there to help them. Thank you.

I will look into that as soon as possible and get back to the Member in the next few days. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The residents of Tulita do have social services being provided there. I can’t recall all of the details, but I do believe the person had moved to Tulita, but because either that person was promoted or there were some personal reasons. I would have to take the question under advisement and get more information on where that issue is. Thank you.

As I have indicated, since the RFP went up on May 10th, the staff reviewed the inquiries. On May 14th they noticed that one major supplier did not respond. They took it upon themselves to contact this business, so they wanted to make sure that everybody who could supply these supplies were contacted. I don’t believe there is a situation of a sole-sourced contract. There has been time to respond to that.

I do take the Member’s point that the product description could have been done better and they will do that, but as I’ve indicated already, we do need to provide these supplies in time for the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The information I have is that this RFP went up on the website as is the process. This is the normal process. It went up on May 7th to be closed on May 20th. There were half a dozen inquiries about the RFP. The Beaufort-Delta materials management section noticed that one large supplier in Yellowknife did not inquire about this RFP and, in fact, the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority took it on its own initiative to fax the information to this large supplier a few days later, which is when this business got the fax. The information we have is that the process has been...

My understanding is that if any of those residents could arrive at a repayment plan with the Housing Corporation, their eviction notice could be set aside, and those repayment plans can be for very modest amounts. So if that were to happen, that would avoid eviction.

Mr. Speaker, our staff do work with the Housing Corporation and other agencies to come up with a plan to help if it’s necessary. I would be willing to make sure that our staff in the region knows and sees what resources they could provide. Thank you.