Wendy Bisaro

We must stop making excuses for our lack of commitment to a 911 initiative. Stop dithering about our responsibility and our duty to participate in the provision of 911 service. We have to bite the bullet and do the right thing. The GNWT must partner with the City of Yellowknife and get the implementation of 911 service on its way. I will have questions for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs later on. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. At the risk of debating with the Minister, I’d like to suggest that a partnership with the City of Yellowknife is required to get this process started. I’d like to know if the Minister will agree to start a partnership with the City of Yellowknife and expand that to other communities as the project gets rolling. We certainly can start a project with seven communities.

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I can’t argue with the Minister’s statement that we have communities that are lacking such things as basic cell phone service. However, the report recommends that the seven communities -- and I’ll mention them: Behchoko, Fort Simpson, Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, Norman Wells, and Yellowknife -- that those seven communities should start the implementation of 911 and then we move on to other communities later on. Those seven communities comprise some 77 percent of our population. That’s more than three-quarters of our NWT population. They will be targeted...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure today to recognize a constituent of Frame Lake, Ms. Barb Wyness, who is up behind me in the gallery representing the UNW, I believe. If there are any other constituents of mine up there who I can’t see, welcome to the Leg.

Mr. Speaker, I have often spoken before about the need for 911 phone service in Yellowknife and the rest of the NWT. Members are likely aware that the City of Yellowknife this week received the results of a feasibility study for the implementation of 911 in the city and throughout our Territory. As an aside, it is important to note that the GNWT was a fully participating member of the study’s management committee. Not surprisingly, the recommendation from this report is that 911 service should be established in seven of our 33 communities to start and that it be expanded to the other 26...

When I spoke to this issue last, I asked the Minister if there was a possibility to look at a different funding model. At that time I asked the Minister whether or not it was possible to look at a model similar to the way that we fund our schools, where schools are funded based on the population from the year previous. I’d like to ask the Minister, since I seem to remember at that time that he said they were going to look at that, whether or not any changes have been made to the way that daycares are funded in the last 12 or 13 months.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I guess that sounds to me as though employees of their own free will are providing this information. That’s not the impression that I was given when I got this information. I would like to ask the Minister if he would be willing to look into this situation and to determine whether or not there are managers who are asking for this information as opposed to taking it from the employee when they offer it of their own free will.

Thanks to the Minister and those are the ones that I was aware of as well. By the way, both of those policies are quite valid and they should be there. I think they are important. Relative to some of the comments that I made in my statement that employees are required to report activities to their supervisors, could the Minister advise us whether or not there is an established practice or procedure to request activities outside of an employee’s work environment from the employee? Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. Do we really value our employees as much as we keep saying? If so, we need to give them the credit they are due and trust them to be responsible, not start from a position of mistrust. If my information is correct, Mr. Speaker, and we treat our employees as described, it is a small wonder we are not the employer of choice anymore. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, March 12, 2009, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on March 12, 2009, it shall be adjourned until Wednesday, May 27, 2009.

And further, that any time prior to May 27, 2009, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice...