Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to first begin by saying thank you to the Member for Mackenzie Delta, who has brought forward some of his concerns. I appreciate him supporting this motion by seconding it. It’s an honour to have a community Member like him working together because we certainly see the issue as a whole in the sense that we all want good education programs for our youth. There’s no doubt in my mind that every Member here supports educational opportunities for our young people.

We heard clearly from the chair of the Aboriginal Head Start program that she is calling for a pause...

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. As we are discussing the motion here, it never occurred to me before now, and I think this motion needs a couple of words, which are “where practicable.” I think in some cases that accredited financial institutions becomes challenging if you are in a small community.

We did talk about the challenges a community candidate would have. If they are in a small community and they are given cash as a donation, they write a receipt, obviously, and then they need money for gas to go somewhere. The money didn’t flow directly through the bank and get on the statement through that...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister is well within his ability to say I’m going to examine this issue in the public’s good, but maybe he’s more interested in I don’t know what. I’m not going to suggest anything, I’m just saying I don’t know what he’s more interested in. Maybe he doesn’t think that people are important. I do, and I’m certainly sure he’s going to stand up and say he cares about them as well. But all I’m asking him to do is take this initiative very seriously that we should have some type of tenant bill of rights, because when a tenant is shown the door due to construction or delay or...

Mr. Chair, I move that campaign financing provisions of the Elections and Plebiscites Act be drafted in plain language with a view to improving a logical consistency. Thank you.

Thank you. I’m not after this particular issue of the last part of the statement. I’m talking about the broader picture, which is if incidents happen, what avails themselves to solutions? A bill, or I should say a tenants’ rights bill, may be the solution. That’s what I’m getting at. The Minister said any potential amendments coming forward wouldn’t be coming, probably at the earliest, before fall of this year. So that’s October or November.

So, in essence, what can the Minister do so we don’t have circumstances like this when your apartment, whatever the case may be, be it flood, who knows...

Mr. Chair, I move that the term “campaign material” be replaced by “election advertising” throughout the Elections and Plebiscites Act for greater clarity and certainty. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister continues to fail to explain the science behind his philosophy that if we can give free spaces away, but he’s convinced the option before the parent would be that they would rather pay $1,000. That’s their choice. So what we’re doing is sinking the opportunities created by these day homes, whether they are licenced or unlicensed or Montessori programs.

Would the Minister finally put the evidence on the record so we can have a true, fact-based discussion on this problem? Thank you.

I’m just talking about… I wish to ensure that it’s clear that I enjoy the principle and certainly would support the principle of franchising voting opportunities by all extents. I just wanted to be clear on that someone is not taking advantage of a situation where we have, for example, 10 beds one day and then 10 new people come in and they get to vote under that address, and then the next day 10 new people get to vote under that address and then so on and so on and so on. In theory, in a 28-day election if it was 10 beds, 10 new people every day, you could have 280 votes out of one address...

I’m really happy to hear we are going to continue to support them, but we listen to the Minister of Education saying we support them by the amount of kids they have, so we give them money per kid. But if we’re taking the kids away, are we just going to support them because we want to support them?

It was the Minister’s staff who told the day home owners that you have to budget better and if you can’t do it, bring us your paperwork and we’ll budget for you. They also told them that they need to accept that there will be a loss and they need to accept it.

How does that work when he’s saying now...

Thank you. I’ll have to revisit Section 2(5). I’ll have to revisit that section.

Would that determination – back to names and addresses – be determined on polling day or whatever day throughout the election period? Thank you.