Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to continue with the Minister of Human Resources on the Summer Student Employment Program. It’s funny; I got a tweet a minute ago saying: “Didn’t you hire somebody from down South”? I think it’s a good question and fair question to ask. I put three job offers out, but they were all waiting for GNWT jobs because they assume they pay much better, it would be more lucrative. That’s part of the issue here, is the fact that a lot of kids are waiting for jobs and they don’t want to take them. They’re hurting the public sector as well. They just want a shot at a...

Well, all I know, and I think a lot of Members know, is there’s a little button on some web pages that says apply here, click, send your resume in and good luck. That’s all that exists. There is no transparent process to know you’re competing for anything. There’s no transparent process to say or show or demonstrate your resume actually has gone anywhere besides the in-box of who knows who, who knows where, and who knows when. There is absolutely nothing for any student to know that their resume has been sent out and fairly, competitively been considered. That’s all I’m asking.

Now I’m asking...

I want to ask the Housing Minister questions too. Unfortunately, I don’t have any for him today. Seeing how, of course, the Housing Minister is giving out millions of dollars here…

My questions will be directed to the Minister of Human Resources. I’ve received a call, like most MLAs do every year this time of year, which are from both summer students and certainly parents alike, and often they see that other students are getting jobs and they’re hearing about placements already being made.

My question is to the Minister of Human Resources regarding the policy, as such, for early hires. Do we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have been asking several departments about their positions. I believe this covers pretty much everyone in the Department of Education. I have been asking them for a list of the positions that are funded, unfunded, filled, unfilled and a fair bit of detailed question beyond that, but I think the department and certainly the Minister has been following along my general question asked. I will save a lot of time by asking if the department can provide me that detail. If so, we can move on, as far as I’m concerned. I will just wait until it’s in my office, if feasible. Thank...

These are the warning signs of suicide sometimes: showing deep depression, ongoing sadness, showing interest in dying, engaging in dangerous activities and saying things like they can’t handle things anymore. If you know anyone with these signs, get them help, because suicide never makes things better. Schools can prevent bullying, like encouraging students to stand up for them when bullied. Other ways that students can prevent bullying is having school-wide events to prevent bullying.

Now is the time to prevent bullying because it is now clearly becoming an illegal offence. So I encourage...

Mr. Chair, I appreciate Mr. Koe’s answer on that. I will frame this question on two points. What type of public dialogue do you draw out there? I don’t see any ads in this particular area saying, are liquor laws meeting our needs? Really, I think they are individual ones. Recently we changed concerns in the Sahtu to reflect what is needed and demanded there. Rightly or wrongly, it seemed like the right thing to do and certainly the right thing to support, as far as I was concerned, because we were responding to community area needs, certainly people’s needs.

What type of outreach does this area...

Mr. Chair, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to say that I highly value the Bureau of Statistics. I find that the information they produce is very good. I don’t find it is a consumable maybe the general public grabs upon. It’s usually for those folks like academics and whatnot and those researchers and boring MLAs that are trying to find a crowbar to complain about government. With that said, I’m very grateful.

I just want to put on the stats that that is a shop burrowed into the hollows of government. It does some good work. I just want to thank them for the...

Good.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the end of the day, really I’m after just a couple of simple things: a bit of transparency, a bit of competitiveness and for us to spread every single opportunity out as reasonably as possible. As I said, I’ve hired two, sometimes three students. I try to hire a couple every summer. I try to pay them what I can and more sometimes knowing that they need the money, and the opportunities not only just in Yellowknife but in the small communities are very few and we’ve got to find a way.

So I’m looking, just as my last question, I hate to say I’ve given him a softball, but...

Thank you. I hope at the end of it he meant he was going to supply me that particular information, but I’ll let him make that decision. I thought that was an excellent example, if we hire a student we may consider rehiring them again and maybe they do, but of course if you’re the next bio student that means you need not apply, you have no shots and the fact is there’s no competitive process. So what he’s just done is reaffirmed that any bio student has no shot at any opportunity.

My next question, of course, for the Minister of Human Resources is what type of feedback is done through the...