Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use this opportunity to ask some questions to the Minister of Health. Now, he may not be specifically aware of the typical issue, but I want to find out what his authorities are within his purview of being Minister.

Recently a constituent has approached me on the fact that they’re applying on this medevac contract that’s out right now for bids and tenders and the packages are just coming together. My understanding was their BIP was pulled with no discussion with that particular business. It was just a random hey, you no longer qualify for BIP. They had to step...

I’m not going to take the compliment back from the first one, but I can tell you the answer from the second question was not that clear. The simple question is we run a lot of unfunded positions in the government and often we hear about these could add up to several hundred positions in the government that are not specifically funded. I want to know how many positions are unfunded but operational, whereas we have a body in them doing something that’s meeting the goals and objectives of the government.

How many positions are we talking about and how do we pay for those? I want to know how much...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to return to the theme of jobs and, certainly, access to opportunities. We heard rightly from my colleagues, like Member Yakeleya, that, quite frankly, the average person wants to know why isn’t there a nurse in Colville or why isn’t there a community maintainer in Paulatuk or why isn’t there these plumbers in Fort Simpson. Like, why? When they hear of 1,150 job vacancies on that last snapshot, it causes great concern.

My questions, obviously, are for the Minister of Human Resources, and I’m going to say this: We passed the budget and we know...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I guess I’m going to say, in short, if this board, be it the chairperson, the board of governors and the president refuse to meet with the students, is the Minister prepared to start with a new slate of governance to find a group of individuals that care enough about their students to hold meetings with them? Thank you.

The Minister just said, “I don’t want to be in a position…to tell them what to do.” Let me remind the Minister, once again, that he’s in charge and if he doesn’t want to be in charge, that’s okay, because there’s probably an opening over here if he doesn’t want to tell them what to do.

Under Section 7, once again, the Minister has the authority to provide them direction. Under Section 7(2), they can provide direction through policy. So if he’s not interested, I’m not sure what the problem is.

The letter he received was cc’d to him, went to me, and said basically they will get to it when they...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I recently received what I can describe as a brush-off letter – don’t worry, we’ve got it under control – from Aurora College Board of Governors. Of course, if you look at the top of the letterhead, it says from the Office of the President for the board of governors.

This really kind of annoys me because this highlights further what I talked about the other week, which is about their independent thinking about being able to do things without having it go through the office of the president.

The letter highlights many concerns I raised here the other week about trying...

Thanks for noticing, Madam Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement, and as I referred to in my oral questions, I will be tabling a letter sent to me by the board of governors, signed by Sydney O’Sullivan, who happens to be the chair of the board of governors of Aurora College. It was sent to me February 6, 2014, and the subject line item of the letter is Letter of Concern Received on January 30, 2014. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, do you want me to do it over again?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister said he’s not aware of any breaches. That said, can the Minister confidently say it also means that he may not be aware of any breaches? Thank you.

This is not the answer I’ve received on the two other occasions. Finally I’m getting a decent answer, I’ll give it that.

I want to know how this administrator of this particular program is informed, and what type of timely way are they informed to ensure there is some type of quality assurance and certainly some protection for those people whose files may be snooped upon.

What type of automatic process is involved? Will the Minister inform this house what type of process there is? Thank you, Madam Speaker.