Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I wish to talk about bullying as well. I want to highlight and celebrate the great work being done at Mildred Hall School. Mildred Hall has been working hard to develop anti-bullying policies and procedures because they believe strongly in early intervention. At Mildred Hall they recognize that bullying doesn’t just happen at school, it also happens outside on the school grounds and on Facebook, cyber world, on the streets and in our community. They also see that the fact is they have a role to play and to provide positive support.

They are taking many important...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off I’d like to thank Mr. Dolynny for bringing this motion forward. I appreciate the initiative and certainly the enthusiasm from our new Member for Range Lake. He’s already starting to have a defining impact on the 17th Assembly. This is a clear example of his efforts. At the same time I’d like to recognize Mr. Yakeleya for supporting this, because it takes grassroots territorial support to bring an initiative like this forward.

Undoubtedly, anti-bullying, or I should say bullying efforts and countering them go from one tip of the territory to the next. It’s not...

Will is quite a big word. What does “will” in this particular case mean? Is it his direction from a Minister’s point of view of instructing the department to reinstate that type of programming or is it just a matter of a case of “if they feel like it?”

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s quite a pleasure to recognize the Grade 5 N.J. class who walked all the way here from their school. Very impressive to them getting some active living. Although recognized already, I would like to recognize Aurora Nind. She is also a resident of Yellowknife Centre. If she could stand. And Kelsey Robson. Thank you both. Thank you to your class on your great effort. You guys look fabulous today as well.

Mr. Speaker, in answering the Minister’s question, I will say yes.

Mr. Speaker, Environment Canada, as I am aware, has done a fair bit of research along Highway No. 3 to study the impact of road salt. Is the reason why the Department of Transportation wouldn’t typically monitor the amount of road salt considering the amount we use? At the same time, why do we use road salt? Why don’t we just go with gravel, which is a product naturally found here so we wouldn’t be introducing anything new and doing any harm to our environment? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize the very special, kind-hearted Anthony W.J. Whitford. He’s a kind friend, a mentor of mine, and like Mr. Dolynny pointed out, he set that place on fire once he grabbed that microphone. His community volunteerism and participation is certainly well known, not only in the Northwest Territories, but as legislators, quite often when we travel, the first person they want to know about is: Do you know a guy named Tony? Boy, oh boy, he’s made an impact not only in the North but I’d say worldwide. We’re glad to have him.

I appreciate the very clear and succinct answer from the Minister over there. Of course, in that particular case, just for clarity for the public following the issue, if the posted limit is 90 kilometres an hour and the snow causes you to drive slower due to safety, would it not seem reasonable to be driving to the conditions of the road at that time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 7, oral questions, on the agenda today. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, and I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Interestingly enough, through my research and, of course, some of the response for the Minister, it highlights minus 10 or warmer is basically the time, I’ll say the opportunity to use road salt, because if you use it when it’s colder than minus 10 it doesn’t work. So would the Minister of Transportation be willing to re-evaluate the Department of Transportation’s usage of road salt in the Northwest Territories because of the possible negative effects that are happening? I shouldn’t say possible, these are known negative effects that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about road salt and certainly I tried to highlight some of the impacts of road salt usage in the Northwest Territories. I want to thank the Minister of Transportation. He has provided me with some raw data on what is used annually here since 2006-07 on road salt.

As I said in my Member’s statement today, in the last six years, it has increased over 200 percent. What type of monitoring of the impacts of road salt usage is happening by his department to ensure that we are not creating problems with the environment such as the rivers...