Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the Minister making it quite clear there is no, sort of, immediate safety concern for the kids, and I wasn’t trying to portray it in that light, but the fact is, these are the types of upgrades that the school system feels is a priority. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT has a deferred maintenance policy program and I’d like to know where these two schools sit in the territorial Deferred Maintenance Program, how much is booked against them for the two schools and where does that put the balance of the deferred maintenance of these types of...

Does this educational review take into account the significant amount of deferred maintenance on these two schools that is outstanding to date?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk today about the state of the educational facilities in my riding. Mr. Speaker, as all people in Yellowknife will know, J.H. Sissons and Mildred Hall are two gems of our education system in the riding of Yellowknife Centre.

Mr. Speaker, in 1975, J.H. Sissons was constructed. That was really the last time a hammer ever found itself into that school. Mr. Speaker, it has not been renovated on the capital plan by this government since then. Yes, it has received a new boiler, which just allows more efficient heat to roll out those leaking windows, and...

Thank you for that detail. Specifically to those types of grants and contributions, is there any net difference? I just want to make sure that because they’ve changed their status, that’s one particular issue that’s obviously shown up here, but will they lose any funding or will it have eroded either now in column B moved from column A? So I just want to make sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.

Could the Minister provide the official written definition that the Housing Corporation uses to define and demonstrate barrier-free housing?

Would the Minister provide details as to the location of each of the 300 barrier-free units in the corporation’s public housing inventory by community and by size of each individual unit with regards to the number of bedrooms?

Would the Minister list what modifications, specifically to each unit, which make it fall within the definition being used by the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I remind this House it wasn’t that long ago we were having serious discussions about leaking of information, committee confidence and whatnot. I don’t think the information told today is necessarily a detriment to the project, but it still stands for the principles of frustration that were caused earlier. Information received is still being learned and understood. So perhaps laying it before the House was an ill choice at this time. Is it reasonable? I believe the public should be fully apprised of the information that will come forward, but I certainly hope that...

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and appreciate the answer the Minister provided. Mr. Speaker, I know in an ideal world we’d be able to provide hot breakfasts to all our young folks and these types of programs. That’s why I’m trying to take a measured approach and possibly a program that we could provide and afford. Would the Minister ensure that in this nutritional food basket study that they’re planning to do, that this multivitamin concept gets a high priority of consideration? I’m not saying as in subject it to it has to come out as a high priority answer, but I want to make sure it gets...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to rise today to talk about a potential idea of how we can help improve the health of our children and youth in the Northwest Territories. I firmly believe that the empowerment of parents to ensure that a child is fed and taken care of properly is certainly on their shoulders and within their abilities, but I also believe the territorial government has a supporting role to help provide, focus and promote health delivery ideas to help feed children and youth of our Territory.

Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to discuss something I think could help these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8, written questions, on the order papers of today.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the faith that the Minister has that these people will be listening to Hansard, but just to ensure that they do get the message that this is an important issue that can deliver good things for our youth, would the Minister be willing to pen a letter to let this group know, that’s doing this review, that it is a priority of some people in this House and it could provide significant if not, certainly, substantial benefits for the health of our young people, noting the lack of nutritional items I noted in my Member’s statement? Would the Minister be willing to pen a...