Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister agree that one-stop-shopping is more efficient and more cost effective to this government, on its ambition to make people more self-reliant and independent, than two stops? Thank you.

I consider that a very small error that really tries to find holes in the facts. The facts are that it cost a lot of money to create this transfer and it did create a lot of positions to support this transfer. That’s really the moral of the story. What’s going to happen with that?

To enable this transfer, some study or direction or consultant was hired and I’d like to know what that cost to do this review as well as what was the question they were considering. Was it to fix the program in its existing state or to find a way to return the program to the way it was before?

I can only imagine what that will now cost.

---Applause

As you can see, the confusion continues. Mr. Speaker, we don’t have an endless pot of money, and I still think that the program initiative had foresight for the future as to what should really be going on. Mr. Speaker, ultimately our government should be supporting self-sufficiency and self-reliance, and having people go to one centre, a service centre of excellence to help people move forward on the initiatives that they need to get on their own feet was the best idea possible. It’s unusual for government to come up with a clear and simple...

I appreciate the answer not to my question, but it was an interesting answer which speaks to the long-term problem. I’m glad we heard that that’s the long-term focus. But the question really comes down to is there a zero tolerance policy that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs adheres to, which is if someone’s a squatter, they have to remove their cabin or whatever it may be and then they must apply in that process.

If I heard the Minister correctly, he’s suggesting that the government is enforcing that the squatters now remove their recreational facility, if I may define it -- I don’t know what they put out there -- and had them go through the normal channels like everyone else. Is that the case? Because that is the concern from constituents in Yellowknife Centre who have cabins out there.

I appreciate the Minister trying to stay away from specifics as well, only to avoid identifying the individual constituents, because there are only a few. She says there’s an ongoing day-to-day process. What type of strategy does the Department of Health and Social Services have, say, for example, if we’re always sending people to Edmonton to get an ear checked, a specialized service? Or for example, if we’re always sending people to get an eye specialization. Those type of things. What type of monitoring process do we have set up and organized that someone tracks this and says, well, we’ve...

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for making sure that question will be answered as well in the coming correspondence. I just want to make sure that the Minister is well aware that this is a territorial initiative, not a Yellowknife initiative. There are companies, construction, various other types of service type industries getting on board with the Certificate of Recognition through the Territory whether they are in Hay River, Norman Wells, Inuvik. It is quite a broad program involving large and small businesses. Is the Minister aware that it is a territorial program that several...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the October session I asked questions regarding the COR program, the Certificate of Recognition to the Minister of Public Works about implementing it into the territorial tendering process which would help raise standards in our tendering process. We would also get better and more proficient tenders that proceed on our government projects. Mr. Speaker, at the time, I had inquired with the Minister if he would look into that process to see if we could move down that road as, for example, the Yukon has, and start with large projects and work our way down to the smaller...

I’ll agree with the Minister that there was an error in the report and that was the decision to transfer it back. I heard from LHO people that this was starting to straighten out. I heard from people on income support who were going through their housing application process that it made sense after a while. I heard from people administering the program that it was really at the end of the day an administration and communication problem was to make sure that the little boxes that got checked at income support fed on through to the folks at LHOs. Was the administration problem and communication...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My oral questions today will be following my Member’s statement: the issue with the fact that income support is now transferring back the administration of the housing to the LHO.

I appreciate my colleague from Hay River South who stood up to speak against it. She clearly announced this morning that she would, so I knew she’d let my statement go before hers. But one thing she didn’t talk about is the fact that we’ve got 14 positions out there that were in this original transfer and the fact that it cost $1.5 million to carry this on. So she must be in favour of the fact...