Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister taking the time out of the day to give himself a pat on the back. I mean, my issue really is what are we doing with plastic bags — not to make the Minister feel better about himself.

Mr. Speaker, what support programs are we going to provide for our citizens and our businesses to make this happen? You can hardly go to a store without them having a special little rack of recyclable bags. So what support programs and ideas is the Minister bringing forward to this problem?

Is this office staffed, and by how many people, if it is?

Mr. Speaker, as I always like to begin each Friday, I would like to make special mention that it’s Red Friday and I support my troops.

Today I want to talk about the need for public support in discussion and education in an effort to gradually eliminate the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags are everywhere. For almost every purchase we make, we get a plastic bag. Here in the NWT that adds up to almost 40 tonnes of plastic bag waste each year.

The use of plastic bags has serious impacts on the environment. While some are recycled, most plastic bags go to the garbage and end up in our landfills. It...

Just putting my hand up because we’re turning the page.

Thank you for that detail. Actually, that was very helpful. Out of the remaining, or what would be described as the remaining 32 positions, how many will be left vacant? My question would be: do you have any unfunded positions that go over and above that latest number?

I thank the Premier for that answer. Before I get specifically to the impacted and whatnot, the Premier did make a statement regarding meeting their mandate. I just want to be clear: he’s saying that with a reduction of staff, they’ll still be able to meet their mandate. Could he explain what the case was before? If there’s been a reduction of — can I say? — approximately 20 to 25 per cent of staff, that’s a huge reduction. From a layperson’s point of view, you’re saying you can delete 25 per cent of people working on a particular file, or maybe in an area, and still meet that mandate, so...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I’ll be supporting this motion on a couple of principles. We often talk about sort of raising women in the context of senior management and making sure that they’re profiled appropriately and given fair opportunities.

This actually happens to be one of those departments where we have a deputy minister who is a female. It also falls down, though, in other areas, where it’s less admirable. It doesn’t reflect our general population and the distribution of representation.

So that was the principle of why I am supporting this motion. You would think, if anything...

Well, I still have a couple of small questions. I feel that they’re appropriate, and I’ll continue with them in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, we have the infrared thermal scanning continuing on page 4, and it talks about community buildings. Although I support the GNWT scanning its buildings — and again, there’s no specific line item that points to this, so that’s why it is appropriate in opening comments — I’m curious as to whether the department actually charges back for this in any way. Is this something we do as a favour while we’re in the community? My thought is it would probably incur...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, a private sector person called me yesterday, as I’ve said, and they want access to any opportunities they can to help leverage their money to hire students, because they’ve got a lot of work in their shop. This is one of a number of examples out there. Mr. Speaker, if there is a pot out there through the Progressive Experience Program, how much money is available, and how would they obtain access to this potential program to make sure they put these students to work?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the third paragraph down we have a section highlighted under the recruitment....