Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Mr. Ed Jeske, Rosann Parpyka and Vivian Squires in the gallery, as well as I did notice coming in: Phila Phyten, Don Cooper, deputy minister of Justice, Justice Vertes and Brad Enge, all constituents of mine. I would like to say welcome to everyone. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, as I was trying to say, every smart man always makes special mention of his wife, because she is certainly the backbone of everything. To my two sons, McKinley and Hudson, although I won’t be seeing you much for the next six weeks, I will still be thinking of you every day.

To all the Members here, thank you for your support. To all the constituents of Yellowknife Centre, thank you for your support, and good luck to everyone. It has been an exciting roller coaster working with everyone. I am sure I will see everyone back except...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to close today’s 15th Assembly statement by the same way I came into the Assembly almost four years ago. I have some special thank yous and acknowledgements. Mr. Speaker, although we all mention several times we can never mention everyone, there are certain people that I think that I am going to take the risk and highlight their performance. Mr. Speaker, the Members’ secretary, Verna Currimbhoy, has been an incredible support. She has always been there to help every one of us; that is the Regular Members, Mr. Speaker. She works diligently and always...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, the Minister must have been answering with his Finance hat on in that situation because the fact is he’s quite correct that every year has to be approved. However, the fact is we can set out long-term agreements clearly in writing and, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, that if we have a bad year in the Assembly where we have to do cutbacks, that proviso could always be written into any agreement. I’ll tell you, the NGOs that I speak to welcome that because they recognize that we can’t predict every day for how many more years ahead of us. So the fact is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to make special mention of a family here in my riding of Yellowknife Centre who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. A heartfelt congratulation goes out to Judith and Forrest Krause, who were surrounded by friends and family over the weekend to celebrate this golden occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Krause are long-time northerners, coming to the North for opportunity and excitement and proudly made Yellowknife their home. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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However, Mr. Speaker, it is important to point out the executive assistants, some past and present that I think have made an exceptional impact on some of the work that I have been able to succeed with. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make special mention to Katherine Robinson who worked for the honourable Mr. Dent for some time.

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Allen Stanzell, with his keen eye for detail in getting back to me.

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Mr. Doug Pon has worked for Minister McLeod for all the way through.

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They are fine, outstanding individuals. They made the work here so much more successful and rewarding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer because I see the Minister recognizes how important this is. Mr. Speaker, he says case by case. The one thing I think will help everyone out there who are in the NGOs would be, for example, if the Department of Finance set out rules and guidelines and anyone could work with the individual department. So would the Minister of Finance take upon the work to design some type of framework that an NGO can go to, maybe a website, click download it and help the application process? Therefore, when it goes to the specific department, we’ve already...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the 14th Assembly there was a report that recommended multi-year funding and the importance that it would bring to NGO organizations to create stability and a sense of continuity for their funding source. Mr. Speaker, in the 15th Assembly I was able to work with the NWT Seniors’ Society to help get them a multi-year funding agreement, and special recognition goes to then-Minister Miltenberger of the Department of Health. Mr. Speaker, that was a milestone, I’d say, but one that, I think, passed without any thunder and excitement, because it was a big...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the issues I have with this motion which has been included, is my concern that we do not have a policy that states that no appointments, especially serious appointments, where there is no emergency pending or falling before us, that we should not be appointing a position just before an election. Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t want anybody to compromise anybody’s appointment by saying it’s a political appointment to gain favour just before or after an election. So, Mr. Speaker, my concerns and points have been raised in this motion. I will be voting in favour with my...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, as many of us know here, the PUB keeps shooting down the one-rate zone because you can’t operate in isolation. In other words, as the Minister has pointed out, you can’t have one style of power generation here and another there and another there and they come at three different costs. In fact, you can’t harmonize the costs because of the different delivery systems that we have. So, Mr. Speaker, how to deal with this is right before us. We can start harmonizing our power generation by working together. As the Minister said, we can start putting...