Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be speaking in favour of this and in these adjustments. As I see it, we are now opening up the appeal process to show transparency by making reports available to the appellant. I think those are good things for the people who do appeal to the process, whereas a decision in the old days up until, of course, the date that this gets changed, is either a yea or nay. It is upheld, and folks will sort of feel left out of the system and try to understand why their appeal wasn’t upheld. I appreciate and I also applaud the efforts to include that transparency.

The other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister left out one specific area. As I understand it, funding is linked to attendance in roster enrollment, but that is only checked, I believe, once a year. In a certain period, that sets the funding rate for the whole education period. That being said, what is the Minister willing to do to address the truancy issue through legislation that empowers either Health and Social Services to go in and check on what is happening with these children or allow the education system and the DEAs, as he has pointed out, to go in and knock on those doors to make...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see the clock is winding down, so I won't be too lengthy. I appreciate the Minister mentioning Sachs, because that is a great example; every three weeks we have a presence in the community for two to three days. I know it's unrealistic to establish a post permanently in every community, but I know, for example, in the community of Inuvik we have a highway patrol and we have a camper, and they put a presence on the highway in the summer. I'm just concerned from the area of a regular presence and known presence in the community, because three weeks seems a bit of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I will read the last paragraph from the top.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to take this opportunity to individually congratulate the donors, corporations, as well as a personal thanks to Mrs. Arychuk and all the people involved in the Flight of Dreams and this organization that has helped every year to bring a little silver lining to so many young clouds out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

I guess really I'm concerned about the places out there that don't have a permanent flag pole of the RCMP in the community. I know, in all fairness, it's probably very difficult to establish a police presence, considering the cost of infrastructure to put a post there. But I guess we have to be more proactive about how we're developing community policing. I know that the Territories does invest money into that initiative, but my concern more is from the enforcement side, as well as the public peace side of communities. How many communities out there do we have without any established...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement will be used to acknowledge the Children’s Wish Foundation and the great job they are doing to fulfil dreams of children throughout our North.

Mr. Speaker, this organization provides children with the chance to experience something special in their lives while they are bravely dealing with serious illnesses and life-threatening diseases. Mr. Speaker, this organization has been fulfilling dreams for young Canadians since 1983 and directly for young northerners since 1987.

The Alberta/NWT chapter of this organization has an office here in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certain activities beg the question what activities or what types of activities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Page 5-38, I see under divisional education board Beaufort-Delta, leasing service. I see we have $120,000. Do we provide this type of service or why wouldn’t this service be performed by the education board itself? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assuming the Minister can’t provide that tonight, from the sounds of that answer, if the Minister could provide for the last three years what regular basis means, I would certainly accept that in written form, so he doesn’t have to answer that tonight. I want to know what regular basis means. I would be willing to accept that if he doesn’t have that detail.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can only assume that we could take somewhat of a profit factor out in order to keep stabilizing this fuel by litre. Because if fuel is set at $1.24 in Wekweti, that would almost seem I couldn't say unaffordable, but I certainly would say that it's cost prohibitive to drive anything that requires fuel, at that rate. Spending about $100 to fill up your skidoo, I don't know…So is the principle of some of this in order to keep the cost down where reasonable where we can, do we eliminate the profit factor out of this? Again, I realize that there isn't tons of factor...