Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of places to start with today, and by golly, I think I’m going to give the Education Minister the pleasure of my questions today.

May I remind the Education Minister that in Yellowknife the education boards are administrative boards and not advisory boards. Now, in the capital, the YK school boards raise approximately 20 percent of their funding from their tax base.

Perhaps the Minister can explain the funding formula in this situation where YK schools raise part of their own money to educate our students and the difference between the other schools that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, before we begin today, I too support early childhood education opportunities in every single one of our communities. I also support the immediate need of those 10 communities that desperately need this opportunity. However, we have an Education Minister who would rather wield divisional politics amongst urban versus rural communities. This Minister should be building bridges, not finding ways to burn them down.

I demand the Minister to immediately show this Assembly any degree of opposition of support against any small community when they need their early childhood...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe Mrs. Groenewegen respectfully has a point of order. I think it was more of a statement, as she just said here a second ago. The reality here is I’m asking the Minister about their office and their ability to do their responsibilities that fall within them.

No problem, Mr. Speaker. It’s a Member’s privilege to ask a question when they choose to. It’s a Minister’s responsibility to be available for the question when the question is asked, so don’t make it my fault.

My last question, of course, to the Minister is: What are we going to do about this particular situation that he’s not coming to work? What type of responsibility, being available to Members so we can ask questions that are important to the constituency? I’d like to understand what will be done. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, on page 32 and 33 of the House of Commons Procedures and Practices it says that in terms of ministerial responsibilities, Ministers have both the individual and collective responsibilities to the House, and as such, Ministers are expected to take responsibility and defend their decisions and all Cabinet decisions.

My question for Minister R.C. McLeod is: How does he reasonably expect to do this if he’s, as he stated earlier, not in the House, travelling on personal business?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As always, it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge and welcome NWT’s favorite son – and we all know who that is – Mr. Anthony W.J. Whitford. There he is. He attends hearings quite often.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to acknowledge Ms. Lydia Bardak. She’s the executive director of the John Howard Society. As I understand it, right on the side here we have Hannah Allen. She’s a Page for this session and she’s from Yellowknife Centre.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the last person I’d like to acknowledge in the gallery here today is Zoe Ignacio-Pacunayen. She’s my constituency...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad to be given an opportunity because I did forget to mention earlier that it is the normal practice of the Cabinet to inform all Members of the absence of a Minister. I have inquired through our process and channels to see if that was that ever given. We were never given notice that this particular Minister would be absent from the House, hence not being prepared to be able to ask and certainly get the answers to the question.

As for the other aspect of travelling on duty, I’m going to say that I have a different perspective on that, especially because when the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I draw the attention of 23(i), imputes false or hidden motives of other MLAs. Mr. Speaker, he just made a clear accusation to me that my MO is about asking questions to Ministers who are not available. That is imputing false motives on the way I’m doing my job. That’s the issue at hand here. I think there’s a point of order and he should apologize for it. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Members had questions for the Department of MACA and I’m asking the Minister the fact that the Alaska games were several days after that particular day in question, so he could have reasonably been there. So I’m asking the question to the Minister: How does he make himself reasonably responsible and available to Members of this House so that we can ask pertinent questions? This has been stated on the record by the Premier. I’m just asking, how do we do our job if he doesn’t come to work? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be to seek information on a statement made in the House by the Premier on Thursday, March 13, 2014. To provide context to that, the Minister of MACA told me personally that he would be leaving on Thursday, March 13th, which is a session day, so he could go home and gas his truck up on his way to Whitehorse as he goes to the Arctic Winter Games. So I draw the House’s attention to page 5 and I quote the Premier in Hansard: “I wish to advise Members that the Honourable R.C. McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend to a personal matter.”

M...