Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to use this occasion to ask questions to the Minister responsible for Housing. Quite often I’ll have complaints sent to my office, called in or certainly e-mailed in, about health and safety issues. Whether they’re about leaky windows, heat not on, steps not shoveled, complaints all orientated to, actually, the landlord. A lot of these calls that come in, they’re all Yellowknife Housing Authority clients. It got me to thinking, does the Housing Corporation instructor work with our housing authorities to actually bring complaints forward to the rentals office...

Can the department provide it? Thank you.

These types of questions are sometimes asked in committee, but the public lacks the ability to be in committee to hear the answers. Vacancy has been a bit of an issue right now and I would think the department would be somewhat ready for this or at least know they would be asked some of these questions. What is the value of the 42 positions? There must be some sort of rolling dollar amount. As the Minister said, these are a rolling process. There must be some assessment of what human resources dollars aren’t being consumed in the department in this particular case. Thank you.

It was just a few days ago in this House this Minister issued an edict saying that it will be done, it shall be done, and it’s going to start this year. Not only that, he said he was going to solve a problem, which is there weren’t services available in the communities. All noble things that we support, so let’s stop focusing on these types of things.

Let’s get back to the money. If you’re going to issue these types of edicts and tell the NWT residents you’re doing this and, darn it, it’s coming, how much money is this happening and why haven’t you planned this and costed this out? Why are we...

Thank you for that. Out of the three positions that are being sunsetted, are they vacant at this particular moment, and if so, how long have they been vacant? Again, those three positions as noted by Ms. Schofield. Thank you.

Out of the 475 positions, how many are presently filled and how many are empty? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I used my Member’s statement today to talk about junior kindergarten and certainly the impact of re-profiling 7 percent of their funding model without working together with them. While I explained and it was certainly illustrated during my Member’s statement, what if we took 7 percent of the Department of ECE’s budget how they would go kicking and screaming.

Now, let’s talk about the broader picture now being forgotten about this whole situation, which are the day homes. Ironically, that’s part of the reason why this whole shift of junior kindergarten has evolved.

So, as...

I’m trying to put my finger on those allocations as to where the money is going. Thank you.

What page would that be on if this isn’t the appropriate page?

Thank you. I guess the same questions to the Minister. We can go through it all or I think he understands funded, unfunded, which, et cetera, et cetera. I’ve asked the question repeatedly. I think he knows the question by now. To the Minister, I guess.