Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It must be the air conditioning in here, Mr. Speaker, or the sound of the air moving. It's hard to hear some days or sometimes today. Mr. Speaker, I was going to leave on a positive note but I'll make a list the good but not bad. The next question will be back to the Minister of education regarding supports for students. It's not terrible, but I'd like to hear what the Minister says -- the issue's terrible but not the questions per se.

We were recently at a meeting with both school boards. And I know this applies to all school boards. This is not news to me, I know it's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Very excited. Mr. Speaker. It would be nice to end today -- well, we're not ending today per se, but, you know, work towards the end of today on a positive note. And the reason I'm bringing this up, in my Member's statement yesterday I talked about the naming of the Whitford building, Mr. Speaker. And there's not a specific guideline through the EIA or housing that says how do we need name buildings that are non-office buildings, but let's follow the office building process and protocol. And section number 5, Cabinet may approve a public engagement process, so may, to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I would appreciate in the context of transparency if the Minister would share that letter with Members because I don't believe we have it and if we do have it, it's the old government kind of context because I certainly don't have a copy of it. So we're going on what we understand.

Mr. Speaker, the next part of the mandate letter is will it be funded for a transition to a polytech? Because currently, if we're following the old methodology, they're using money left over from the education diploma -- or sorry, education program as well as the social work diploma...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Similar to my colleague who had just spoke a moment ago, I want to further follow up on the mandate letter specifically. So it appears we're working well together on this type of concern and initiative. My question would be is that if the former mandate letter expired in July, had the department not been working on it previously? Because it doesn't seem as if there was -- there shouldn't be an overlap period of gap within -- in other words saying there's no mandate or no one's doing any mandate or following any mandate. So I'm asking the question, why wasn't there a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as an example of this burden falling on the school system, which is actually taking money out of the education process that it was intended for, these school boards, particularly in Yellowknife -- and I wish I could speak to the regional communities as well -- but that said they ended up hiring their own speech pathologists, and they were finding they could find them. In other words, they put out advertisements. They were getting people interested in the jobs. They've hired them. And they're funding them within. That really is education dollars for the old...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I actually couldn't hear her answer but I'm assuming maybe we could look at this again, is that what can she do as Minister to financially support the school system if the Department of Health and Social Services is no longer doing this. We have dental services -- we found ways to do things. In other words, like, for example, Inuvik does dental supports when it can. I don't even know if they've done it recently. But I've seen seen the room that they've done that to support families on the health care and the young people. So what can the Minister do to ensure that, for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, item -- guidelines, checkbox number 5 says may create a process. So in other words, you don't have to have a process. We could have the political courage and excitement to do the right thing, Mr. Speaker. So I'm asking the Minister if she doesn't want to be the champion today -- that gives you a little bit of room -- maybe she could highlight before this House what process she speaketh of. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I'm not -- I'm familiar with the mandate online but I'm more referring to the mandate letter specifically, just to be clear. So in my view, they're two things but if they're the same thing at the end of the day, then I'll let the Minister clarify.

My last question, just very quickly, Mr. Speaker, is will the Minister be willing to table her mandate letter to the college before the House for transparency and table it in a method that it can be consumed by the public for everyone to fully appreciate what direction and support they're getting from the Department of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think if I remember correctly, I was going to try to look it up, but there's the Chinese character that refers to crisis, and comprises of two words if I remember correctly. It refers to danger but it also refers to opportunity. And to me, that's some of what we're facing here, is there's a lot of danger going on there but there's an opportunity to change that story to avert the further humanitarian crisis. I honestly don't think that that's an overstatement. It resonates with me. It resonates with anyone I talk to about this particular situation. And I think that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was hoping the Minister was going to keep going on her own, but I'll prompt her with another question first -- or the last question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, does the Minister recognize that some of these problems could be solved today if the department would meet with the workers, you, including the officials, and sit down and talk with them to meet their needs? Because I suspect that the financial cumbrance of this whole issue can be easily solved over not only a box of Tim Horton doughnuts but literally 20 or $30,000, we could have good workers...