Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to welcome Byrne Richards, certainly a community advocate and very well known to all of us. I want to also use the occasion to recognize Paul McDonald. I used to be a neighbour of his, and a little known talent of his was he was a clown, so all the students there with him here today… No clowning around. He was a professional clown. He may have been both. I’ll leave it with the students to see if they can get some gags and tricks out of him, but he’s quite the gentleman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I think of fracking, I’m often reminded of the saying “you can’t unring a bell.” What that basically means is that once you’ve done it, you’ve done it and you can’t take it back. As we all have come to learn, fracking is certainly not for everyone and not for every region where it could happen. So it puts the utmost importance upon each and every one of us to consider this problem.

Do we do it right or do we do it because we want it? I think this opportunity here is the chance to do it right. Everyone knows industry’s interests and industry wouldn’t be here in the...

Mr. Chairman, who is picking up the cost for branding?

Are we in the maintenance business if there are problems with the iPad? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, maybe the Minister was so excited to get his message out he forgot my question. If he would like me to repeat it, I would be happy to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, June 5, 2014, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment identify and seek new funding to support the implementation of junior kindergarten instead of reducing funding to any other education districts; and further, that the department ensure that the Junior Kindergarten Program be professionally designed and delivered by properly trained staff; and further, that the...

I think the last sidebar provided the Minister is ultimately the crux of the issue. It’s not the fact that we have to self-nominate. Sometimes we have to draw attention to the great things we do. I understand that. But when we have to pay $795 to self-nominate, it does start to draw into question. This government has said, through its own little PeopleSoft software, that we have over 1,000 job vacancy positions. This government has said that they we are actively pursuing 571 jobs. I went to the job career website today and there were about 102 job postings. We all know there has got to be...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister and I just had a sidebar. My questions have been completely cleared up. I guess in my case, my concern, yes, has been validated, but the Minister has shown me reasons why it deserves, and I will respect that and not pursue it any further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use my questions to follow up on my statement today and it will be directed to the Minister of Human Resources and it’s about jobs.

In order to get, sort of, down to the nuts and bolts here, maybe we could ask the Minister of Human Resources to help explain the self-nomination process where we pay $795 to self-nominate in a program, and how is that making a dent into the fact that the last update from this government said we were pursing 571 jobs? I’m just trying to get a sense of what value we’re getting here when we self-nominate ourselves in a program...

I’m fine with that and I’m happy to start straightening it out as soon as I’m done talking here.

The only issue I would have then, is if we passed this act noting the amounts, does that stop us from pursuing it through other methods? Especially when I know they’re alive. I know, roughly, where they live. I can’t 100 percent guarantee that they’re in public housing, but I do believe they are. So I can at least say confidently, two out of the three I can check off with great confidence.

So how do we deal with this? If we pass the act, have we taken away our ability to pursue this money? Thank you.