Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a letter I wrote on January 27, 2014, to the chair of the Board of Governors, Ms. Sydney O’Sullivan. It is regarding some of the concerns about accessibility and accountability that I see with the governors in relating to their students. Of course, part of the letter is to encourage them to hold a public meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Premier, Bob McLeod. I have a question regarding some of the tabled documents that have not been tabled. What I’ll do is rather than asking two separate questions, I will put them together, because basically it’s the same issue, they haven’t been tabled.

The first question I’d like to point out is the fact that the ministerial travel reports have only been updated as of January to March 2013, and they were tabled in the House. Of course, they haven’t been tabled for three consecutive sessions after that and there’s supposed to be a...

There is no student rep on this Board of Governors. I’ve gone to other websites of other universities and other colleges, and they all have an accessible porthole on how to get a hold of the Board of Governors. It may not be a direct e-mail but it’s one that goes to them. Why in this day and age, don’t we have this?

I will ask this question: How does the Minister define accountability and accessibility to their students, because I have yet to hear it today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions, of course, will be directed to the Minister of Education.

Noting the fact that letters and e-mails are vetted through the Aurora College president’s office, which should be a concern just in itself, with also noting that the student rep on the Board of Governors is still waiting Cabinet approval, from my understanding, and furthermore that the student rep’s appointment only lasts a single year and by the time that the Cabinet gets to this perennial appointment it’s half over anyway, this makes it challenging for them to participate in the Board of Governors...

I appreciate the quick response from the Premier and his willingness to address this. I would certainly hope that I’d get a response back and that he’d have this tabled within we’ll say 10 days. That seems reasonable, because I’ve had people inquire about this at my office.

My last question would be is that under the report respecting benefits paid to Ministers under the Ministerial Benefits Policy, reviewing old tablings, which goes up to March 31, 2011, not all information is there. For some reason there’s information highlighted out, and what I may point out are things like hospitality where...

Mr. Speaker, defining accessibility by bumping into your Board of Governors representative at the Northern in Inuvik is not accountability. Going to the Co-op in Yellowknife and bumping into your Board of Governors rep is not accountability, and certainly going to the hardware store in Fort Smith is not defined as accountability.

Will the Minister, under Section 7 of the Aurora College Act, use his authority and direct the college to meet with these students at least once a term so people can hear directly their issues and they can understand them, because right now I’ve heard zero today about...

Thank you. There are a lot of deficiencies and I understand are still outstanding on this particular bridge. As such, that’s why I was asking for it publicly. I don’t have a copy, but I can certainly start with one of the deficiencies to enlighten him.

As I understand, right now the scour rock issue at the Deh Cho Bridge is still outstanding and I thought it was being addressed through a negotiated contract. Would the Minister be able to confirm if there was a negotiated contract to solve the scour rock problem and, as such, is it still in place? Because I certainly have seen not one but two...

Mr. Speaker, I think I’ve highlighted some of the reasons and I’m happy to repeat them again. I said that because the lender pulled the loan and the GNWT became saddled with it, I think we should be investigating exactly why that happened, what led up to that and what information caused such destruction and angst for them to do that.

What more information is the Minister looking at or need to look at in order to say, wait a minute, something happened here, we almost paralyzed the government with this situation. As such, once again I ask the Minister, would he be willing to launch an audit to...

It was my understanding that the former Minister promised this and other people have been promising that we will have an independent audit. Quite frankly, if the Department of Transportation is monitoring themselves, we might as well just surrender to the results already because it does seem somewhat biased. I’m not trying to be mean here today, but self-evaluation really only works well when you’re, I guess, meditating.

I ask once again for the taxpayer, for the people in the Northwest Territories, would the Minister look at launching an independent audit that had teeth so we could truly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties noted its generally positive experiences with its industry partners. A representative of the Three Affiliated Tribes Tribal Economic Development Office, or TERO, shared his experience that oil companies’ priority is to make a profit, but they are generally willing to work with communities and governments. Statoil emphasized its commitment to collaboration and open communication with stakeholders. North Dakota officials recommended that governments work closely with industry to...