Statements in Debates

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 14)

I’m going to ask a question specifically to CAMTS, not the RFP. Maybe the Minister can explain what this is and why it’s important in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 14)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently I was down in Edmonton with a number of my Social Programs colleagues and the Minister of Health to visit the medevac centre at the Edmonton airport. I’m certainly glad to see the operation that has been put into place.

As we all know, presently there’s a medevac contract out and one of the requirements of the contract is for what’s called CAMTS, Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transportation Systems. This is a critical component of the medevac contract that’s out right now.

The Minister will probably cite his three-line sentence that he repeated four...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 14)

Mr. Speaker, the only question over here is asking about transparency. It’s not about stopping jobs. No one would stop that freight train. I’m telling you that if these appointments were truly worthy of the appointment, then the government shouldn’t hide beyond the veil of secrecy, behind the numbers of… We don’t know how many there are and who they’re appointing and who they may be related to. Nobody has any clue. It’s time we show a little courage, lead the nation with a little backbone. Nobody is talking about taking the authority away from Cabinet. We’re just talking about accountability...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 14)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about having the courage to finally publicize some of these direct appointments. First of all, we don’t know how many there are and we don’t know who are getting them. Annually, the Legislative Assembly tables our public service report. We could table the names and positions of where these direct appointments were issued and directed. My question will go to the Premier of this Assembly who is in charge of Cabinet and could make this decision and show some political courage today and demonstrate some accountability.

Would he...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

There must be some authority that the Minister can answer in the House today that the fairness commissioner can do and investigate. It’s not about deciding about the contract. I’m just saying when we’ve got corporate espionage in some form or fashion, if that really is the case, I don’t know, and I want to give them the chance to review it properly because they are the experts.

What type of remedies and options lie before this person providing this? What’s the point of having a fairness commissioner if they won’t review the situation? I don’t know; I’m trying to bring it to the Minister so we...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister should resign himself to the fact that he should know this.

Next question. We know many times with historical values of vacant positions, which is approximately 14, 15, 16 percent, but if we use it as a rolling number, to be fair, that’s approximately $15 million passed in this House that are human resources compensation and benefits dollars each and every year.

So, what does the Department of Human Resources do to track that money, the $15 million that nobody knows where it’s going? How do we follow the money? The department may say that this is micro...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

I want to ask the Minister for, quite simply, a clear and simple answer. We have 35 positions, which probably roughly works out to about $3.5 million, which were originally intended for human resource money that could actually put that nurse in Colville Lake, whether it can put that maintainer back in Paulatuk or other types of plumbers or those types of critical jobs that we always talk about.

My next question for the Minister of Human Resources is: We often hear about the fact that, for example, Stanton runs a deficit, the Beau-Del runs a deficit, all of these organizations run deficits...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use today’s occasion to return to the northern jobs issue that I, as well as many of my good colleagues, have been raising over the past several days.

We all know very well that we pass compensation dollars here every single year and in every single budget, and we certainly expected that money to be used for the reason it’s passed. It’s difficult for me to go back to the taxpayer to say the government needs more money and they’re not spending it the way we’ve appropriated it. They look and ask what are we really doing here.

Since I’ve been discussing this...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

So the Minister is unwilling to provide a solution in the public here. What use is having a fairness commissioner if we have no solution for a particular proponent who wants to bid on this potential contract and is being sandbagged behind the scenes?

Is the government willing to sit by and allow this without providing any options or remedies or just say let it play out? Are we going to hear the same answer, and you might as well just table the answer if that’s what he’s going to do over there. Thank you.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 5th Session (day 13)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use this opportunity to ask some questions to the Minister of Health. Now, he may not be specifically aware of the typical issue, but I want to find out what his authorities are within his purview of being Minister.

Recently a constituent has approached me on the fact that they’re applying on this medevac contract that’s out right now for bids and tenders and the packages are just coming together. My understanding was their BIP was pulled with no discussion with that particular business. It was just a random hey, you no longer qualify for BIP. They had to step...