Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I just want to say I’m going to speak in favour of the amended motion, which is basically as mentioned by Mr. Abernethy and some others I guess repeatedly, but the fact is that we really need to find a way or a mechanism to get this electoral boundaries review process completely out of the hands of politicians.

I think Mr. Moses had said it in a really interesting way. How many hours have we spent on this particular subject, but yet we spend such a paltry amount on other very important subjects, whether it’s early childhood education, poverty, et cetera. That may...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First off, I should inform the public, of course, if this motion passes, it actually doesn’t go back to the Electoral Boundaries Commission that had been established. It would cause the Board of Management to strike a new one.

The reason I moved the motion was, and I certainly hope I’m not the only one who feels this way, but there is some concern about how the three decisions have come about and how varied they are in such a way that it’s very challenging to accept. We’re well within our ability, certainly, our authority, and under time constraints we have the time to do...

Thank you, Madam Chair. First off I want to acknowledge and thank the commission for their hard work. It was a difficult task we gave them. They took it up honourably and certainly I believe to my heart of hearts that they have done the best that they could.

Now, the commission followed our direction, so if there’s anyone to blame, it’s obviously the instructions provided to them by the Assembly. What I found was, here I am almost seven years later and we’re revisiting a similar style and problem of issues, whereas sometimes the instructions weren’t as clear as possible. I think every...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to be crystal clear; I never said the commission failed. I think it comes down to the instructions they began with. I could come up with great analogies and metaphors to describe that, but I think it really boils down to the instructions that could have been clearer and we don’t sometimes know that until we’ve launched this opportunity into wherever it goes. It travelled a journey. I don’t necessarily think the commission itself needs to go from corner to corner and corner to corner of the Northwest Territories – that’s four corners – I think it could go...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The light just came on. Thanks for the microphone.

I’d like to move a particular motion. I think we’ve reached that time and we’ve certainly allowed a fulsome discussion, so at this time, I’d like to now move a motion.

I suspect that laws have evolved in such a manner that we can only use the black highlighter when we explain things. Quite often Members want information.

I’ve invested quite a bit of time in a document that’s a few pages and it’s potentially a private member’s bill. It’s called the Private Sector Salary Disclosure Act.

I’d like to know if the Minister of Human Resources would be interested in co-sponsoring this act me with so the public can finally have true accountability, which is happening across this country from Nova Scotia to B.C. Now it’s time the Northwest Territories joins the rest of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the need for public sector salary disclosure and this is not the first time I’ve raised this particular matter in the House. I’ve cited several provinces across this country that have databases or have even tabled public reports, a sample of course, an excerpt of a public report from Ontario that does this.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Human Resources what’s stopping him from publicly tabling a disclosure paper or document that demonstrates and clearly shows transparency of all salaries over $100,000 and more, and that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s one of the few times we’ll ever say this, but apparently size doesn’t matter on this particular issue. In Vancouver, you just type a person’s name and it will give you the information.

As I tabled in this very House, I only tabled a small excerpt, but in Ontario they go very detailed, down to the name, the position and whatnot.

The last thing I’ll say is I’ve drafted a Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act. Would the Minister be interested in this particular project that I’ve been working on and would he see what he could do to get behind it? Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that good attempt at an answer by the Minister, because he talked about privacy rights. I’d like to draw the public’s attention, and more specifically the Minister of Human Resources’ attention, to a document I found on Northern News Services website. It’s dated April 27, 1998, and it’s quoted as such that Premier Don Morin, oddly enough the old Member for Tu Nedhe, had succumbed to the pressure of Regular Members and tabled all salaries of these employees with their names attached to that.

So if we’ve done it in the past, what’s stopping us today from doing it going...