Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a drilldown on some of these problems here a little further. Would the Minister provide his definition, or I should say his department’s definition of using a bond versus a deposit? So maybe if he could divide the two, explain what they are and why you would use one over the other.

I’m not sure that I agree with the distinction. I mean, I would say that building maintenance, operation maintenance is somewhat identical to this and it’s split per usage, so based on percentage. If you have mixed usage, it would be based on mixed usage. Other governments do this. The federal government does this. Any organization using common area space would do this. You ask anybody in a condominium, they pay per square footage on their condo fees on common usage space.

I’m just curious why we wouldn’t do this on one but yet on TSC we do a direct chargeback. To me, it’s a paradox. As well as...

So if consumption increases then process therefore would increase. I haven’t seen any energy bills get cheaper to use. Who is responsible for any spike in usage? I guess it’s around stewardship. If Public Works and Services has become the department that picks up the bills but say Education runs all their buildings lights on, whatever, it seems like the responsibility is out of touch with those who, they’re not connecting. How do you manage that problem?

Mr. Speaker, my job is to… One of the things is to compliment good work, but at the same time, my job is to point out problems in the system and provide solutions, which I keep providing them but they seem to fall on deaf ears.

So here is one more – and I’m not saying just this Minister; I’m saying many Ministers – would this Minister consider the option of taking a third-party monitoring system by appointing someone to review these so-called Northerners, because he may find that some comply perfectly, which should be supported, and some don’t comply at all. We should be celebrating the good...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in the context of full-cost accounting, and if I may call it an obvious technicality that I’m seeing, why do we charge back on TSC services but we don’t charge back on costs for utilities?

Who is responsible for these specific bills on these energy costs? Which departmental budget do they come from that cover the actual payments?

Mr. Speaker, I am simply asking the question how does the government monitor, manage and validate the numbers presented as what we define as a northern working force. In the socio-economic agreements, it is a very specific description that says the mines must live up to a certain amount of workforce. That said, is the government taking it on blind faith or do they validate this? If they validate this, how do they report it? Thank you.

So it’s determined by the winning vendor in a competitive process. Okay. Is that publicly disclosed in some manner or form?

Would the Minister be able to describe the holdback scheme, how it’s applied to northern contractors and southern contractors, how it’s applied to projects in large communities such as Yellowknife, Inuvik, or Hay River, and furthermore, how would it be proscribed in a manner that it would be in Fort Good Hope or Wekweetì or Lutselk’e? Can you explain the dynamics of that situation?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again I want to take a moment to recognize our N.J. Macpherson students here. Ms. Bisaro is quite correct; it’s quite impressive, both their flash mob dancing as well as their behaviour here in the House. She’s quite correct that the way we’re seeing our students behave here today is so impressive, I agree with her that many people could learn quite a few things from the students. That said, this is the generation that is standing up to bullying and I thank them for that, because the line needs to be drawn and they’re certainly showing their support with their pink...