Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about asking the Department of Transportation to move what I would define as simple or regular services to on-line, and certainly give our consumers or constituencies opportunity to do that. If you live in Liard or maybe in another type of small community like that, you have to go to Fort Simpson to do your licence plate renewal for your vehicle. That’s something you could do on-line. If you’re busy in Yellowknife and you don’t have an hour to go sit down just for a quick renewal, you could process it on-line.

My question is such...

I guess the only thing I would ask is if the Minister would keep me up to date as to the progress on this initiative. That will be all. Thanks.

As I understand it, there are still a few other authorities out there as well. If I’ve understood my facts correctly, I mean, over a period of a fair bit of time, every authority has had some type of difficulty or challenge with this issue and this could be a solution. I am just curious as to why the Minister would say it in a manner of building their business case. Have they not seen or recognized this as a particular problem and a potential solution?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make sure. I was just looking at health services programs, and I understand it’s a bit of a challenge here in some particular regions where they qualify for doctors under their health portfolio of funding, and in some cases they’re unable to hire physicians. There has been a logjam on the policies. I understand it’s some method, and I’m just trying to hash it out here. It may take a bit of work to get to the bottom of it.

As I understand it, if you have doctor money, it’s meant to be spent for doctors, but in some cases they can staff positions in some...

I’m happy with that at this particular time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to use this occasion to refer back to my Member’s statement today when I talk about the downtown day centre. It is important that I continue to emphasize this. This is more like a territorial shelter that offers no programming as of yet, that I hope will happen, but it offers opportunity for people from around the North a place to go, who are homeless.

As I highlighted in my comments, there have been some stats taken that about a third of the daily users actually only identify themselves as Yellowknifers and it is the rest, actually, that sort of draws some...

Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Has the Department of Health and Social Services seen the establishment of the downtown day shelter a success story? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is a different answer. I will have to say it is a little more clear than the last couple he supplied the House. You would think the department has been evaluating this year after year over the last three and a half years. You would think that they would have some grip of what is going on. He said January.

What type of consultation has the department done with the public to realize the value of this particular service in Yellowknife that has been helping homeless people with places to go during the day, warmth in the winter and certainly washrooms that was a much needed service...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think the Minister is clear on his answer one way or the other. It is a yes or no question. Are we going to fund it into the following fiscal year? Yes or no. Why do we keep talking about we are funding it to the end of this fiscal year? Why do you keep telling me that? We already know that. Everybody in the public knows. I want to know and the public wants to know, yes or no.

Is the government going to get behind this project and fund it starting in the next fiscal year that starts April 1, 2013? Yes or no. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to acknowledge how, with great delicacy, the Minister avoided, really, the question.

Is the department going to fund the downtown day shelter in the next fiscal year? We already well know, in this room and on the street, that the day shelter is being funded by the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority up until March 31st of next year. We already know that. Tell us something we don’t know.

Will this new funding, if available, which I am waiting to be confirmed by the Minister here today, include programming funding so we can provide people with services more than just doors...