Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, the program that sorry, my apologies. The pilot program, I believe has been running for about seven years, and she was a member of the social development committee so I'm sure she's familiar with the types of issues.

Would the Minister be willing to meet with city council before the end of this fiscal year to discuss funding and supporting the program through health and social services through some type of contribution agreement to the city of Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today's questions will be directed to the Minister of Housing. So I'd like to start off by explaining or a little preamble to my question.

Recently I got asked, as many Members in Yellowknife here, to help the selection process of board members for the Yellowknife Housing Authority. It also came with a letter to inform us that the housing policy only allows people to be appointed to two terms on the board to up to a maximum of six years. Times have changed, Mr. Speaker, whereas many people are no longer interested in serving boards, and it's a struggle of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, successive Ministers of MACA over the years have continued to blame the feds on the closing of the funding gap for municipalities. Mr. Speaker, if they moved any faster, it would almost look backwards in my humble opinion. I mean, it's effectively perfunctory at best.

Mr. Speaker, only hiding behind the feds and blaming them is a play book that can only be used so many times. The issue is perennial. We hear it over and over and over again, moving slow, yes, we want to do this. The next page on the Minister's blame book usually has to do with I'm fighting for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table an excerpt from the Government of Nunavut's Public Service Annual Report 20212022, specifically highlighted the pages are around direct appointments and its reporting info brackets. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe this program serves many in our community that are vulnerable. It's a no judgement program. Whether they're there because they choose to be there or their demons get them there, whatever it is, it's a good program, rather than leaving them on the street.

Mr. Speaker, my last question or my previous question wasn't about just the city of Yellowknife. Does the Minister sorry, in the Minister's ability as Minister I mean, she certainly would be welcomed to fund the Yellowknife Women's Society directly and set aside. So would the Minister make sure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to follow up on my Member's statement today, and I want to begin by saying when I was first elected to city council back in the 2000, the fall of 2000 that is, I was given a book. It was called Dogs, Ditches and Dumps, and what it did is kind of describe the mandate of a city councillor and the jobs you need to do. So since that time, I've elected to become an MLA and I've noticed that the council mandate is not in congress anymore with what it was really intended. In other words, they're picking up programs that really rightly should go on to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me good and great pleasure to recognize Mr. Mark Heyck. He is the current executive director of Arctic Energy Alliance, a very important organization to our whole territory on helping people live better and more efficiently and fighting many of the challenges of our environmental impacts that we're making. As well as he's also, I'd like to acknowledge, a former city councillor and a former city mayor of our great community of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the course of this Simpson government, they will be moving forward with probably hundreds of direct appointments. Previous governments have been known as if that's their hallmark to be proud of, these secret appointments.

My question for the Premier is how is the Premier going to bring some level of transparency to direct appointments that nobody knows about where they give permanent fulltime jobs to time we know nothing about until one day they just show up at work? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there lies the opportunity. The Premier could have had the courage to put money behind the portfolio and dignity and respect finally in a portfolio that's supposed to mean so much to so many. Why doesn't the Premier have the courage to make that proposal to Members now? Because not one of us would say no to supporting seniors. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to my Member's statement today, I want to point out to how important I should say maybe it this way. I want to reaffirm how important seniors and elders are to me and our community. And I have no doubt every Member on the Member's side is feeling just as strongly that we care very deeply for our seniors and our elders, and we want to support them.

So my first question would be directed to the Premier, asking the question and perhaps maybe he can explain as the question why we don't have at least one Minister fully responsible for seniors and...