Robert Hawkins

The Minister had said we need more consultation with the public and then he said a few other things I didn’t quite write down, but he also said works towards this with the standing committee. I just want to be clear, in my experience here, that almost sounded like a commitment that the Department of Justice will investigate this issue and create some type of public dialogue. Can I get that clearly on the record today, that the Minister of Justice will create some type of dialogue framework or discussion paper, get out, speak to committee as well as speak to the public?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue that I raised today in my Member’s statement will be the focus of my questions to the Minister of Justice. I keep raising the issue of fair rent for working families. My first question to the Minister of Justice is, what is stopping his department from looking into the issue of some type of rent control that provides protection for working families due to increased cost to the rent?

Is the Minister willing to, if I was to refresh the Minister with that name here later today…refresh his memory, that is; I said refresh the Minister...

---Laughter

…I’ll leave that up to his own discretion. Mr. Speaker, if I remind the Minister later of this name, would he be willing to send someone down tomorrow morning to make sure that this business that I would describe as a mock northern business, to make sure that they, sort of, get the treatment that they deserve when we have true northern businesses wanting to make further investment but they don’t believe that there’s a true level...

Mr. Speaker, I’m only asking these questions because it seems it’s being asked in the public. I appreciate the frustration the Minister may be having, but the fact is there are people out there concerned that it doesn’t have a mandate and there’s no blueprint on how they converge. Mr. Speaker, I’ve heard answers from the Premier today and he seems to assume they will converge sometime in the fall, if they do. I’d like to know, without a mandate and terms of reference, how do we stay on track, how do we stay focused, how does it make sense and how do we know where we’re going without that type...

Mr. Speaker, that’s all well and good, but why do we not have a terms of reference and a mandate for this and something on paper that demonstrates how it plugs into the bigger picture for solutions for rates and costs going forward? Why is there no mandate? Why is there no terms of reference? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services in regards to medical travel. Mr. Speaker, I have a constituent who has travelled to Edmonton regularly for medical travel reasons. They have been referred to see specialists, of course. The question of them going on medical travel isn’t the issue, but this time around they chose to rent a car because it was cheaper than spending the money on taxi fare. As I understand it, it worked to half the rate of the typical taxi fares. In this age of trying to find ways to do business just a little better and wiser...

See, the Premier just doesn’t get it. The fact is, we have all been here for years and have been saying the power rates are too high. I’m not sure where he’s been. Maybe he’s going down the wrong road. The fact is, we’ve been saying the organization is the problem. Everything’s the problem. I’m not sure what information you’re going to get that we haven’t been saying here for years. We have honourable Members who have been struggling for years, including yourself when you were on this side of the House, to raise these issues. So if you’re going to create a discussion just to talk, I don’t see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, have questions regarding the Power Corporation. I’ll point out that the Premier quite lively created an analogy of a car. I’ll tell you, the problem with this car is it’s full of Bondo and it’s because the driver has driven it into the ground. It’s the driver that’s the problem. The fact is, there is no direction on this.

I’d like to hear from the Premier where the terms of reference are on these reviews and how they plug into each other. Because they seem to just go haphazardly into it and will converge eventually, and don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. Well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to speak to the issue of concerns regarding the multi reviews of the NWT Power Corporation, as my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen has. Mr. Speaker, it has been my experience when a company as big as ATCO comes forward knocking on our door in the spirit of partnership, it is either in the context to share the risk or they want to share in the profit. We would be fooling ourselves to really think that ATCO needs us, so let’s stop kidding ourselves. They are eyeing our long-term projects. With the Taltson Expansion Project just about to go, with Bear River hydro...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the issues here we are really facing is the fact that this used to be a MACA program and then MACA transfers the community gas money and the gas tax money, and then they say sorry, we don’t do this anymore. That is sort of one of the problems that we are faced with. That is why these motions keep coming up.

I have often said that there is a policy problem here, where the government used to do this but then they decide that now they are not in this business. I don’t think that there has ever been a heart-to-heart deciding on what government should be responsible...