Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Capital Acquisition Plan. We’re going to look at a new schedule, and that’s good. That’s good. But my question really was: before the business plan starts, will the Minister be bringing forward a plan of how to address this? As he said already, it’s coming to committee, but will we see it before the business plan starts this fall?

I appreciate the fact that I was tied up with constituency matters, so I may have missed the earlier answers on this.

I needed a date for that. It causes me to wonder, and if no one’s raised it — I certainly hope they have, but I’ll ask it anyway — why do we continue to provide services that are outside of life and limb if we’re not being paid for these costs? Is there a reason why we continue to provide services for Nunavut if they’re not paying their costs? What does this represent as the greater amount of money, in the sense of business used with the Nunavut government?

It’s really appropriate, although we’re not allowed to waive items here, that the colour of the Main Estimates is gold. I had a reference to it recently as “it’s the gold book for tendering,” and this provides a reference.

The issue really is: would he be willing to look at this and address this? I didn’t hear that clearly. It sort of was a wishy-washy answer. I want to hear that this government is willing to act, to operate in the best way for the people of the Northwest Territories, and giving the numbers out is not sound management. Will the Minister commit to including this item as an issue...

I’ll accept that as a commitment from the Speaker to review that in the next while.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a great pleasure to acknowledge a constituent of mine. Jessica Hopkins, a graduate of Sir John Franklin High School, recently won the Canadian Millennium Scholarship for excellent academic performance, innovation and her exceptional community service. Jessica won this because she strives to nurture in others a love of reading and helped to implement the project that matched middle and elementary school students for one-on-one reading and word games.

She is also active in environment matters. She took on the responsibility of researching and implementing an...

Mr. Chairman, I think the Speaker has well described the issue. I’m not suggesting every specific commissioner position should be a resident, and I think it was highlighted that, well, it’s maybe conflict-of-interest issues that are more important to observe and that a non-resident would be more appropriate. As well, there’s an expertise issue that from time to time will surface. But, Mr. Chairman, the issue I’m strictly raising is that for some of these positions we’ll certainly have competent Northerners who are able to be there: attract them as Northerners and get them to stay here and...

That’s the answer I’m looking for, and I’m glad to hear it. And, of course, I’m sure the Speaker will keep us up to date on the movement of that.

Thank you. I look forward to any future discussion on that. I hope the Speaker would keep me informed. This is an issue I brought to the Speaker’s Office. Since I’ve been here as a Member, it’s been an issue raised to me on a number of occasions by constituents who’ve come here and there’s no parking because the parking lot is full. I don’t think creating a new parking lot specific to parking would be the right way to go. I think we could meet a couple of these problems head-on by widening the road. I look forward to seeing some details and also further encourage the Speaker to keep my office...

Will that be Health Minister to Health Minister? Will that be Finance Minister to Finance Minister, Premier to Premier? What are the expectations of this? Is this a meeting to introduce each other and sides or points of view, or is this a meeting to bring closure to this matter?

Mr. Chairman, has the Speaker’s Office, vis-à-vis through the board, ever considered winding the loop on the roadway? You could be seen as updating the road to somewhat better conditions. Furthermore, we could widen it for safety reasons, and that could help facilitate parking around the loop on one side when we do have these occasional big bursts of capacity being overtaken during special events here. Has that ever been considered or seriously examined? We could help avoid maybe blasting more rocks or carving into some other area, which seems a little unfeasible at this time.