Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I think there are a lot of partners out there that would be more than willing to engage, such as the Canadian Tourism Commission — the CTC. The fact is that I think the potential does exist out there. The fact is we’re missing out on a huge market that comes to the Northwest Territories, such as the southern Canadian market as well as the American market.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to hear what else the Minister is doing. Is he advocating for a potential hotel tax to help find new revenues so we can reinvest in tourism advertising, or is he searching for other types of joint...

Mr. Speaker, I’m not used to a “yes” from this Minister so quickly. Now, what does “immediate” mean in this particular case?

Laughter.

Because at the rate government moves, “immediate” could be the 17th Assembly. So I’d like this Minister’s definition of what “immediate” means. Are we going to see it before the next sitting?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re all aware of cost overruns on many of our infrastructure projects, which have been spiralling out of control for a number of years. It’s something we need to be very concerned about and finally get on top of, because projects get cancelled and deferred.

It has come to my attention that one of the contributing factors to this problem is the way the fees are structured for project consultants. The fees are structured based on a percentage, which actually may give the consultant an incentive to encourage cost overruns. Mr. Speaker, that is not the way we should be...

Can the Minister tell this House today: would a typical tourist, whether they are rubber-tire or they come here just to fish — things like that — spend more money than a business traveller? As far as I see it, a business traveller would come anyway. So who spends more money?

Mr. Speaker, it’s well known that I’m a big supporter of tourism. I can tell you honestly that I’ve got the scars to prove it.

The fact is the Territorial government, I think, is being outpaced by other territories such as the Yukon, and even Newfoundland, about promoting tourism and regional tourism. I’m not a guy who goes to bed too early at night, I should say, and sometimes at one o’clock in the morning I see these wonderful ads by Newfoundland. They really draw you in, and I can’t help but think: “Jeez, I’d love to go to Newfoundland.” And then a few minutes later there’s a Yukon ad, and...

I’m glad to hear it’s at least being discussed, but the way the Minister coins it is that status quo will continue to be the process that we’ll live by. I cannot justify that we don’t attach a fixed fee as opposed to percentages, because we cannot justify losing people on jobs over poor fiscal management that this government’s been running by.

So will this Minister, who can do the job, clearly and immediately take on this task and report back to this House on his findings on a way we can save money and fix the process so consultants don’t have the advantage of these projects by encouraging them...

Well, I’m going to challenge the FMB Minister at this time by saying: when you’re a decision maker — and you are the decision maker, by the way, in this particular case — you don’t need the committee to tell you to think about something. I think it’s well within your authority to look at and evaluate the process. When we talk about stepping forward in our $135 million process of reductions and streamlining and course correction, this is a very simple process we could discuss. I guarantee you it wouldn’t cost $133,000.

I would ask the Minister, once again: would he take it back for further...

I wish to assure everyone that this is not a game by any standard. The fact is that this department seems to stonewall the approach of building up any relationship with these clients of aftercare. Mr. Speaker, I am sure we do better care with follow-up of our capital assets and taking care of them than we do with these clients after they receive treatment.

Do we have a process that we can engage today that would allow, and set it up in such a way, that these addiction treatment counsellors, once they are done a program with these clients, we can continue to follow up with them from time to time...

With good reason, the judges have an independent commission to review their salaries, and I stress “with good reason.” If I understand it correctly, it goes back to an act in 1998.

As I've explained to the Minister before, it seems as if we've hired the most expensive professionals to review the salaries of the most expensive professionals. Then we have to have someone to sit on both sides — who again is a very expensive consultant — to come up with a simple percentage. I don't belittle the actual salary, but it seems like a very expensive process to come up with a percentage just to say...

Well, I guess that if the Minister didn’t want to answer the question, she could have just said no.

Mr. Speaker, my next question — and I’m hoping to get a better answer out of this. I would also infer from the response in that letter that, if the client does not contact the referral service, there is no follow-up at the local level by the Mental Health Addictions counsellors. So the problem is, what is the Minister’s difficulty with the issue of the additions treatment folks contacting the client to ensure that there’s some follow-up? She seems to have some apprehension about it. What’s the...