Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister Roland, for your good answer. Mr. Speaker, the Minister talked about the fiscal nature. Typically, in the budget, we staff these positions at 100 percent even though we know there are absences in those positions. So the fiscal nature doesn’t apply to this because we resource that area to the fullest of the budget potential of those staffing positions. Twenty-five percent of that job is not being done. That is of urgent nature. So I am not sure what he refers to when he says if it is of an urgent nature, something could be done. They don’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister didn’t mention or he left out, probably accidentally, of course, the rate that we have absent for the last five years. How many employees have not been in that position for five years? What is the constant rate of absence in that section? What does the Minister plan to do to staff these positions in the Audit Bureau immediately? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to recognize a few people in the gallery. We have Mr. Jeske and we have Mrs. Braden up in the gallery. I’d like to recognize them. My new constituency assistant, Coady Summerfield, will be in the gallery as well. I’d also like to take time to recognize the Year of the Rooster as Ms. Lee did, I’m saving it for this time. My wife is of Chinese background and I’d like to wish everyone Happy New Year in Cantonese, which would be…(English not provided)…which basically means Happy New Year everyone. Lastly, although he’s not in the gallery, he’s sitting next to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in the House today to speak about an important issue of internal audits and to assure that our system is accountable, ethical and efficient in a public service. The unit responsible for internal audits for the GNWT is the Audit Bureau. It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that a significant number of important positions in the Audit Bureau are currently vacant. This has been the situation for quite some time. This is a real problem, Mr. Speaker, and something should be done about this concern because it affects all NWT residents.

Mr. Speaker, this issue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to seek unanimous consent to return to tabling of documents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Apparently that public service announcement has been brought to you by the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board. Mr. Speaker, I have the rates here back to the year 2000. So for the 2000-01 budget, we had six absences. In 2001-02, there were four absences. In 2003-04, we had five absences. The Minister was correct; we had three absences for this past 2004-05 year. Mr. Speaker, I can understand that there is probably little latitude and movement about offering people more pay and whatnot to attract people. I appreciate his little plug there to look for recruitment, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today was about the importance of internal audits and the lack thereof in the sense of human resource capital to do those important jobs. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board tell me exactly how many positions are currently vacant in the Audit Bureau and the average vacancy rates for the past five years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I am not ringing the bell to say something is wrong. I am not ringing the bell to suggest something horrible is going on in our public service that we need to catch up to. What I am saying is that we need to do something before something goes wrong, before it is way too late.

We have all heard about the sponsorship scandal and the types of things that are going on at present. Mr. Speaker, last month, we learned about a case in Saskatchewan where over a million dollars of government funding intended for those most in need had been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If all three Ministers are going to be dealing with this, maybe I will send my next question to the Premier. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if we just continue to direct it to the Minister of Finance or what. I look for direction, but I will direct it to the Minister of Finance and allow you to redirect it as appropriate. Mr. Speaker, we need to tighten our belts. That doesn’t cost money. Mr. Speaker, it has been mentioned that we use the Arctic Energy Alliance and we have been. We fund them through our programs. We can do this. I am not talking about expensive...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I won’t go to the length of yesterday’s transcripts, but I will refer to pages 2380, 2381, 2382, and 2383. I will just paraphrase to put it all together. The Minister spoke about departments consulting with RWED, the Department of Housing. He talked about on an annual basis. Some of these problems we can’t build into a budget exercise, anticipated costs, operational things are being done. We realize that there are going to be some impacts, but to mitigate them, we have to work forward at the time with real bills. Mr. Speaker, I am basically talking...