Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the last area was concerned about timing and, again, like I say, I’m not criticizing how fast it is, it’s just exceptionally unusual how swiftly it moved. Was there any particular liability issues on why it had to move so quickly? Was there a legal movement swell elsewhere across Canada or some type of mechanisms of a similar nature? Again, I just find it extremely pleasing but unusual that it moved so quickly. To hear the firefighters route an important issue is not to downplay the importance of the issue or certainly the organization. I hear all the time how...

The last question I have is, obviously, it was a collective push, certainly by the Yellowknife firefighters and the Association of Firefighters of Canada and certainly they worked, well, obviously with WSCC in order to get this on the government’s agenda in order to make the amendments. My question would be when we were initially approached by this initiative. I’m just trying to get a sense of how well things worked and rolled out in the sense from the original contact we can do this and the amendment we have before us today. I’m just trying to get a sense of how responsive the WSCC had been...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just want to use the occasion to ask a similar question I posed to the Minister and certainly the department on the list of diseases that I used in committee. During Committee of the Whole I had asked and I thought it would be important to put it on the official record as well as how comprehensive or updated is this new changing to our listing of diseases for the workers’ compensation to cover for full-time firefighters? I do have another couple of quick questions, but we’ll start with that particular one. The reason I ask now as I asked then was to ensure that we’re fully...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I pointed out that I had a couple documents that I would table, pictures of the Minister smiling with kids. The first document is Northern Journal, dated Tuesday, August 26, 2014, and the second item is from the NWT Literacy Week 2015, September 21-28, and the Minister again is smiling with kids. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure held its public review of Bill 65, An Act to Amend the Safety Act, on September 17, 2015. The committee thanks the Minister and his staff for presenting the bill.

Bill 65 amends the Safety Act to harmonize with the new Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, including regulation-making power and authority for three sections and with the new federal Workplace Hazardous Information System legislation.

The committee recognizes that extensive consultation informed the draft of the new Occupational Health...

I could go on at length how the president of the association had told me how the old DM and the present DM met with them and told them they’re out the door and they have to figure it out on their own. But you know what? If all we’re going to do here is point fingers, we haven’t solved a darn thing about the daycare spaces that will be in serious crisis about it.

Let’s go to the next problem, which is what is the department really going to do to help them? Can they help them in the same way we helped the folks in Inuvik, who deserved and needed good help? This government has been known to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It`s not my intent to continue this all night, so I’ll just be quick. I know there’s no willingness on the department to make that change and we have to be very clear, distracted driving at the time is equal if not worse than drunk driving. I`m not a scientist and I`m not going to try to explain which one’s worse, I’m just going to say equal, for safety’s sake.

At the moment that particular individual stopped, the crime itself has been stopped, they’re no longer impaired in the sense of mental impairment of driving has been taken away and I think that’s probably some of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I raised the issue of the Yellowknife Day Care situation here that’s in a GNWT-owned building. I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about why he’s forcing them out of that particular building by July 31st of next year. Furthermore, what is in there in terms of flexibility considering the circumstance of the single point that 55 children have nowhere to go? That also means it impacts the parents as well as the more than dozen staff that work there. I want to first start off with why is the department forcing this...

Well, I’m glad to hear that. It doesn’t surprise me from our earlier discussions, of course, that we had heard that those types of things are issues. I think I remember reading or hearing about the case in the Yukon where you’re arguing definition of what distracted driving is and what constitutes on the phone and definition on there, and that’s kind of what I’m really getting at, is that it’s great that we have a definition on the books but sometimes folks in practical sense don’t view it that way. So really what I’m suggesting is I encourage them through a public awareness campaign of some...

What I was trying to say is this daycare has 12 out of the 24 licenced allotted spaces for children in Yellowknife between the ages of one and two years old. Those are precious spaces because they’re critical so parents can go back to work, otherwise what would they do? So I’m asking the Minister to stop and think about what they’re doing before they kick the kids to the street.

There are solutions. This government has given money to other daycares. A couple years ago, our government gave $1 million to one that needed it desperately. So the fact is there are solutions out there and we have to...