Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn’t sure if the Minister was going to provide that in writing or not. He said if the committee wants that. This is very unusual, in my experience, that we now need the whole committee of the Assembly to request information. Is that the position of the Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about the Stanton Territorial Project that’s coming before us. It’s not an issue of the merits of the renovations, I think those are well-articulated out there how important this facility, this hospital is to the Northerners and we need to make sure it’s kept up to speed and certainly up to date and able to provide the needed services. The issue really comes down to this, and it’s about the money, how we renovate.

So I’m going to ask the Minister of Public Works these questions, which first off is: Why is the path of Public Works...

Would the Minister be able to epistolize that?

I would ask the Minister, could he elaborate a little more, such as some of the details that they keep?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe I will reword the questions, just so it is clearly asked and can be clearly answered. At this present moment, the Department of Human Resources issued a snapshot which I know they do on a regular basis. How many vacancies in the public service would be recognized in that snapshot? Thank you.

Sorry, Madam Chair. I thought we agreed this morning to use our time in a manner that made sense, where we could go back and forth with our 10 minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t need copies of all the letters. I think if the Premier just sends a note and says he’s sent them all out I’ll take him at his word. He’s an honourable fellow.

Is the Premier aware of anyone proceeding in a similar manner? A couple of weeks ago, Premier Kathleen Wynne talked about her strong support for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls and the important issue is that other Premiers consider this an important issue. My question really is down to is he aware of any other provincial or territorial Legislative Assembly...

Now to the part about the motion being forwarded to all of his provincial and territorial Premier colleagues, waiting for that particular answer as to has he had a chance to forward it to them or speak to them about it and are we aware of any sort of initiatives being developed or considered. Thank you.

I appreciate that information. Is the Minister able to speak to how long some of those inactive positions have been kept on the books? If I wrote my number down correctly, I think he said inactive positions had come down from 271 to 218. If I am incorrect, I will let him state that for the record. What type of detail do we have on these particular positions? I’m more curious on how long they’ve been inactive. I mean, that’s essentially the question and time is up, so I’ll leave it to him to answer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Industry has told me that it could run anywhere between 20 and 30 percent more because we are going to renovate and build while it is in full operation. I want to understand, does the Department of Public Works realize and accept that additional costs of this project, which we all know is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is the department proceeding with that full knowledge and appreciation that additional costs are unnecessarily being borne by the taxpayer when we can’t even afford it? I am not going back to the Finance Minister’s statements, but he has...