Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to return to one of my favourite subjects, and that’s direct appointments. As we’ve all heard at length repeatedly over the years, my concern that they’re not publicly accounted for and whatnot. Rather than spending a lot of time, let’s go straight to the Minister of Human Resources and get right to the bottom.

What type of public reporting does the Minister see is available for the public to know how many direct appointments we are doing, how often do we make them, and what departments receive them? Let’s just start off with some simple questions like that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The question I want to bring up today is about schoolyard safety.

One of the schools in my riding, which is Mildred Hall School, has a fire hydrant right in the middle of the playground. The children can’t play soccer or play baseball without safety concerns.

From my research, no school in the Northwest Territories, or even Alberta, has this type of safety problem. Actually, it’s beyond ridiculous that the children have to worry about this. In a situation where we have declining physical activity...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly was an early advocate for the ombudsman during my first term in the 15th Assembly, and then in the 16th Assembly I did question, similarly as the Premier had done, wondering about the value and the challenges put before us.

I often wondered: would the MLAs be putting themselves out of a job by having an ombudsman because people would first think that is the person we should be going to. But over time I have learned even more. I have been given the chance to understand the complexities and particular issues and appreciate how challenging they can be. I think...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to be very clear on the record. I think that there are cases and reasons why we do direct appointments, and I am certainly not against all of them by any means. I want to make sure that’s absolutely clear. I’m only about public transparency, and that’s really what it comes down to. Frankly, my question, lastly, for the Minister of Human Resources would be: Minus the recent devolution transfer of appointments – because some of them, if not all of them, had to be considered direct appointments – what type of direct appointments are we talking about that have fallen...

If it’s provided to committee, of course, as we all know through the various channels, levels and scrutiny we receive, of course, every piece of that information is confidential. What public reporting can be done on this particular subject?

Thank you. I appreciate that answer. I’m not sure I want to screw it up by asking another one and getting him to retract it. But does the Minister see a possibility of working on the solution within the next few weeks so we can build it into the upcoming budget?

Recently the Department of Education has taken back about $400,000 from this school board. I know the Department of Education – we don’t need the exact dollar – turns back money every single year to the Department of Finance, and I know they’re always happy to get that money back.

So what I’m trying to get at is: Does the Minister see...

[English translation not provided.]

I am practicing my French, and some days I practice better than others.

Mr. Speaker, what I was trying to say there was today’s final statement will be on fracking technology. Our environment, our water and our land are very important.

Industry is working very hard to reduce the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. General Electric and Statoil, a Norwegian oil and gas producer, are working on waterless fracking. Instead of water, these companies plan to use supercritical carbon dioxide to enable the flow of gas and oil to their wells.

Su...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve been taking several calls from various families across the North, be it Inuvik, Yellowknife or even Hay River, and frankly, they are all expressing similar concerns about access to services on the ground and timely access to services on the ground that are relevant to the need.

Maybe the Minister can provide some update to that, because folks are feeling boxed in and powerless to be able to help under the present act. Maybe if the Minister could talk about those areas. What other areas can we do in that little space between today and when the new act becomes official, because...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This Assembly’s very loyal and dedicated committee has some opening remarks, and I’d like to now read them officially in the record.

The Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure sees the development of the Economic Opportunities and Mineral Development Strategies as major initiatives of the 17th Legislative Assembly. The policy direction of these strategies and their implementation and action plans will have significant barriers on the work of the government departments and the economic direction of the Northwest Territories over the next 10 to 20...

The barriers of the current act must be overcome as quickly as possible, because access must be unobstructed in all regions of our territory. I’ve heard from people who’ve contacted me directly from Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith and I’ve even talked to families here in Yellowknife and they’re all saying the same thing, that the families are struggling and they really want to help but they feel powerless. Professionals have told me that they feel handcuffed because their act is archaic. So many other things have been said as well.

Concerns such as lack of community treatment provisions in a...