David Krutko

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my remarks and I apologize.

Can the Minister or the deputy tell us which communities are those?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just thought you were going to...

---Interjection

I’d just like to ask the Minister why is it that all the positions are at headquarters. Shouldn’t they be closer to the communities if that’s who we’re servicing is the community operations? Why haven’t we looked at the possibility of devolving these positions closer to the communities they serve?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of Finance. I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance if there can be a financial audit done in regard to the capital housing allocations in the Inuvik region and exactly why those allocations are not being spent in the communities they’re earmarked for and they’re benefitting the community of Inuvik by way of all the contractors receiving all the contracts. Could you check into that and see if there is a possibility of investigation to how those dollars are being let?

Mr. Chair, as we all heard from the federal government, I thought there was a deadline. I think it’s August 31st, or whatever. It’s a federal deadline and realistically these are federal dollars. Is there a guarantee that we can carry over? Because I know some of my communities still have not been able to deal with their solid waste sites because of the location outside the community or because the way the contracting requirements are under the program in which the costs came in well over the budget that they’re working from. The same thing applies to water treatment plants and whatnot, that...

In the past one of the ideas was to start selling off some of the government housing units regardless if they were surplus housing or they were considered that come to in the life retrofits, it basically might be cheaper to just dispose of those units than trying to put any more money into them. I think we have to realize we have less money and we need to find ways to bring in new revenues or quit throwing good money after bad, knowing that we have to dispose of those assets, get rid of them, get them off our books, and take the O and M money or maintenance money and reinvest it into new...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, it’s an application-based program and certainly Fort Simpson and Fort McPherson have been responding to accidents on the highway. They’ve had situations where people have died on the highway and they’ve had to go up and respond to that. I think that from the experience of those responses that the community has gone to, that we would have to ensure that they’re not equipped but also allow them the training they require to do those types of responses. In some cases they’re pretty gory and I don’t think anybody wants to come upon an accident and realize that there...

I believe they had followed policies, that’s why I have 45 percent unemployment in my riding, which I never had three years ago, but under the regime of this government, it has forced companies to leave my riding and go to operate out of Yellowknife and get work in the southern region because they can’t get work in their home communities. I’d like to ask the Premier if it’s fair that all the contractors doing work in my riding are coming from Inuvik who are getting $70 million of capital expenditures in that community and yet my communities are going hungry because of unemployment rates at 45...

Again, Mr. Chair, I’d like to ask the Minister in regard to emergency measure plans that are in place, how many are in place and operational and how many are still being worked on by communities?