David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice. Yesterday I had the opportunity to raise a couple of issues with him. The first one I want to talk about is the idea of locating a federal penitentiary here in the Northwest Territories. Yesterday the Minister stated that because they were dealing with the courthouse issue and had to set some priorities, they weren’t able to get to this idea that I had brought to him a while back.

The courthouse project has not been on the capital plan at least for the past two years, so I’m trying to make some sense of the Minister’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could have done this under opening comments, I guess, but I’ll do it under the directorate. Being an MLA, obviously we field a number of calls and complaints, usually from constituents who are government employees or looking at getting positions with the Government of the Northwest Territories. I just wanted to make a comment, Mr. Chairman. In the past year or 16 months, year to 16 months, there’s been a marked improvement by the department, I think, in handling issues that have come up with constituents and I’m not getting the number of calls or complaints that I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I just see that it seems to me that the government and Cabinet Minister are afraid to step out of their comfort zone to take a chance, to take some risks and get out there and promote our Territory. There seems to me to be a lack of a vision that this government has, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps we need a visionary type of exercise with Cabinet and with Regular Members to sit down and try to chart out a new vision, or what we think is the vision, where we want to go and the opportunities that are out there, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister, perhaps if the...

Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking earlier I talked of other jurisdictions, other provinces and territories, for that matter, in this country that, to me, seem much more aggressive, they seem to pursue things with much more vigor and passion than our government does. I’m talking about opportunities like I mentioned earlier: federal penitentiary; I’m talking about opportunities for an increased military presence here in the North; I’m talking about the jobs that are located in Ottawa; I’m talking about the film industry, looking at innovation and technology and opportunities in that regard.

You...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, we wouldn’t be using our own money. It would be a federal penitentiary. A federal institution, much like I’ve asked this government to go to Ottawa and demand that those 800-or-so-odd jobs that are located in Gatineau in Ottawa that pertain to northern development are located here. It’s much the same as asking this government to go to the federal government and demand that more military jobs are located here in the Northwest Territories. It’s the same thing. It’s not our money. So how hard is it to go and ask for it? That’s my question. When will the Minister...

As a government I believe we have to be searching out opportunities. I disagree with the Minister. Here’s an opportunity to get some real economic development in one of our communities here in the Northwest Territories. I’m talking 300 jobs, multiple families with the possibility of moving to the Northwest Territories, increasing our revenue stream, business opportunities, contract opportunities for businesses. This is something the government has to pay attention to. They have to have some vision, they have to have some passion, and they have to have some vigor. They’re low when it comes to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Yesterday, we had the Minister of Justice in front of us during Committee of the Whole and I wanted to expand on a couple of items related to the Department of Justice that I brought to his attention.

The first is an issue that I’ve discussed with him previously and that is the fact that there are a number of aging penitentiaries across this country that sooner or later the federal government will have to replace and look at building a new federal penal institution somewhere in this country. My belief and desire is for that facility to be located here in the Northwest...

When you start looking at us approving this $15 million -- and I don’t believe that’s the end of it, I think there will be more -- you go back in time and I don’t think the project made any sense once the government had to ante up that extra $2 million. That decision was made by the previous government. My constituents and the people that I represent and the reason I’m here are to hold people accountable and responsible for decisions they make or don’t make. There have been alarm bells going off on this project since day one. There have been problems with the subtrades. There have been...

Now that the project has, like I said, for all intents and purposes, become a Government of the Northwest Territories project, I think the reporting on that project should be more readily available, let’s say, than it has been in the past. We should know on a day-to-day basis what’s happening with that project. I’m not saying I want to know on a day-to-day basis, but at least if Cabinet could keep Regular Members updated once a month or quarterly, even, as the project moves forward, I think that would be good. It’s always better to hear from our Cabinet colleagues than from the guy or woman on...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I’d just like to start out by applying a little bit to what Mr. McLeod had to say. I think the project did make sense when it cost $60 million and it would be self-financing. It made absolutely no sense when the government had to ante up the $2 million extra a year indexed, I must say, for the next 35 years and commit every government for the next 35 years to that expenditure. I would beg to differ with the Minister on whether the project made any sense. Also given the fact that it was a substantial negative cost-benefit to this Territory by building the bridge...