Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, I’m very concerned about the condition of the Diamond Jenness Secondary School and where it is in terms of this government’s priorities — a year of new school openings and some very large budgets, shall we say, to go to address the needs of educating students in other communities and other regions. Could the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment please advise what the status is of this government addressing the substandard conditions at Diamond Jenness Secondary School?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

Mr. Speaker, you know, interestingly, I’m probably getting a clearer communication from the Premier from asking these kinds of probing questions on the floor of the House. I’m sure the people in the North are glad to hear the answers to these questions today.

Since we’re on the subject of process a bit, I have one last question for the Premier, and it has to do with his mandate as Premier. If the Premier had to categorize where he gets the majority of his advice — because nobody can operate alone; no one can operate in isolation — where would the Premier say he gets the majority of his advice...

Mr. Speaker, I’m glad the Premier realizes that his mandate comes from the Members of this Legislative Assembly. When he embarks on a conversation with the Prime Minister or anybody else, he is representing us. That’s why it would be really good for us to know what he’s going to say to them before he says it.

Now, we did get a quasi-apology today here in the House as to why the Regular Members were not informed of this fairly significant proposal to the Prime Minister in Inuvik. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen everybody for a long time. Everybody was out at the Gwich’in healing camp. He had just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been listening to my colleagues here today talking about the lack of communication with Regular Members on this side. I have been in this government now for four terms. I have never seen it worse than it is right now. I am feeling extremely discouraged, to be honest. I hate to admit discouragement, but I feel discouraged.

Any time we offer an opinion or any kind of criticism, even if we try to be constructive on this side of House, it seems to be met with, so early in this term, almost kind of a mocking arrogance from the other side of the House — the demeanour...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to deal with Bill 10, An Act to Amend the Pharmacy Act, and Bill 13, An Act to Amend the Legal Profession Act, today in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. Speaker, I guess this is not really the place to have a debate about whether or not the Regular Members want to sit on the strategic investment committees or not. There’s a whole reason for that. I’ll do a Member’s statement on that another day.

But I’d like to ask the Premier: if he had to name one thing that would be his goal to accomplish, that would be the legacy of the 16th Assembly — from all the dialogue, communication, strategizing, retreats, sit down talks he’s had with Members — what would be the thing that the 16th Assembly could advance and be remembered for? I’ve heard...

Mr. Speaker, in our style of consensus government I would like to ask the Premier: from where does he get his mandate to talk to anybody, let alone the Government of Canada, on devolution and resource revenue sharing?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to move that we report progress.

Motion carried.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So how do we monitor that? Say if the mine gives a contract to a southern contractor; they have southern employees. I understand what you are saying about Workers’ Compensation. They would have to have that. I would imagine that the mines would not have people on their work site who don’t have Workers’ Compensation, so that may be the measure by which we know these folks are operating in the North.

Do they need anything else besides WCB? Do they need a business licence to operate in the North? How do we monitor it?