Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 93(4) and have Committee Report 3-15(6) be moved into Committee of the Whole for today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

But especially, I'd like to take a moment to thank the hard-working staff of the committee, Mr. Speaker. I have to tell you that we did intense travels: six communities in six days, covering places like Tuktoyaktuk, Ulukhaktok, Colville Lake, Behchoko. Not the most accessible places, but the operation went like a smooth, oiled machine. I want to just express our thanks, on behalf of the committee, to the staff. I want to thank especially Mr. Robert Collinson who has the stupendous capacity to put into words all of our thoughts and everything we hear from our communities, so if I could just...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add to this. I will be voting in favour of this motion. I just want to state that, in our committee discussions about all that we heard, we were quite puzzled by the fact that, as of now, there is only one family services committee in the communities and that is in Fort McPherson. We also recalled when we were in Fort McPherson about a year ago, we were told that up to one-third of children in that community were being apprehended. I think the community felt really important that day getting to action and set up a committee and to not only deal with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask questions to the Minister of Human Resources with regards to the tendering of the contract on the EAP program to a southern company. Mr. Speaker, in answering questions to the Member of Great Slave, the Minister just told that his staff has advised that the fact that the winning bid used the principal operator of the competing contract which now has been replaced by this new contract, the fact that that name was used as one of the subcontractors and that the new contractor has apologized for including that name into that proposal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak today about the ongoing contract negotiations between the YACCS board and the employees at Aven Manor. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we were not advised about the visits by the employees of YACCS and that they were here when the Members of this side had agreed to do a theme day on alcohol abuse, because I believe it deprived the chance for the employees to hear from all Yellowknife MLAs on this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to let the employees know, and the clients of the Aven Manor know, that we...

Thank you. Thank you for that answer. My second question is to do with the input we received from witnesses about the pressure our judicial system is under. Just yesterday, under our supp, we approved additional funding for sheriff services and other court officer services. I think it's very likely that with the shortening of the process that we're amending here, that there might be additional pressure being put on judicial systems. I'd like to ask the Minister if he could make a commitment to work with the Minister of Justice to see whether we could somehow forecast the workload and look...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee held public hearings on Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, in Yellowknife on April 20th and on May 14th; in Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik on April 23rd; in Ulukhaktok on April 24th; in Colville Lake on April 25th; and in Behchoko on April 26th, 2007. The committee would like to thank the Minister and all of the presenters for appearing before committee. The proposed amendments will provide for a prompt court hearing after the apprehension of a child, that is consistent with the rights of parents under the Canadian Charter of Rights and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But the point is, businesses like this can never play on an even playing field. It doesn’t take into consideration the cost of doing business for the northern businesses here.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I feel like we had this discussion before when we were talking about constructing the jail where there are lots of benefits to having business being done in the North than just going for cost-efficiency. There is a lot of economies of scale that are going to be lost because there are so many more benefits having these businesses operate out of here that multinational corporations cannot provide. I am losing my question here. Mr. Speaker, Northstar’s position is the cost of operating is so high here that even with the business incentive…Okay, let me just ask a question...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask another set of questions to the Minister of Human Resources with regard to Northstar losing the EAP contract they have had for seven years. Mr. Speaker, there are such differences in facts about this case between the government and Northstar. Northstar says they were never advised about this inverse ratio calculation. The government says they were, that it was included in the RFP. The government says there was only one name that was added inadvertently, but Northstar states that there are at least three people they know of who were...