Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the fact that we have walls and shelves of binders and policies simply points out the difficulty that residents have in getting a fair housing application done.

I guess I have to ask the Minister again: how does a local housing authority make a decision on an application for public housing from a resident if there’s nothing concrete for them to go to except walls and shelves full of documents in Yellowknife?

No offence, but rather than sitting down with you, I’d rather have the book and do it on my own time.

Laughter.

I understand that, Mr. Minister, but I don’t understand…. You’re reducing the budget by $100,000, which presumably you don’t have because the position is already gone. I fail to understand the explanation, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister Responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. I spoke in my Member’s statement about my inability to get hold of copies of policies that relate to the allocation of public housing at the request of various residents. I go to the Minister of the Housing Corporation because I feel that the Housing Corporation is the parent corporation for the local housing authority.

So to the Minister: I would like to ask whether there are established, written policies that govern the allocation of public housing — whether or not those policies...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s all I have.

I’ll try another question. In a document we received today as well, called Status of Potentially Affected Employees, the second item on that list has: Justice relief employees added in Inuvik, plus-4. I’d like to ask the department what those employees are, what their work is. What work do they do? Which employees are those?

I guess I’d like to know where it is in the document we got today, “DHR Vacant Positions April 21, 2008, Funded.” I don’t see a competency officer. Maybe the department could direct me to the particular page where I would find it.

I guess if it hasn’t been released as a public document, I would request of the Minister that he consider releasing it to me and other Members as a confidential document, for our eyes only.

Three or four a day is still an awful lot.

I’d like to ask the Minister about questions raised earlier about Donnie Days and pay for Donnie Days. I have a specific question with regard to affected employees. If an affected employee happens to be terminated — if this budget is passed and an employee happens to be terminated in October, or whatever the date is…. This employee has been having their salary reduced from, let’s say, the first of January to the first of October. If they are terminated as of the end of September, they will presumably be due funds for a portion of the Donnie Days they...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to just follow up on the last question from my colleague to my right. I fully support employee recognition programs. I think there’s a lot of value in them. But there are many ways of recognizing employees, and I have to agree with Mr. Beaulieu; I don’t think the Premier’s awards are sought after. I don’t think they’re high on many employees’ lists of coveted awards. So I would agree that probably ought to be dropped, and if necessary, if you want to keep the money, put it into other methods of recognizing employees.

There are a couple of things I’d like to ask...