Robert Hawkins

I appreciate that information. Is the Minister able to speak to how long some of those inactive positions have been kept on the books? If I wrote my number down correctly, I think he said inactive positions had come down from 271 to 218. If I am incorrect, I will let him state that for the record. What type of detail do we have on these particular positions? I’m more curious on how long they’ve been inactive. I mean, that’s essentially the question and time is up, so I’ll leave it to him to answer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Industry has told me that it could run anywhere between 20 and 30 percent more because we are going to renovate and build while it is in full operation. I want to understand, does the Department of Public Works realize and accept that additional costs of this project, which we all know is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is the department proceeding with that full knowledge and appreciation that additional costs are unnecessarily being borne by the taxpayer when we can’t even afford it? I am not going back to the Finance Minister’s statements, but he has...

One year would be fine.

For a couple years I’ve been asking about providing an opportunity to build a new hospital or at least a new fully independent wing attached to the hospital, because it makes better sense to make new than to renovate a hospital while it’s in full operation.

The Department of Public Works has always said, well, if that’s the choice of the bidders, then that’s the one we’ll examine, of course, and the best value for Northerners is the way we’ll go. It’s been my understanding that that has been taken off the table, and the three bidders, I was speaking to one a couple days ago and they said that...

Epistolize. Write a letter. Respond in writing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Thursday our Finance Minister said, “We do not have the revenue growth necessary to make all these investments possible and we are constrained by our $800 million borrowing limit to borrow to make strategic investments.” As I further listened even closer, he points out that on the revenue side, resource revenues are expected to be $41 million lower and corporate taxes $24 million lower than estimated in the last budget. He points out that this is a perfect storm of shocks that has reduced our $100 million cushion borrowing limit to $70 million.

This is unwelcome...

In the last year is the Minister able to provide statistics on southern hire versus northern hire? Thank you.

Does the Department of Human Resources keep any statistics on southern versus what I would call northern hire? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps what I will do is I will stand down and Mr. Blake should be able to finish his line. You are the chair, obviously. Can I stand down completely? I will start over and let Mr. Blake continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was wondering if the Minister could speak to the number of vacancies we have within the public service at this particular time. Perhaps we can break it down into regions if possible. Thank you.