Robert Hawkins

Thank you. I’ll certainly make sure the Minister receives those particular details, but one of the problems that I’ve seen with the Growing Forward Program is that the department doesn’t do a follow-up evaluation and certainly sort of a measured context as opposed to reporting back to find out how the money was spent and how it was enabled to do more as it always promised.

What type of screening, evaluation monitoring and management of the information and certainly the investment of the money is done by ITI and how is that distributed back to the public? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If it’s difficult for the Minister to answer this question, quite frankly it’s difficult for the public wanting to apply for jobs if we don’t know how they can get opportunities that they rightly can do and they’re being blocked at the front door by this little sticker that says if you don’t have the university degree, don’t apply, if you don’t have the college diploma, don’t apply and in some cases, unfortunately, some people don’t have the high school, but they’ve got the 20-plus years’ experience.

I’m going to ask this question: How is the Minister going to fix this...

Maybe the Minister is starting to grasp the complication behind this particular problem. I’ve got people who have applied with 10, 20 or more years of experience, but they’re screened out and the competition is awarded and they don’t know until after the appeal period is gone, but then again their rights don’t really matter. Of course, they feel they don’t matter because their experience is weighed directly against credentials of the university. So let’s go with this group, and by the way, the footnote I’d like to add is quite often I hear of this complaint, and it’s a good complaint and it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to support my colleague Mr. Menicoche in this little micro theme day statement here.

Often I hear from people who are trying to apply for jobs and they’re screened out for various reasons, some that make sense and some that just want you to bang your head against the wall. In some cases, we hear they’re screened out and they only get the news long after the job has been awarded and the appeal period is long past. At this point, of course, they have no rights to appeal because they weren’t screened in, and often these people are screened out. Why? Because they didn...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is, in all honesty, a very exciting motion. Rarely do we see the engagement of Members and certainly the public into a type of motion like this. It has drawn the public into the business of the Assembly. It has drawn Members into the business certainly of the Assembly. You see this type of discussion here where people are talking about the issue before us. If we could only give every single issue this Assembly dealt with this much attention, can you imagine the public belief in our system at large?

I will say with great respect, and I certainly mean this, I want to...

Some people have informed me that local market with more than a 5 percent vacancy rate can really seriously affect potential investors in a particular market area. So, in other words, once we reach greater saturation than 5 percent in the local market, investors are starting to look at this area and saying, well, why would we be there because we’re just going to build an empty building.

What type of study and balance was taken into consideration and is the Minister able to cite the actual percentage of vacancy that will be created in the local market here? Because I want to understand, and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be asking questions to the Minister of Public Works regarding the downtown building that’s being constructed at this time.

I guess my first question to the Public Works Minister is: What will be the full cost of this particular building? Once we hear that on the record, I’d like to know what we will be saving once we understand the investment required to build that building. I want to understand how much we will be saving, as a government, by having that building in place. Let’s start with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Saturday, March 8th, was International Women’s Day, a time to celebrate the achievement of women and what they have accomplished here in the North, across Canada and certainly across the world.

I personally support the equality of women in all aspects of our world and certainly in our lives. All women so readily deserve our love, appreciation and definitely our respect.

Women, as we know, are equal contributors to the world we know and they must not be thought of in any lesser manner. They are recognized leaders in all aspects of business, politics, academics, sports and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My concern is being at least 5 percent before the building was built or is being built, but certainly let’s get to my last and fourth question, which is about the building and the impact of the cost. Now, the Minister said he didn’t actually have the cost on this building at the very start of my first question. Is the Minister in a position to talk about the costs associated with change orders? So in other words, what was the original budget of this building and what will the final number be when the final cheque is written? We need to get a sense of impact on the...

There have been a fair amount of questions regarding the impact of this potential new building. I shouldn’t say “potential” new building; it’s coming like a freight train. Much has been discussed about the vacancy rate and the impact this will have on our city and certainly the impact on attracting more investment from companies wanting to build office space.

What type of evaluation was done on rental vacancy? How does the Northwest Territories, particularly Yellowknife, compare to that study on vacancy rates and how does it compare to across Canada? What is considered a normal vacancy rate...