Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the opportunity to welcome our Chinese delegation, our deputy consul as well as his colleagues, so I would like to say to him… [English translation not provided.] Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has reviewed Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Curfew Act; and Bill 14, An Act to Repeal the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act, and wishes to report that Bills 13 and 14 are ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has reviewed Bill 3, Wildlife Act, and wishes to report that Bill 3 as amended and reprinted is also ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr...

When I was at the open house a couple of weeks ago, one of the Yellowknife Dene councillors asked if there was a way to solve this problem, and asked us to make the arsenic inert in a way that it doesn’t cause any problem. The staff said there is no way of dealing with this. Quite frankly, it is because no one is looking at it. Out of 56 recommendations, there is not one that talks about innovation. It’s almost like we need a Donald Trump here in the Northwest Territories, or a Richard Branson, saying how important this is for humanity to talk about let’s find a breakthrough.

That said, there...

Mr. Speaker, it should be no secret by now that I’m concerned about the way the Giant Mine has been left and the fact that arsenic is being left in the ground and certainly frozen there for the end of time. Whenever that may be scheduled, I don’t think we should give up on trying to find a solution. No Northerner asked for this tragedy to be left here in the ground, and I don’t know a single Northerner that thinks that that’s the best solution.

My question for the Premier today is, of course, I’d like to hear the government’s position on AANDC, which is the department that is now responsible...

Mr. Speaker, everywhere I go I hear the same story: Freezing of the arsenic in the ground is the best temporary solution, but people are expecting something better at the Giant Mine site. Yes, they know that the best engineering of the day is being implemented, but they don’t want that as the long-term solution. There lies the problem, Mr. Speaker.

Some of the world’s greatest innovators of our time have always found a way by facing down insurmountable challenges with both genius and, certainly, perseverance. The Giant Mine problem, as we know it, has left a costly legacy of arsenic in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a document. It’s an illustration regarding the allocation of new resource revenues. I’ll be drawing attention to it later today during a motion. It needs to be before the House.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the orders of the day, oral questions. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent denied

We have a leak in the ship and its sinking and no one seems to know or care why. You’d think that this is a serious problem.

The last point is, there’s an integrity question being called into question and I think the integrity needs to rise all the way to the top to the Minister’s office to say, how is he going to take this situation seriously and what is he going to do about it. So, quite frankly, does the Minister have any clue how many applications are at risk and who is at risk? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the scandalous situation we have here about the lost faxes or even mailed health care forms when people are applying for renewal. My situation comes down to this: We don’t know how many applications have been lost, we don’t know where they have gone, we don’t know who has this information, and we don’t know what they’re doing with this information.

So my question to the Minister of Health and Social Services is: Is he willing to do a public type of inquiry into this process to find out where this information has gone, how...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use today’s Member’s statement to revisit the health care card issue as it continues to be a bit of a frantic issue out there. Some people are defining it as maybe a mini scandal of some sort, and others say maybe an inquiry of some sort, as well, needs to be considered.

The fact that people have been e-mailing, whether they’ve been faxing or even mailing in their applications, they don’t know where the information is going and it really continues to call into question the integrity of the system as well as the safety of that information being sent out there...