Robert Hawkins

Thank you. Maybe I’ll say it for the record, the layers are chickens that lay eggs, which sounds obvious, but that said, if anyone follows this closely as I do they may have wondered what that is.

If the deputy minister could elaborate a little more on the council, their role, who’s on the council, explain where the council’s authority comes from and what the relationship is with the general public. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I won’t spend too much time. I think most of my colleagues have spent a fair deal in going through things. The only areas I’d like to re-emphasize, of course, are a couple of them that did stand out.

I, too, am curious how much work was done on the removal of the BIP office to the South Slave. I am not against us devolving to other areas. I do continue to stand by taking people who are in working positions without better plans, so what I’d like to see here is, I’d like to hear some feedback as to how this analysis drew down to saying this office is the best one we should...

It’s really nice the Minister is assuring me they’re going to do this and I’m really happy when he says they like to hear from consumers. I guess my question now is: What should consumers expect and what type of activity is the Minister going to take to demonstrate that they’re going out and getting input from consumers? Because an office buried in a department doesn’t advertise far and wide enough to draw this type of discussion. So if he says he cares about them and he wants to hear from them, how is this Minister going to rise to that challenge? Thank you.

Clearly, two if not three provinces have felt that the regulation that exists is not enough and they’ve taken appropriate steps to show that their citizens matter. I am asking the Minister of MACA what he’s prepared to do to demonstrate that our northern citizens matter by providing them good, solid consumer protection. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Many Northerners and Canadians generally have been raising concerns for years about the restrictive and confusing terms of their cell phone contracts. They complain about being locked into three-year contracts with unreasonably high penalties to get out of them, changes to fees and services without their consent, automatic renewals and the lack of clear information about their contracts.

This is more than a boondoggle opportunity to create changes, this is a real opportunity for real protection. As we see the cell phone services are finally rolling out and expanding...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that committee reports progress.

---Carried

I’ll take it as notice, the answer.

What I’m asking is, will this information all be sent to my office. It can be blacked out hiding proprietary information. I understand that. But there needs to be proof that they complied with the requirement as stated out in the tender, which is to demonstrate that they have northern content. That is the critical issue, to make sure that information is conveyed before the final contract has been signed. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Will the Minister help me and help the House by allowing himself to go get educated in his area of authority on this particular issue? Thank you.

In the interim, at the suggestion of my colleagues Ms. Bisaro and Mr. Dolynny, they suggested setting up a petition. As such, I have done that on the Legislative Assembly website. Of course, don’t worry, a press release will be on its way very soon.