Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister of Tourism, Bob McLeod, for his opening remarks today because it works well with my Member’s statement.

As the Minister has said, on April 1, 2011, the GNWT and NWT Tourism are set to launch their Tourism 2015: A New Direction for a Spectacular Future. Tourism 2015 builds on the Tourism 2010 Plan, as said earlier, and certainly makes an effort to continue the great opportunities that are available in our tourism market.

When the mayor of Edmonton was in Yellowknife a few weeks back, he asked why the GNWT doesn’t focus tourism campaigns...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a Yellowknife MLA, in my experience I don’t tend to have a ton of transportation issues in particular. But first I’ll say that what dealings I have had with the department have been very good and I find them generally quite easy to deal with. So that being certainly the primary experience I’ve gone through over the years, I too would like to highlight the Deh Cho Bridge as a significant issue that still continues to be a matter of concern in the riding and I look forward to any further update we have, both on the quality of the project and, of course, how the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s nice to be able to provide a couple of comments regarding the Minister’s opening remarks, and quite namely, a few things inside his opening remarks did cause some interest and I would like to hear perhaps a little more detail.

In one of the paragraphs, the Minister mentioned about the transboundary water agreement with neighbouring jurisdictions. One of the challenges is we have become keenly aware, of course, as being downriver, we see the effects of the other jurisdictions. Although it has been some time since I sat on the committee that would oversee this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. I realize that it is a very passionate particular issue in the community of Aklavik. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that has been drawn out of this particular case that removing them from the community doesn’t take into consideration is the social impact the community will have as well as those people in care, the detriment offer to them losing their close ties to their community that many of them were born in, had lived their whole lives. Many of them hoped to sort of spend their final days in that particular community.

Mr. Speaker...

Those are all fantastic things and I wouldn’t want to detract from them. I guess I would follow up in the same type of manner as my earlier question, which is: has the Minister or the NWT Tourism ever considered establishing a permanent presence in Edmonton? That said, that presence could work with the City of Edmonton’s economic development, because again the mayor of Edmonton seemed quite keen on wanting to partner in a way that could benefit the whole North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about tourism and, more specifically, tourism in Edmonton about attracting Edmontonians and perhaps even Calgarians to the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, my questions would be the for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and what I’d like to ask today is: is Edmonton, Calgary, or even just the Alberta market a tourism target market for the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to talk about gender-based analysis. Promoting the equality of men and women in our society and government is a good thing. Our current Premier has promised policy action on this particular matter. A number of my constituents were initially very excited about the news that this government was going to do something, but yet actions seem to have fizzled.

We all know that the GNWT policy Equality of Men and Women in the NWT is 23 years old, Mr. Speaker. Recommendations to update it were promised by this Premier back in 2009 and 2010 budget fiscal years...

I guess as a general policy do the tenants pay the electrical power, the heating fuel or the water and sanitation bills? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, specific to page 5-58, I was looking at the numbers here. I was just trying to get a sense as to programming value and make sense of it. If I look at electrical power, we go in the actuals of 2009-10 budget year of $6.5 million but it drops. We will call it relatively stable for the 2010-11 to the 2011-12 year. I am just trying to get a sense of how power has gone up, everything has gone up, but I am just trying to follow why the numbers haven’t really changed much. It just seems as if they don’t fluctuate the way everyone else’s house is going up. My power bill has skyrocketed...

Mr. Chairman, is there a departmental break-even point where statistical average bank on that... By way of example, 90 percent of rent recovery is where it provides enough money for operations and maintenance of that LHO, or is there another number targeted? More specifically, what is the target for break-even point? Thank you.