Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I remind this House it wasn’t that long ago we were having serious discussions about leaking of information, committee confidence and whatnot. I don’t think the information told today is necessarily a detriment to the project, but it still stands for the principles of frustration that were caused earlier. Information received is still being learned and understood. So perhaps laying it before the House was an ill choice at this time. Is it reasonable? I believe the public should be fully apprised of the information that will come forward, but I certainly hope that...

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and appreciate the answer the Minister provided. Mr. Speaker, I know in an ideal world we’d be able to provide hot breakfasts to all our young folks and these types of programs. That’s why I’m trying to take a measured approach and possibly a program that we could provide and afford. Would the Minister ensure that in this nutritional food basket study that they’re planning to do, that this multivitamin concept gets a high priority of consideration? I’m not saying as in subject it to it has to come out as a high priority answer, but I want to make sure it gets...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to rise today to talk about a potential idea of how we can help improve the health of our children and youth in the Northwest Territories. I firmly believe that the empowerment of parents to ensure that a child is fed and taken care of properly is certainly on their shoulders and within their abilities, but I also believe the territorial government has a supporting role to help provide, focus and promote health delivery ideas to help feed children and youth of our Territory.

Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to discuss something I think could help these...

Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister is now confusing the problem. She said they were approved and now we’re not approving them. So, Mr. Speaker, maybe if we could go back, and if the Minister is willing to commit to go back and see if we could re-evaluate these files through her office, perhaps we could solve this problem and show a little humanity on this particular issue and see if we can send these people out for these particular cases. And may I remind the Minister: pain is not a very comfortable thing to live with every day of your life. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m really glad the Minister brought up the fact of not approved. Mr. Speaker, I’m talking about people who were approved and sent down for medical treatment and were getting consistent medical treatment. Then one day someone decided maybe this doesn’t quite jibe with the policy so let’s completely cut them off and not offer them an alternative treatment here in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, that’s specifically who I’m talking about and exactly the issue. So would the Minister be willing to reconsider and commit to this House that she’ll investigate these files and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing more about what the Housing Corporation is actually doing with the declining CMHC funding. This is my seventh budget, if I remember correctly, and I think for all seven I’ve heard the same standard line. Not just from this Minister but from some of the previous Ministers. I’m curious as to what headway has been made on this particular issue. Have we negotiated anything? What headway have we made with other provincial governments or territorial governments on getting this initiative really on the agenda as one that can be solved? Or is...

Thank you. Similar to Mr. Ramsay, I’d like to recognize the Leishman family as well. I remember Chris quite well from my Akaitcho Hall days, and I certainly remember Ian quite well when we used to play hockey together. Of course, I played net and stopped all his shots on goal but… In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to welcome the whole family here today. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the last year I wouldn’t mind just getting some clarity in the budget here. Our allocation for child care subsidy programs, I am just curious as to what is the percentage basis still being provided to day homes or child care facilities for kids that are not in school. Is it still based on percentage and sort of like a head fee and further based on attendance of children, or is the department contemplating that these types of facilities, regardless of where they are located whether they are in Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Inuvik, who knows where, they are based on actuals running...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use my Member’s statement today to talk about a number of medical support programs that have been failing our people. I’ve taken these to the Minister’s office lately and I’m noticing a serious trend: our medical travel process is not supporting the people, in my view, the way it should be.

First off, medical travel, in my view, seems to have this overriding control over what doctors would request as required treatment. Now, of course, the Minister will shamefully defend the denials by saying the process does not ensure these identified things, even though...

I wouldn’t want to argue with the Minister on that particular point because I agree with him that income support is there to provide for basic needs and certainly food and shelter are a basic need. However, I would like to think that safety and security certainly could be provided in that. Where I’m going with that is if you were on income support, of course, you’re in of those positions, as we discussed earlier, sort of, that poverty cycle, that motion that we had passed earlier. So people have to make choices between food or clothing or support for their kids versus safety. So in other words...