Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, to avoid naming the specific company, the Minister knows the one I am referring to, because I actually brought it to his attention a couple of months ago. The fact is that the storefront exists but it was in the context of a manufacturing business that could be described as...Once the business was sold, the business moved all of its manufacturing to Edmonton to the company that does it. So they just filtered through the Yellowknife office. Mr. Speaker, by the definition of this Minister for ITI, in his view, would this still qualify as a northern business although it is sold to a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly hear the willingness of the Minister who wants to take charge of this issue and certainly solve some of the technical problems, which are stabilized funding. When can this side of the House, be it Social Programs or all Regular Members, see some work done on this issue that I’ve described as stabilizing the funding, perhaps through the method of a base-plus funding formula that would ensure that if an occasional student misses once in a while, it doesn’t fully disrupt the funding of that agency and put them into a tailspin of havoc and unable to pay their...

Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased with that answer from the Minister that they’re always looking for ways to improve their programming. I’m sure the Minister in some way will agree, in his own ministerial way, that is, that disruption in funding causes real problems. I’m sure in his own way, through Cabinet approval, he’d like to find new ways to ensure that financial disruption doesn’t become a reality. The fact is, it is the reality that if a couple kids start missing for one reason or another, if they’re out on the land with their parents or they’re sick at home here in Yellowknife, those types...

Mr. Speaker, I’m only asking these questions because it seems it’s being asked in the public. I appreciate the frustration the Minister may be having, but the fact is there are people out there concerned that it doesn’t have a mandate and there’s no blueprint on how they converge. Mr. Speaker, I’ve heard answers from the Premier today and he seems to assume they will converge sometime in the fall, if they do. I’d like to know, without a mandate and terms of reference, how do we stay on track, how do we stay focused, how does it make sense and how do we know where we’re going without that type...

Mr. Speaker, that’s all well and good, but why do we not have a terms of reference and a mandate for this and something on paper that demonstrates how it plugs into the bigger picture for solutions for rates and costs going forward? Why is there no mandate? Why is there no terms of reference? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services in regards to medical travel. Mr. Speaker, I have a constituent who has travelled to Edmonton regularly for medical travel reasons. They have been referred to see specialists, of course. The question of them going on medical travel isn’t the issue, but this time around they chose to rent a car because it was cheaper than spending the money on taxi fare. As I understand it, it worked to half the rate of the typical taxi fares. In this age of trying to find ways to do business just a little better and wiser...

See, the Premier just doesn’t get it. The fact is, we have all been here for years and have been saying the power rates are too high. I’m not sure where he’s been. Maybe he’s going down the wrong road. The fact is, we’ve been saying the organization is the problem. Everything’s the problem. I’m not sure what information you’re going to get that we haven’t been saying here for years. We have honourable Members who have been struggling for years, including yourself when you were on this side of the House, to raise these issues. So if you’re going to create a discussion just to talk, I don’t see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, have questions regarding the Power Corporation. I’ll point out that the Premier quite lively created an analogy of a car. I’ll tell you, the problem with this car is it’s full of Bondo and it’s because the driver has driven it into the ground. It’s the driver that’s the problem. The fact is, there is no direction on this.

I’d like to hear from the Premier where the terms of reference are on these reviews and how they plug into each other. Because they seem to just go haphazardly into it and will converge eventually, and don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. Well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to speak to the issue of concerns regarding the multi reviews of the NWT Power Corporation, as my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen has. Mr. Speaker, it has been my experience when a company as big as ATCO comes forward knocking on our door in the spirit of partnership, it is either in the context to share the risk or they want to share in the profit. We would be fooling ourselves to really think that ATCO needs us, so let’s stop kidding ourselves. They are eyeing our long-term projects. With the Taltson Expansion Project just about to go, with Bear River hydro...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the issues here we are really facing is the fact that this used to be a MACA program and then MACA transfers the community gas money and the gas tax money, and then they say sorry, we don’t do this anymore. That is sort of one of the problems that we are faced with. That is why these motions keep coming up.

I have often said that there is a policy problem here, where the government used to do this but then they decide that now they are not in this business. I don’t think that there has ever been a heart-to-heart deciding on what government should be responsible...