Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, that answer wasn’t quite what I was looking for, because I don’t believe it is a Municipal Affairs issue. Municipal issues are worries about property taxes, dogs and dumps. It wasn’t really designed to worry about the social issues around homelessness. The problem out of this situation is they’ve been picking up where the government has been failing miserably.

So I ask once again in maybe a slightly different way: would the Minister take leadership on this issue, show some initiative, get out there and say, “Look, maybe let’s see what we can do and contact some of our service...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue I wanted to raise today on behalf of my riding is the concern about the lack of public washrooms. People need to be people, and people need personal dignity, and they need to be normal just like you and I.

Mr. Speaker, the issue really is: has this become normalized? I certainly hope it hasn’t. We have to ask ourselves what we are elevating this issue with. Are we dealing with this, or are we ignoring it? The homeless, as well as some of the other street people who spend time at the Salvation Army and other places, need a place to be able to turn to. Businesses...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t use a lot of time, but what I want to do is cite timing and process. First on the timing. I really like the timing. One of the complaints I generally hear and can obviously see is that timing is a problem. It’s been cited before, but I think it’s important to put it on the record from my perspective. When we approve the capital budgets at the end of March, it doesn’t get ignited into the realm of reality until April, May, June. Tenders come in; projects don’t start until the fall — those types of problems.

Now, that’s obviously not every project. We know that...

Mr. Speaker, social issues of this type and nature are the responsibility of the Government of the Northwest Territories, the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services. I’m not sure where she finds this in the mandate of the City of Yellowknife. I think what we are finding here is a situation where the City of Yellowknife is desperate because the Department of Health and Social Services has been ignoring these issues for so long. They have no other choice but to take on other issues that are outside their mandate.

So I ask again: would the Minister show some initiative by...

Mr. Speaker, the issue I raised today in my Member’s statement has a serious impact on the people who live and work in downtown Yellowknife. It causes many people great concern. The fact of the lack of public washrooms causes people to do natural things in unnatural places, if I may say. You know, that is not supporting dignity and humanity in the nicest of ways.

I know it’s far too easy to make jokes about this, and it is probably not uncommon to want to make jokes about something like this, but this is a serious issue. The people in the downtown riding want to move out of downtown. People don...

Thank you. Just for clarification, the Minister said she doesn’t have the ability to override the committee. I’m not suggesting by any means that we override the committee on one specific case. That turns into a slippery slope regardless of the issue.

What authority does the Minister have to put this drug on the extended health benefits list? If it shows promise, why aren’t we investigating this to make sure we have access to it? Thank you.

It is really nice that there’s a committee in place, but that doesn’t do much for the family that has a family member who is suffering from MS. This drug is a well known drug that demonstrates progress and promise when you have this disease. As I’m sure most people know, this is quite a debilitating disease. There is only one direction it goes. When we have a drug that shows promise, I think we should be latching on to it.

I guess my real question really comes down to how we get access to this. I have a letter here from the Minister. My original question was: is this covered? The Minister’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, when this Minister’s statement that seems to answer all questions comes forward, will it also talk about when public consultation will happen and how that will involve the public, as opposed to how these taxes have not involved Members as effectively as possible and have only involved certain members of the public, that kind of discussion? Will it have that detail?

Mr. Speaker, has the Minister done any work or examined the efficiency of what this roll-up will mean to most boards and regional service models as well?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Chief Superintendent Tom Middleton, a friend, neighbour and constituent. Thank you very much. Welcome.