Robert Hawkins

With good reason, the judges have an independent commission to review their salaries, and I stress “with good reason.” If I understand it correctly, it goes back to an act in 1998.

As I've explained to the Minister before, it seems as if we've hired the most expensive professionals to review the salaries of the most expensive professionals. Then we have to have someone to sit on both sides — who again is a very expensive consultant — to come up with a simple percentage. I don't belittle the actual salary, but it seems like a very expensive process to come up with a percentage just to say...

Well, I guess that if the Minister didn’t want to answer the question, she could have just said no.

Mr. Speaker, my next question — and I’m hoping to get a better answer out of this. I would also infer from the response in that letter that, if the client does not contact the referral service, there is no follow-up at the local level by the Mental Health Addictions counsellors. So the problem is, what is the Minister’s difficulty with the issue of the additions treatment folks contacting the client to ensure that there’s some follow-up? She seems to have some apprehension about it. What’s the...

Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, there is a Tourism Product Diversification and Marketing Program, I believe, in the range of $2.5 million. It has been reduced by approximately $2.1 million. I would just like to find out or have the FMB Minister put on record where that $2.1 million will show up or who is getting it or where it is going.

The Minister is correct in the sense that when you take the $43,000 and you take out the $14,000 for salary increases, you’re left with the $29,000. But the $29,000 divided by four judges and 12 months works out to almost precisely a $562 increase in insurance fees. I’m just trying to get a sense of…. I don’t know anybody’s insurance that costs $562 for life. This is an additional increase. I’m just trying to make sense of this. It’s difficult for me to go out there and look people in the eye and say, “Well, we’ve just bumped up the insurance for judges for another almost $562.”

I want to know...

Mr. Speaker, as we all are aware, there are many appointments to boards, agencies and commission positions that are either the responsibility of the G.N.W.T. or are done through statutory appointments by this Assembly. I believe that, except for cases where either specialized knowledge, circumstances or skills are required, every effort should be made to appoint Northern residents to these positions and that a condition of such an appointment require ongoing residency in the N.W.T. If a person moves outside of the Northwest Territories, as we’ve recently seen using the example of one of our...

Mr. Chairman, I think this is an example of where we’re sending people to Edmonton, to the Capital Health Authority, for a service that I think we could provide here at a similar cost. If we’re going to pay $664,000 for this, if you’re adding the cost of the assessment, not including the travel and whether it’s getting somebody out of a community, which costs even more than it costs to get out of Yellowknife, probably double or triple…. If you have to send somebody with an escort or if it’s court-ordered, whether you have to send them with a professional such as somebody from the sheriff’s...

Sorry, Mr. Chairman. You flew through page 14 a little too quickly. I had a question on a couple of items on page 14.

Mr. Chairman, if I got that right, we had 607 assessment days in total. Now, was that all court ordered? What is the cost of a psychiatric professional if they were to be staffed at this end? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I am looking for some detail on this process where we are adding money. I think, as I understood earlier, it’s federal base money, so whether it’s catching up to the times and actual costs or not, I just want to make sure this money is going to those who need it the most.

I want to find out what services have been increased. If we’re not increasing services, I’d like to know what has been tamed down, if it’s paying debt. Anyway, I want to know the details of the $403,000.

I’m just concerned that, if we’re offering these services of psychiatric assessment in the Northwest Territories, as the Minister seems to allude to, why are we not sending these folks through this court-ordered process to the professionals that we have?