Robert Hawkins

I have a number of written questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. They are as follows:

What is the foreign worker assistance program designed to help small business owners fill skilled employment vacancies called?

What is the budget for this program?

When was this program instituted?

How often has this foreign worker program been used, both successfully and unsuccessfully?

What is the average processing time with these applications?

How many businesses have been assisted by this program?

Provide a breakdown of the communities that have businesses accessing this program.

What...

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear here, because we’re getting these sort of semantic answers. Is the project in or out for this capital budget?

Mr. Speaker, there has been a plan on the books for a number of years to consolidate the clinics in Yellowknife to create a downtown consolidated clinic. There has been a business case made to do this, basically on the principles that we can take our existing staff and our doctors and we can put them all together and provide more services for less money. So what seems to be the problem? There is money in the budget. Where is this plan today?

Mr. Speaker, the system, I hate to say, doesn’t exist to anyone out there on the street. The system must exist under some rock hidden in some broom closet or something, because I’ll tell you, we’ve got small businesses out there that need help filling out the paperwork . That’s what they need. They need someone to help them along with the process. They need someone to help them work with Citizenship Canada. They need that process. Not when they’re here, because when they’re here that’s not the problem. They just want to get them here. So the problem is getting them to the Northwest Territories...

Mr. Speaker, I believe quite firmly in the concept of lifelong learning, and I’ve been reading a lot of Greek mythology lately. I have to admit I did have a tongue-twister trying to describe this situation. In modern terms it’s referred to as a rock and a hard place. But in my reading it was called the Scylla and the Charybolis, and it was about that six-headed monster versus the monster that sinks your ship through whirlpools. I thought that perfectly — perfectly, I have to stress — describes the struggle of small business, where the monster of the system chews you up and spits you out and...

Earlier today I brought up the issue of the Volunteer Support Initiative action plan. The issue really is creating volunteers in spirit and morale within the public service.

A lot of public servants belong to many organizations and they volunteer personal time, but sometimes, as these things conflict with work time, we need a system that engenders that volunteer spirit.

What I’m going to ask the Premier is: would he consider looking at creating a volunteer day for the public service so they can help give back to their community? It would build morale and spirit within our public service.

I was just going to call it quits until the Premier mentioned one thing, which was “if there was a savings.”

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that when you have an RFP — a request for proposal; that is, you request a proposal for a contract tender, and you get a comparison dollar figure on a product, and hopefully it’s the same kind of product they’re offering when it goes out to bid…. But when you do a negotiated contract, you have nothing to compare it to. You just sort of go in and say, “What’s the best price?” And then, “Can we live with it in our budget?”

Mr. Speaker, would the Premier initiate a...

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about these difficult times where we have to go back to considering reductions and strategies for that, a couple of pieces of work were left unfinished, I would like to say, in the 15th Assembly. On the boards and agency review, which looked at strategically refocusing on how we do business, I’d like to know from the Premier — this is one suggestion I’m going to put out today; I’m going to give another one in the next question — would you revive this initiative and take a serious look at it? If our boards and agencies are costing us a lot of money and not providing a...

The federal government established a volunteer day, and it allows employees to go and do personal things and volunteer on initiatives that bring them personal satisfaction. This would help raise the morale, as I’ve said numerous times already now, within our service. Here we are buckling down very tough on them, but we want to give them something that they enjoy, something that means something special in their lives.

I’d like the Premier to reconsider his statement and see if he would look into the issue and see what work can be done to help facilitate this. Because — don’t take this the wrong...

Mr. Speaker, the G.N.W.T. Volunteer Support Initiative action plan speaks specifically about the support of volunteers in the N.W.T. Since 2005 this initiative has only paid us lip service. Today I will use my Member’s statement as a plea for action supporting volunteers and volunteer organizations.

We all know what volunteers mean for our community. Volunteers ensure that sports and recreation activities take place. Volunteers do fundraising, organize food banks, assist the homeless, teach, do organize community cleanup — Mr. Speaker, the list does go on.

Ask around. Getting our community...