Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise with a serious concern with the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. Late last summer I had a meeting with a constituent who had brought serious concerns to me about having a legal cabin out along the Cameron River and the fact that people were bulldozing trees down, making roads, shooting guns at their cabin as well as other legal cabins and no one was doing anything about it. No RWED officer would be there, no RCMP officer would be there. Well, much later the Minister’s staff comes to me and says it’s not their problem to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier tell me from his position what kind of hammer do we have in place to tell these educational authorities to hire our northern students, because we have a policy on our books to hire these northern students? It can either be a hammer or it can be a carrot. I need to know because we have northern students who are graduating from our teaching programs who are working at Extra Foods and other places while southern hires are being hired. So what hammer or carrot is he willing to commit to today just to solve this problem? Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am going to direct my question with regard to teaching and graduate placements to the Premier. I feel it was the highest office that made this commitment and it’s up to the highest office to fulfil this commitment on hiring northern graduates.

Mr. Speaker, my question to the Premier is since the directive to hiring responsibility for teachers is with the education authorities, what steps has his government taken that these authorities are taking to heart that promise made by this government to hire northern graduates? I want to know what we are doing to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table in this House the positions filled and vacant in the Audit Bureau for the past five years, that demonstrates the seriousness of the issue I brought up earlier today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister Roland, for your good answer. Mr. Speaker, the Minister talked about the fiscal nature. Typically, in the budget, we staff these positions at 100 percent even though we know there are absences in those positions. So the fiscal nature doesn’t apply to this because we resource that area to the fullest of the budget potential of those staffing positions. Twenty-five percent of that job is not being done. That is of urgent nature. So I am not sure what he refers to when he says if it is of an urgent nature, something could be done. They don’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister didn’t mention or he left out, probably accidentally, of course, the rate that we have absent for the last five years. How many employees have not been in that position for five years? What is the constant rate of absence in that section? What does the Minister plan to do to staff these positions in the Audit Bureau immediately? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to recognize a few people in the gallery. We have Mr. Jeske and we have Mrs. Braden up in the gallery. I’d like to recognize them. My new constituency assistant, Coady Summerfield, will be in the gallery as well. I’d also like to take time to recognize the Year of the Rooster as Ms. Lee did, I’m saving it for this time. My wife is of Chinese background and I’d like to wish everyone Happy New Year in Cantonese, which would be…(English not provided)…which basically means Happy New Year everyone. Lastly, although he’s not in the gallery, he’s sitting next to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in the House today to speak about an important issue of internal audits and to assure that our system is accountable, ethical and efficient in a public service. The unit responsible for internal audits for the GNWT is the Audit Bureau. It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that a significant number of important positions in the Audit Bureau are currently vacant. This has been the situation for quite some time. This is a real problem, Mr. Speaker, and something should be done about this concern because it affects all NWT residents.

Mr. Speaker, this issue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to seek unanimous consent to return to tabling of documents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Apparently that public service announcement has been brought to you by the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board. Mr. Speaker, I have the rates here back to the year 2000. So for the 2000-01 budget, we had six absences. In 2001-02, there were four absences. In 2003-04, we had five absences. The Minister was correct; we had three absences for this past 2004-05 year. Mr. Speaker, I can understand that there is probably little latitude and movement about offering people more pay and whatnot to attract people. I appreciate his little plug there to look for recruitment, but...