Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2025, I will move the following motion:

Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that pursuant to section 61 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, that Mr. Andrew Fox be reappointed for a term of five years as Information and Privacy Commissioner;

And further, that the appointment be effective November 23rd, 2025.

And, Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time I will be seeking unanimous consent to deal with this motion today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services here. I received a phone call a few days back about somebody being released in the care of one of the wards, the psych wards, here in Yellowknife. Now, it's not specific about this individual but the concern about the care of custody back into the community, and the parent who called me about this issue is that they said when their child is released, they're literally dropped off at the day shelter. So, they go from full services and supports, clearly, I mean, I won't go at length, but what...

Mr. Speaker, we'll have lawyers saying we have a government obligation to do something. We have lay people that say that that's untrue. We have technocrats that say it's somewhere in the middle, Mr. Speaker. Why are we waiting to come forward with a policy that would make most of this at least follow a consistent direction? And I think that's usually where I stand at the beginning, which is we need some level of consistency, and we can bleed fairness and whatever necessary into the mix. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in a multi-function building or multi-unit building, you can't have one smoker and one non-smoker right next to each other through airness.

Mr. Speaker, what will the department of health do in order to step this up to support these people? I believe the carrot to stick approach, no smoking is the new rule. Can she be very clear on how the full weight of the department of health is going to come in there and support individuals who have smoked for years, if not generations, Mr. Speaker, because we can't leave them hanging, but the workers in there need this protection as well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first question will be to the Minister of Health and Social Services today and, of course, I hope I have time for other Ministers to enjoy a great and fun question period. Mr. Speaker, my question is the challenge about housing. Now, believe it or not, this is a health issue.

So I was visiting constituents at a public housing place last week, and the smoke in this multi-unit was so difficult to breathe, I thought I was actually chewing it. It was that thick and disgusting. And my understanding is housing won't declare these public housing units non-smoking or they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the staff are unable to meet the demand, what's the solution? Is it to hire more staff, or is it to send samples of the lab techs, what they take, to Edmonton? Can the Minister reveal the solution to this particular problem; because I've got them. I want to hear what the Minister's doing about it. Thank you.

Thank you for that. All surpluses aren't created equal. So have you targeted or defined what type of surplus? You could have, like, a capital surplus, an operational surplus, a surplus for this program, a surplus for that program. I mean, is the expectation that they raid the coffee surplus fund? Like, I mean -- like, is it every single surplus, or has it been defined? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Similar to my colleague, I want to speak about the economy. The Arctic economic security corridor is a red alert, and it needs to be heard loud and clear. I doubt it would have even made the second-tier list of major projects if it wasn't for the West Kitikmeot Resources Group, Mr. Speaker. And I'm very thankful for their work. Currently, it's on the maybe list, but that's pretty good, Mr. Speaker; better than the not list. But if you look closely, it's being sold as a north-to-south list by the West Kitikmeot group.

The Arctic security corridor is sold as an all-weather...

Yeah, thank you. I apologize, I maybe have heard half the answer there. What I'd like to say is maybe -- if I restated the question differently, maybe I'll get the same answer, and that'll be fine too, which is the -- essentially, are they able to bleed coverage? In other words, take more kids on that are non-Indigenous in this regard? So in other words, if a PT specialist through the Jordan's Principal money that we're covering to the extent of what you can find has openings, are they allowed to offer it? Because previously they weren't allowed to extend the services, and that was a --...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think most of my questions largely have been answered by my colleagues here, but I'll just clarify just one point because it sounded like it was folding into the question and folding out of the question, which is even though this is educational assistant money, is some of it intended for Jordan's Principal money in that? Thank you.