Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m going to maybe touch base on some of the earlier questions, only more so for clarity and so I can get the fullness of the detail provided.

First off let me say that I want to applaud the decision-makers on going forward with the new building. Part of the issue I had was I was speaking with two of the bidders when it came to three preferred folks to make a final proposal. Two of them told me it would be a lot cheaper and a lot faster to build a new building. I know a lot of emotion is probably attached to Stanton, and rightly so, but I think it’s important to ask...

Avens presently has 29 beds. They want to extend it to 60, and of course, they have bigger plans than that. But you know what? They see what’s in the near future. They’ve got over 50 on their waiting list. I won’t go on at length, but our population is growing to 184 percent in five more years. We’re not meeting the demands. We couldn’t start the planning, reviewing and building and meet that challenge that’s presented to us in five years if we did something today.

Again, I’m going to ask the Minister, when is the government going to make a formal commitment so Avens can march forward on this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today – and I gave the facts and the numbers, and even the GNWT’s numbers through their partnership with the researcher on Avens – the study Where to Go and What to Do, one thing is clear: a tsunami of seniors is coming and there’s nowhere for them to turn.

As I said in my statement, if the capacity was similar to a school where once a school hit 75 percent full, it triggers a renewal of the school whether through renovation or a building of a new school, but yet we have no policy or solution for the seniors. Avens is 100 percent full...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we all heard the other day that the population in Canada is aging. No surprise, of course, and the NWT is certainly not immune to those pressures. That’s right. Stats Canada says one out of every six persons in Canada are over the age of 64. Heck, take the statistics in this room. Twenty percent of the MLAs are over the age 60. Stats Canada can see this, why can’t the GNWT see this?

So, while the problem keeps getting ignored, Avens continues to be bursting at the seams when it comes to capacity, and as time goes on, it marches on, more seniors are on the waiting...

I thank the Minister for that answer. Is there any commitment that we can get that that will be the process followed?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly hope before the end of session. That said, can the Minister tell me what the net positive impact on new housing opportunities through public housing will be in the city of Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of all, let me thank my good colleague Ms. Bisaro. I was worried I was the only one who had an issue with this particular vehicle and I thought her questions were well thought out to the issue.

I’ve had grave concerns about a $65,000 vehicle just to drive a judge around in luxury, because we want to make sure that they don’t feel the bumps on the way to Behchoko. I don’t think there’s any vehicle you could drive to Behchoko without feeling the bumps, but in all seriousness, the ultimate answer here is so they can ride in comfort.

Let’s start off with not...

Was any warranty action taken? If so, how many kilometres fell under the warranty program?

We still haven’t had the answer of what an incident means or in the context of… Thanks, Mr. Bouchard.

The other thing is that now the Minister is stereotyping the clientele by saying they’re well known by other social agencies. I don’t know what he means, and in all honesty, I mean, we’re just sort of guessing at good faith.

Incident, again I’m saying, was it someone upset? They crumpled up a piece of paper and were mad because they didn’t get the answer they wanted? I mean, what are we talking about? It’s just continue to say as minimum as possible, promise to get back to us, even though we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister clearly articulate how many positions they’ve evaluated for potential layoffs as a recommendation to the next government? This work is going on right now. They have said repeatedly it’s not their hand on the rope, but I can tell you they’re giving the next government the nudge and all the material that they need. So I want to understand the valuation and evaluation that they’ve looked at, at this particular second, that they’re billing department by department by department. No one can dodge that question because it’s the responsibility of this Cabinet...