Robert Hawkins

Does the Department of Human Resources keep any statistics on southern versus what I would call northern hire? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps what I will do is I will stand down and Mr. Blake should be able to finish his line. You are the chair, obviously. Can I stand down completely? I will start over and let Mr. Blake continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was wondering if the Minister could speak to the number of vacancies we have within the public service at this particular time. Perhaps we can break it down into regions if possible. Thank you.

There will be no necessity to read the whole motion, by all means, but this Assembly did fully support a national roundtable being led by our Premier. No change in my feelings on that at all. I don’t think anyone has changed their feelings on our support for the Premier on that aspect of the initiative, none whatsoever. The only aspect that I’m asking about is the final portion of the motion, which asks the Premier to transmit a copy of the motion to his provincial and territorial counterparts and request that they consider support with a similar type of motion in their House. That’s the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This House, in November, passed a motion and it was regarding missing and murdered Aboriginal women. That was passed on November 4th. It was a motion that I’m very appreciative that we had great support from this House. The reason I’m calling upon it today is I’m going to ask the Premier about the final clause in the motion. It reads as follows: And furthermore, that the Premier of the Northwest Territories transmit a copy of this motion to all of his provincial and territorial counterparts with a request for their consideration for support of a similar House motion.

My...

The Minister had said that there were 1,038 inactive positions, and I was just wondering if we could mine down on that data just a little clearer. He said that there were positions being held for transfer assignments and he had given it some other reasons. What inactive positions aren’t being held open for anyone whatsoever?

In speaking to two of the three invited contractors as well as speaking to a number of people in the construction industry here locally, they have all estimated that renovating the hospital while it is in full operation could run anywhere in the range of 20 to 30 percent more than what the project should cost.

These are estimates now, granted I know that, but why is this government so fixated on renovating a hospital that it costs us so much more than just building a new additional wing to it? The fact is that is the truth of the reality, we are going to spend a lot more than necessary. Why is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn’t sure if the Minister was going to provide that in writing or not. He said if the committee wants that. This is very unusual, in my experience, that we now need the whole committee of the Assembly to request information. Is that the position of the Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about the Stanton Territorial Project that’s coming before us. It’s not an issue of the merits of the renovations, I think those are well-articulated out there how important this facility, this hospital is to the Northerners and we need to make sure it’s kept up to speed and certainly up to date and able to provide the needed services. The issue really comes down to this, and it’s about the money, how we renovate.

So I’m going to ask the Minister of Public Works these questions, which first off is: Why is the path of Public Works...

Would the Minister be able to epistolize that?