Robert Hawkins

Mr. Chair, I appreciate Mr. Koe’s answer on that. I will frame this question on two points. What type of public dialogue do you draw out there? I don’t see any ads in this particular area saying, are liquor laws meeting our needs? Really, I think they are individual ones. Recently we changed concerns in the Sahtu to reflect what is needed and demanded there. Rightly or wrongly, it seemed like the right thing to do and certainly the right thing to support, as far as I was concerned, because we were responding to community area needs, certainly people’s needs.

What type of outreach does this area...

Mr. Chair, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to say that I highly value the Bureau of Statistics. I find that the information they produce is very good. I don’t find it is a consumable maybe the general public grabs upon. It’s usually for those folks like academics and whatnot and those researchers and boring MLAs that are trying to find a crowbar to complain about government. With that said, I’m very grateful.

I just want to put on the stats that that is a shop burrowed into the hollows of government. It does some good work. I just want to thank them for the...

Good.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the end of the day, really I’m after just a couple of simple things: a bit of transparency, a bit of competitiveness and for us to spread every single opportunity out as reasonably as possible. As I said, I’ve hired two, sometimes three students. I try to hire a couple every summer. I try to pay them what I can and more sometimes knowing that they need the money, and the opportunities not only just in Yellowknife but in the small communities are very few and we’ve got to find a way.

So I’m looking, just as my last question, I hate to say I’ve given him a softball, but...

Thank you. I hope at the end of it he meant he was going to supply me that particular information, but I’ll let him make that decision. I thought that was an excellent example, if we hire a student we may consider rehiring them again and maybe they do, but of course if you’re the next bio student that means you need not apply, you have no shots and the fact is there’s no competitive process. So what he’s just done is reaffirmed that any bio student has no shot at any opportunity.

My next question, of course, for the Minister of Human Resources is what type of feedback is done through the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have to school a single parent by saying we don’t have a job for every student. They know that. They understand that. They respect that. They know we don’t have the money for that. They’re not fooled. But what they are fooled about and certainly upset about is the myth that their child’s resume is being competitive, and that is making them mad, because they feel they have a fair shot and they’re not getting a fair shot.

All I’m asking this Minister to do, and I’m going to ask him this again, is what type of transparent process can he bring forward to ensure that...

It’s difficult to tell both a parent and a student about the competitive process that they don’t see, don’t know about, and when you tell the parent, well, don’t worry, the system is there for you, I assure you, to be honest, I don’t actually believe that at times, because you hear from parents who see the concern that their kids aren’t being hired, and you hear this regularly.

My question now for the Minister of Human Resources is: What type of public scrutiny process is there to ensure that these potential job openings in departments for summer student positions are not only fair, but honest...

Mr. Chair, after some great consideration and thought, and after his passionate comments provided by my colleague Mr. Yakeleya, I will be supporting the motion. Of course, I will be asking for a recorded vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again I want to recognize my son McKinley Hawkins, who wrote the speech I had the pleasure of reading today and I want to thank him for allowing me to read his words on his perspective of bullying. That said, I’d like to thank all of my colleagues for sharing the time and allowing me to do as such. I must finish by saying, now I have to get him back to Weledeh. So, thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, so the answer is no, but you take inquiries so that is fine. I see an opportunity to continue this dialogue. The example I provided was an example, one that is sort of in the public realm, one that is easily understood that makes sense to people. Whether they agree or disagree is not the issue as opposed to the example to illustrate is important. Fair enough. That is the only question I have at this particular time. Thank you.