Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about having the courage to finally publicize some of these direct appointments. First of all, we don’t know how many there are and we don’t know who are getting them. Annually, the Legislative Assembly tables our public service report. We could table the names and positions of where these direct appointments were issued and directed. My question will go to the Premier of this Assembly who is in charge of Cabinet and could make this decision and show some political courage today and demonstrate some accountability.

Would he...

Mr. Speaker, is the department able to provide a cost analysis of CAMTS versus other types of accreditations are out there? Thank you.

I’m certainly glad the public sees the response to these types of questions, because these are fair and honest questions. Quite frankly, it will cost multi-millions of dollars in addition to a medevac contract than it normally does just because there’s a demand.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Premier is offering to resign, we could take care of that today, honestly.

So, quite frankly, the question keeps being missed and the Premier can distract it with any joke or whatnot, but he is avoiding the true responsibility and accountability that is being called for by this House. This is the question yet again, and he can make all the jokes he wants but it doesn’t deter the facts of what the public sees.

Cabinet makes these secret appointments. Nobody knows how many they are making, nobody knows why they are being appointed and these people show up in these...

So the Minister is unwilling to provide a solution in the public here. What use is having a fairness commissioner if we have no solution for a particular proponent who wants to bid on this potential contract and is being sandbagged behind the scenes?

Is the government willing to sit by and allow this without providing any options or remedies or just say let it play out? Are we going to hear the same answer, and you might as well just table the answer if that’s what he’s going to do over there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use this opportunity to ask some questions to the Minister of Health. Now, he may not be specifically aware of the typical issue, but I want to find out what his authorities are within his purview of being Minister.

Recently a constituent has approached me on the fact that they’re applying on this medevac contract that’s out right now for bids and tenders and the packages are just coming together. My understanding was their BIP was pulled with no discussion with that particular business. It was just a random hey, you no longer qualify for BIP. They had to step...

I’m not going to take the compliment back from the first one, but I can tell you the answer from the second question was not that clear. The simple question is we run a lot of unfunded positions in the government and often we hear about these could add up to several hundred positions in the government that are not specifically funded. I want to know how many positions are unfunded but operational, whereas we have a body in them doing something that’s meeting the goals and objectives of the government.

How many positions are we talking about and how do we pay for those? I want to know how much...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to return to the theme of jobs and, certainly, access to opportunities. We heard rightly from my colleagues, like Member Yakeleya, that, quite frankly, the average person wants to know why isn’t there a nurse in Colville or why isn’t there a community maintainer in Paulatuk or why isn’t there these plumbers in Fort Simpson. Like, why? When they hear of 1,150 job vacancies on that last snapshot, it causes great concern.

My questions, obviously, are for the Minister of Human Resources, and I’m going to say this: We passed the budget and we know...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, justice isn’t being served.

What options lie before this particular proponent who wants to bid on this contract and yet they have people who go out there and sandbag their potential credibility on this, which could cause them not to be in a position to qualify as they bid for this.

You know, we can only hide behind the fairness commissioner answer so long. The fact is, what options lie before them, what authorities fall under the ability of the fairness commissioner, and again, why have a fairness commissioner if the Minister is just going to keep saying over...

There must be some authority that the Minister can answer in the House today that the fairness commissioner can do and investigate. It’s not about deciding about the contract. I’m just saying when we’ve got corporate espionage in some form or fashion, if that really is the case, I don’t know, and I want to give them the chance to review it properly because they are the experts.

What type of remedies and options lie before this person providing this? What’s the point of having a fairness commissioner if they won’t review the situation? I don’t know; I’m trying to bring it to the Minister so we...