Robert Hawkins

I’m going to ask a question specifically to CAMTS, not the RFP. Maybe the Minister can explain what this is and why it’s important in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently I was down in Edmonton with a number of my Social Programs colleagues and the Minister of Health to visit the medevac centre at the Edmonton airport. I’m certainly glad to see the operation that has been put into place.

As we all know, presently there’s a medevac contract out and one of the requirements of the contract is for what’s called CAMTS, Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transportation Systems. This is a critical component of the medevac contract that’s out right now.

The Minister will probably cite his three-line sentence that he repeated four...

Mr. Speaker, the only question over here is asking about transparency. It’s not about stopping jobs. No one would stop that freight train. I’m telling you that if these appointments were truly worthy of the appointment, then the government shouldn’t hide beyond the veil of secrecy, behind the numbers of… We don’t know how many there are and who they’re appointing and who they may be related to. Nobody has any clue. It’s time we show a little courage, lead the nation with a little backbone. Nobody is talking about taking the authority away from Cabinet. We’re just talking about accountability...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use today’s occasion to return to the northern jobs issue that I, as well as many of my good colleagues, have been raising over the past several days.

We all know very well that we pass compensation dollars here every single year and in every single budget, and we certainly expected that money to be used for the reason it’s passed. It’s difficult for me to go back to the taxpayer to say the government needs more money and they’re not spending it the way we’ve appropriated it. They look and ask what are we really doing here.

Since I’ve been discussing this...

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...