Robert Hawkins

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...

That was an original answer, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure to even bother acknowledging it.

Why won’t the McLeod government show some courage for a change and say we’ll prove that these direct appointments were meaningful and appropriate and we can honestly measure them? Right now, there’s zero accountability on a single one of them.

Again to the Premier, would he do something different by showing the public he’s being accountable by annually tabling who got these jobs and which jobs they went to?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been a lot of discussion in this House about GNWT jobs as of late. How many are being created through devolution? Are they being decentralized? Are small communities getting their fair share? Certainly we’ve heard a fair bit about the advertisement about these mystery jobs out there. How many are truly vacant and certainly where is the money going?

I recognize, as do all my colleagues recognize, how important jobs are to Northerners. I wish this government would wake up and smell the coffee and stop hiding all of those jobs. On that particular point, we often...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just going to use this opportunity to highlight a few areas of general concern. Of course, I’d certainly like to see ourselves do a little more in the treatment area. I’m not sure that the Minister’s Forum, in my view, was their forum panel, and certainly research done on addictions and whatnot was the approach I would have liked to have seen. They have come up with some recommendations, but like anything, it’s all about implementation and how we follow through. There was a commitment in there, the observation of making a treatment centre available or treatment...

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. 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...