Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate Minister Miltenberger bringing this forward for some type of public discussion and I certainly welcome it. At the same time, this would be the same Minister telling me in the back hallway right after that exchange that he was thinking about calling a point of order just to calm me down. Now, that’s a conversation we had; hence, his point and, hence, his point of order here today.

Mr. Speaker, the issue of volume and tone, I think, is quite exaggerated. I think one is not identifying the passion and concerns about seeing issues ignored, repeatedly brought to...

October 22nd…

This Minister, a year ago, said this was a good idea. I talked to him in his office and he said it was a great idea. He said he’d appoint someone to solve this problem and work on this problem. A few days ago I heard from this very Minister, oh by the way, there’s a briefing note on my desk we never sent to you that explained over and over why we couldn’t do this. To this day I still have not been informed in any way why we can’t do this other than the fact of the Minister stating, I don’t know why we can’t do this. Who is in charge of this department and if he isn’t, come on over here. We’ll...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Canadians were shocked yesterday when they heard Mike Duffy reveal that it’s the kids in short pants that are pulling the levers in that government, Mr. Speaker. Time and time again I’ve asked the Health Minister about doing things. I’ve asked for support for addictions; he closes the Nats’ejee K’eh Centre. I ask him to put social workers on the street, he quietly behind the scenes ignores it although he publicly, a year and a day, he says he’d be happy to do it and help people on the street.

The question that remains is: Is the Health file too big for him and who’s...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows this is nothing. He could have come a year… It took a year to get any response from him. A couple of days ago, he then all of a sudden broaches the idea of, oh my goodness, I’m surprised… Mr. Speaker, I quote the paper, “Lately it seems things are getting a little rougher around here than they’ve been.” Again, I ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, other than doing nothing, put something on the table that he’s truly done to improve the lives of Northerners, or get out of Cabinet because you don’t belong there.

As I said a moment ago, this Minister committed in this House to provide social workers to help in partnership with the RCMP. The RCMP wanted it, the Minister agreed with it, I went upstairs to his office and talked to him and he thought it was a fantastic idea. Little to anyone’s knowledge, the mandarins behind the scenes all made these decisions that nothing would happen and the Minister was fine with this. What happened to that promise he made publicly here? Look at the streets today in this city. What has he done to improve this city and the health of Northerners? I would like to know.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve all been hearing loud and clear about the problems in the city over this past summer. These are problems, destructive problems of violent behaviour that has been reaching and affecting all people from across the city from tip to tip.

When in a civil society did we call this normal? When do we consider this acceptable? I assert to you it is not normal, but the calls of action I think have been over shone by the calls of status quo.

Politicians have been called to lead, but in my view, they seem to rather be led. Politicians are expected to act, but all I hear from...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad to hear what the Minister had to say, but he avoided my last question, which is simply: What is going to happen if there’s a buffalo on the bridge and somebody comes along and goes over the hump of the bridge and all of a sudden sees a buffalo? The buffalo has nowhere to go but on the side or jump over. Potentially someone could hit the buffalo; there’s nowhere to swerve. I mean, we know how narrow that bridge is. So the question essentially is: Is public safety being compromised with this failed solution to keep the buffalo off the bridge?

Thank you. Well, I guess the next question is: How does the Minister know they can’t cross the Texas gates? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were a terrible lot of lies going around the world about fracking and the worst thing of all is some of them are true. The fact is, we don’t know what the truth is about fracking until we have done our research. The GNWT and Members on this side of the House continue to go down this path and this narrative of fracking.

Is fracking right for the Northwest Territories? Yesterday I tried to articulate some of the concerns that need to be looked at if our government chooses to travel down this journey, down this path to resource riches, as we have described it. Yes, I...