Robert Hawkins

It was my understanding that the former Minister promised this and other people have been promising that we will have an independent audit. Quite frankly, if the Department of Transportation is monitoring themselves, we might as well just surrender to the results already because it does seem somewhat biased. I’m not trying to be mean here today, but self-evaluation really only works well when you’re, I guess, meditating.

I ask once again for the taxpayer, for the people in the Northwest Territories, would the Minister look at launching an independent audit that had teeth so we could truly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties noted its generally positive experiences with its industry partners. A representative of the Three Affiliated Tribes Tribal Economic Development Office, or TERO, shared his experience that oil companies’ priority is to make a profit, but they are generally willing to work with communities and governments. Statoil emphasized its commitment to collaboration and open communication with stakeholders. North Dakota officials recommended that governments work closely with industry to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to be speaking on the Deh Cho Bridge and the need for an independent audit and a process regarding a number of the problems.

All I can say is, if FDR was alive today, I’m sure he would describe the Deh Cho Bridge as this: The Deh Cho Bridge is a project that will live in infamy. Why? Because it has been cursed with problems. I may describe it as a ship of our great territory. I would say that it appears to have been launched without the bottle being broken, cursed from the beginning.

We all know that the 1,045 metre structure was supposed to be the pride of...

Mr. Speaker, certainly I will be supporting the motion. I was proud to be able to second this.

Quite often, we often think of education as such an amazing thing and here we have an educational renewal document that many educators are telling me that they’re concerned about the lack of input. If we want to do it right, we have to make sure we get off on a good foot. Any home builder will tell you that you can’t construct a good, sound, quality home without building a solid foundation. I consider this 10-year plan, this renewal, should be a solid foundation, one that is so firm and so strong it...

Thank you. So, then, there are deficiencies. Okay, so how much was the negotiated contract negotiated for with the folks in Fort Providence in partnership with Ruskin? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first set of oral questions was, if I may define it as chapter one on the Deh Cho Bridge today. Now chapter two, I’d like to talk about the deficiencies and certainly the outstanding deficiencies left on the Deh Cho Bridge. I see the Minister is flipping papers so I’ll do a little bit of a stretched out intro.

The issue is such that we need to fully understand what the deficiencies are. So, I’d like to ask the Minister about some of them in particular, but let’s start off by enlightening the public. With the list of deficiencies, although I don’t have them, would the...

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General looked at a certain area. The Levelton Report looked at a certain area, but it never looked at investigating on who worked to derail the project, who released information, who harassed the lender, of that type. Those are the things the taxpayers deserve answers to. We have 200 million reasons to ask ourselves, did someone try to scuttle this project from day one. That’s the question I am after, not one of those things. The Department of Transportation looking at themselves I highly doubt that they will look at themselves under that type of scrutiny.

My question...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When Mr. Yakeleya first stated this idea to me, I thought it was a fantastic idea. It’s quite a breath of fresh air in the way we do business, and we should really target areas that could really use not only educational opportunities, but educational opportunities that are necessary and are relevant.

This motion is, really, it’s talking about the tsunami of opportunities that are sort of creeping along and about to crash into the Sahtu region. There is so much opportunity there, but one of the key things to this is they need skilled workers that are relevant to that...

I’m glad the Minister brought up 24 grads in the last five years. If anyone’s math is as good as mine, you’ll realize that’s less than five a year, on average, that graduate from the program. Statistics speak for themselves. As I understand it, far more don’t graduate than enter the program. Maybe the Minister can enlighten this House on the statistics. As I’m aware of it, we can have 30 people who enter the program in one intake year, but only five come out of the program. To me, our statistics aren’t showing good results.

Would the Minister enlighten this House on the intake of the program...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about social workers and the need for social work training and the appropriate education that could rightly fit in at Aurora College.

As we all know, you can parachute somebody into the North but that doesn’t necessarily truly make them a Northerner. It’s almost something that has to be born and bred into your DNA. I’d like to ask the Minister of Education a particular question about the department’s point of view when it comes to Northerners.

Does the department feel that trained, northern graduates who are Northerners have a...