Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand, as well as a lot of Members in this Assembly will stand, with Northerners. We feel we need to be meek no more and we want to stand up against big oil and corporate greed. I need not teach this House a lesson on cost of living. It’s something we all understand very well, but the problem is Northerners are being priced out and certainly being outpaced by the cost of living here in the North.

The status quo can no longer be defended by ignoring this problem. We must call these people and these protection measures to account by asking for regulation of gasoline. The...

When is this development plan going to see committee’s desks or Members’ desks? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Who is actually developing it?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to use this occasion today to recognize Sandra Taylor, who is the president of the Yellowknife Seniors’ Society and she is a constituent of Yellowknife Centre. I’d like to thank her for coming today. I’d also like to recognize all the seniors in the gallery, although there are too many to name, but I would like to make special mention of Barb Hood. She does a fantastic job with the NWT seniors. It’s a yeoman’s job and she needs a special pat on the back for the hard work she does. Finally, of course, I would like to recognize two good and long-time friends: Jim...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under this particular section under strategic and business services division we have the section noted for Aurora College. I’m wondering if the Minister can talk to this particular issue. I’d like to find out what planning and development, in the context of capital planning, is being looked at for Aurora College. I’d like to hear some specifics.

Is there a chargeback in any way to the individual departments?

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate if the Minister would stop saying they go to my committee. It’s the Assembly’s committee, first of all. Second of all, I think this is an issue that the Minister should be concerned about, not just some of the committee members.

What can the Minister do under the context of monitoring in the sense of do we have a definition of what a Northerner is? We don’t know if these people have health care cards, whether they have a post office box or even if they file their taxes here in the Northwest Territories, so we must have some rules to govern this by rather than...

I think my last question, assuming it’s a favourable answer obviously, is, can I get a copy of this detail?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under asset management we have done some consolidating on the payment of the energy bills in coordination, and at one time the philosophy used to be that departments should be farmed out and be responsible for their own things like, for example, their power bill or their fuel bill and they best would know how to manage these things and coordinate these things. Since the last couple of years, Public Works and Services has taken this back. I’m curious as to how the monitoring and management of this program now has been working out. Has there been cost savings? Better...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I was raising the issue of some of these ghost Northerners, or sometimes even commonly called paper Northerners, who get these northern jobs, and as soon as they get them, they move south, but the mining industry will put them on their socio-economic agreements and tick them off in the “have you hired or do you have a Northerner working for you” and they tick off yes.

The issue is, simply, this: How do the mines account and, furthermore, validate that these are a true northern workforce, and how do they officially report this to the GNWT...

How does the department determine the markup rate for local vendors to supply that? What is it based on? Is it based on a percentage of usage? Is it a flat rate? Could they explain it and perhaps provide some ranges? I don’t know if it’s proprietary information or if it’s negotiated. Maybe he could answer and explain how they get to these rates and where is it publicly disclosed.