Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The nature of our modern government is that a large number of very important decisions are delegated to statutory officers. The example I use today is the employment standards officer. This is, of course, sometimes the only efficient way to do government, in today’s day and age. What concerns me is that too often the government’s oversight seems to end with an appointment or, certainly in the case of employment matters, when they hire these folks. It cannot be overstated, but the decisions made by the employment service officers have very far reaching impacts. Sometimes...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Your loyal committee would like to review Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act; Bill 3, An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act; Committee Report 1-17(3), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2010-2011 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories; and, finally, time permitting, Committee Report 2-17(3), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the 2010-2011 Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to return to my questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment because I think he provided some really good overviews to the questions I asked. I’m hoping this round he would provide the answers to them. What I want to do is come back to my very last question in which I asked him if the government monitors the decisions made by our employment standards office that are actually taken and appealed to the Supreme Court. The reason I ask that is there may be some reasons why people are consistently appealing them or have problems with them. There...

Part of the training question that I’d like to ask at the same time, is does his department offer any ongoing training. As many people know, there are types of mediation training such as decision-writing training and these are the types of the capacities. Does his department support these statutory officers with that type of support mechanism, again, to ensure they’re making clear and good decisions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m having trouble following his last answer. Is the Minister saying services are available and he can establish them in this particular facility and in a manner that could encourage people to take this path? Thank you.

A number of weeks ago I was there on a Sunday dropping off some food and people were openly drinking. Does the GNWT support that type of behaviour, and if they do, if you could put that officially clearly on the record? And if they don’t, my question is: What do they plan to do about that particular problem? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise again today to remind the Minister of Health and Social Services that the downtown day shelter still needs a lot of support. I spoke in the House the other day about how we need focused hope and purpose for people. We have an opportunity to give people purpose. As I said in Committee of the Whole the other day, we could be providing good focus and opportunity to treat addictions; we could be working on employment and even health clinics in this particular facility.

The government has committed financial resources as well as good brain power on the excitement and...

Will the Minister of Health and Social Services be willing to provide some access services for people to get into the addictions stream for treatment? In other words, would he be able to put some type of counselling process down there to be able to offer people addiction treatment opportunities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the opportunity here for hope, purpose at the downtown day shelter. My questions, of course, are directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. My question specifically is this: What services, such as addictions treatment or employability type of programs, would he be willing to do as some outreach to help capture some of the potential and give people a bit of hope and opportunity for the future there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance.

Would the Minister supply a detailed analysis on the small capital projects budget for the budget years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, which specifically aggregates the following details by departmental budget:

Items requested in the actual budgets and the budgeted amount requested for each item in the capital plans;

The supplier and actual cost of each item purchased;

The date of purchase and delivery date of each item; and

The reasons why any requested items were not purchased, and an explanation of what happened to the financial...