Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like a number of my colleagues here, I’ll continue with the municipal airport closure issue. Assuming that does become the eventuality, this is going to cause significant concern.

When I met with the mayor of Edmonton, Mayor Stephen Mandel, he mentioned that Senator Patterson, the senator for Nunavut, had written a letter expressing his concern about this particular issue. However, he did sort of only sprinkle light interest that the territorial government has played a significant role in this, other than the fact that he’s basically mentioned that he knows of their...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To be frank, the Minister shouldn’t be worried about a little whining on this side of the House. The fact is the Minister should be more worried about the fact that they have $23 million outstanding and, he’s got it right, the declining funds should be motivation enough. The fact is if you start implementing a credit bureau process, you start implementing a collection process, what better motivation will it be to go and pay your past due arrears? Mr. Speaker, that’s the issue. Would the Minister immediately enact a policy and stop talking about we’ll think about, we’ll...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to stress I hope the Minister doesn’t take this personally, but that is quite a travesty to hear that we are not motivating our tenants by those types of things. I can tell you for a fact, that recently someone had an overpayment and the GNWT, well, the FMB sends the leg breakers. They start phoning them regularly over a simple error. They threatened credit bureau. They threatened everything but the kitchen sink to be thrown at them. But housing arrears accumulate to $23 million. Someone should be given a head shake over there to say, how long are we going to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve heard plan, plan, and plan. The fact is we can plan until we’re blue in the face. The fact is we want to know, I want to know, the public wants to know what the GNWT is supporting. Are they supporting the closure of the municipal airport? At what cost are they supporting the closure of the municipal airport? Are they supporting it in the context that there will be a triage built? What does that actually mean to me? What does it mean to the Assembly? What does it mean to the general public? What is the GNWT supporting in this possible eventuality? That’s the type of...

We’ve come to one of the main issues that seem to be the problem. It’s no different than this draft AIP problem and certainly with the health one, which is the fact of who is communicating our message to the government. It’s no different than when I had asked for plain language on the other issue. We need plain language on this particular issue to make sure that people know what’s happening.

What is the Minister doing to communicate to the public exactly the territorial government’s plan? What is the message by this government to ensure that the health care of all Northerners will be enshrined...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to talk about the potential closure of the Edmonton Municipal Airport. This is a direction provided by the City of Edmonton that they have been taking and studying for some time.

I’ve met and talked with the Edmonton mayor, Stephen Mandel, and have expressed the concern of many Northerners. He says they have a plan, which begs the question: What is the plan that our Territory has and how does it work for our residents when it comes to health care? Is our government ahead of this problem or even trying to get ahead of this issue? Or is it on the heels waiting...

I appreciate the Minister’s answer. As I’ve highlighted a few times in this House this term and certainly the last term, my concern about red tape and a red-tape bureaucracy, and B.C. has a red-tape Minister. If they bring in a new regulation, they have to take away two. The point being is they don’t want to continue burdening industry as well as the everyday person with more rules and unnecessary regulations.

The Minister had said this is a draft and I’ll accept his statement that it is a draft. My concern is the draft will roll into this is the way it will be before costing out these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the WSCC regulations and the concerns that the regulations won’t take into consideration the feelings and worries of industry, both small and medium. As I highlighted continually, that small and medium industry certainly is our breadbasket in our economy and if we don’t do everything we can to keep them competitive, it makes it very challenging for them to keep up and running.

My question to the Minister is: I understand that the WSCC has extended its feedback deadline, which certainly has been received positively. However...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point I am trying to get at, and I am sure the Minister understands this, is the fact that public safety is at risk out there. There is a leap of faith people are taking when they go to these places, that they are insured at one level or not that they are protected as well as they are regulated. What I am asking the Minister is: Is there perhaps, maybe a discussion paper that could come forward that we could work on and develop to see what type of priority fits with the ambition of this government and this term as well as the ambition of the next government going...

Mr. Speaker, each profession can speak about the importance of their legislative requirements and regulations on how important they may or may not be over, certainly, other ones, but I can assure you that there is a concern about health and safety. If one can only imagine that if they’re laying on a chiropractor’s table and someone’s twisting their neck, what type of rules, education and authority have they played to ensure that they’re safe at that particular time.

Mr. Speaker, the point I’m getting at is there’s a health and safety issue on both issues, massage as well as chiropractic, that...