Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that didn’t explain anything, I’m sorry to say. It just said there’s a sliding scale that goes up to 40 percent. Mr. Speaker, we have a situation of $72,000. Explain the scenario. Tell me they came from low income housing and they were paying $200 a month and this government was darn well going to make sure that they paid a mortgage at $200 a month regardless of how expensive this house is. Explain the scenario. Show some transparency on this program. Would the Minister do that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on the heels of my Member’s statement with questions to the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my Member’s statement, $72,000 was given to one person and as far as I see it, we could have given three people $24,000 for a down payment and that would have been considered reasonable. Could the Minister explain to me in somewhat reasonable detail, obviously without giving out the name of the person who we gave it to, why there was such a variance between one down payment of $6,500 and another down payment of $72,000?...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with serious concerns regarding the Housing Corporation and how it is running its EDAP program. That is the Expanded Downpayment Assistance Program.

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost I am really glad to see that we are putting people into home ownership and I think that is the bottom line that I really like to see. However, there are serious concerns in regard to how we treat our down payment. We are now treating it as a big handout as opposed to the help-up that I have always believed it should be.

Mr. Speaker, I posed some sound questions to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to hear at the same time when we get this high level, detailed information that really speaks of why we are moving it out of Yellowknife and affecting both the staff and the children, what was the motivation that is preparing to move this out of Yellowknife. The e-mails I am getting now don’t say we want to move to Hay River. The e-mails are saying what is going on. Can we hear some reasoning behind the motivation? What is the true motivation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the Deputy Premier could help emphasize some clarity. This sounds like a done deal and I hate to say it, but the Minister of Health has been in charge of the health portfolio for quite some time and I put a lot of faith in the fact that they must understand and know the depth of their portfolio. This decision must have been made quite some time ago, so there must be some information that they can share with us today. What was the business case that could justify this move? There must be some answer we could give this House today so we can move forward. We could...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can see we’re slowly getting somewhere, like an iceberg here moving along the great divide. But, Mr. Speaker, let me put $72,000 into real dollars. Mr. Speaker, if I took home $72,000 in a pay cheque, that means I would have made over $105,000 that year. This is grantable money of $72,000. That’s a lot of money that’s tax free, straight across. As far as I’m concerned, we still haven’t heard the details and we have five more days of this session to go. I’m sure we’ll hear it by the end of it. Mr. Speaker, what were the exact details of this? What did they have for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has been here long enough to realize that he’s not supposed to ask Regular Members questions. I was kind of hoping maybe a point of order on that, but I’ll answer the question. I’m very proud that we’re putting people into housing and I’m proud to hear this government puts in housing, but you know what? The bottom line is I’m mad to find out that we’re putting $72,000 into one house. We could have done a lot better than that and it seems unreasonable. All I asked for was for you to explain the details of why one person received $72,000 when we could have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again on the heels of my Member’s statement, I spoke about visiting the Canadian pavilion. It wasn’t my intention to go to the pavilion, but I happened to be in the area so I made the extra effort to pop over for a few minutes and see the enthusiasm about the aurora. What I noticed key was the fact that the enthusiasm was built up to such a peak, then there was no one to send them in a direction of booking tours or acknowledging where to go, other than pointing to a map. Would the Minister take those types of comments and look into and investigate an opportunity...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the heels of my Member’s statement, I would like to pose questions to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. As we all know, the Minister is well educated in Japanese tourism so I don’t have to go into the value and the dollar amounts that they bring to the Northwest Territories. With all of that said, Mr. Speaker, in brief, would the Minister look at the feasibility of creating an NWT office in Tokyo, Japan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While in Japan I took a couple of minutes of spare time to go and see the Canadian pavilion. Mr. Speaker, its main theme was aurora. Everything had the aurora logo on it, from its posters to its little hologram cards that say Experience Canada. Incidentally, the only card they couldn't keep in stock was the one with the aboriginal picture on it. They just flew out the door.

Watching Japanese people captivated by the light show with their personal enthusiasm was amazing. You would watch them filter out of the pavilion saying how can I go to...