Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Page 5-38, I see under divisional education board Beaufort-Delta, leasing service. I see we have $120,000. Do we provide this type of service or why wouldn’t this service be performed by the education board itself? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assuming the Minister can’t provide that tonight, from the sounds of that answer, if the Minister could provide for the last three years what regular basis means, I would certainly accept that in written form, so he doesn’t have to answer that tonight. I want to know what regular basis means. I would be willing to accept that if he doesn’t have that detail.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can only assume that we could take somewhat of a profit factor out in order to keep stabilizing this fuel by litre. Because if fuel is set at $1.24 in Wekweti, that would almost seem I couldn't say unaffordable, but I certainly would say that it's cost prohibitive to drive anything that requires fuel, at that rate. Spending about $100 to fill up your skidoo, I don't know…So is the principle of some of this in order to keep the cost down where reasonable where we can, do we eliminate the profit factor out of this? Again, I realize that there isn't tons of factor...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I’m just going to talk about a couple areas, no specific questions at this time. I wish to reaffirm a couple areas. The first one is simply the Minister made note of legal aid and the improvements of legal aid services in our community. I really believe that was something that finally we got the Minister to be able to put dollars behind. He knew it was a problem, this side of the Assembly knew it was a problem, and I was willing to go toe-to-toe as long as it took, to at least get that need recognized and I was really glad to see it came in last year’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At least we agree that we are now talking about private housing out there in the private market. Mr. Speaker, that person in the private housing in the private market has a history and owes arrears in the past to our social housing side. Now, let’s agree to that point. Now, they owe arrears from the past dealings. Where do they go if they are being kicked out of private housing initiatives? Where do they go now because they can’t qualify for public or social housing? So where do they go now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to continue talking about the concerns of arrears with my favourite Housing Minister, the Honourable David Krutko. Mr. Speaker, if a person in market housing is being kicked out because they can’t afford to live there anymore, and obviously they owe arrears because that is what we are talking about, and they owe arrears so they can’t be put on the list, as the Minister clearly says, then where do they go if they are being kicked out of market housing and they can’t get on the list for social housing? Where do they go? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would this Minister look into that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are still missing the point on this issue, Mr. Speaker. I have a constituent out there who is in public housing right now. I can tell you if he wasn’t in public housing, his arrears as they were a few months ago, which were $2,000 or $3,000…This is a single guy with four kids and I can’t imagine him paying market rent forever. When he qualifies for public housing, he wouldn’t get in on this system. So how would he be able to afford to get into public housing if he has to pay his arrears? I think the policy is truly discriminating…

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am still very concerned with this issue because I feel we are discriminating against those who are in most need. We are discriminating against them because they owe some money. I want them to pay the money back, but if they are prime candidates for social housing, they obviously are not prime candidates for market rent. Mr. Speaker, if they can’t pay market rent and we are forcing them to pay market rent, how are we ever going to get our arrears back? It’s perplexing. It’s like trying to push a rope. We are not going to get the money back. What we...