Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk today about a man I've known most of my adult life, Mr. Tony Whitford. Perhaps he knew all along that a young Fort Smith young man would one day, who was riding the barges in the 50s, would become our Commissioner. Tony's inspirational story could simply be anyone's story or tale in this building. It's a story of perseverance and kindness. Tony's story, or even in some ways his chronicles, could easily be tucked away in a Mark Twain account about a life full of adventure.

Mr. Speaker, Members could imagine, just for a second, if they could pause their busy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to my colleagues for having this motion and on certainly supporting it to get it at least to this phase of the process. That said, Mr. Speaker, I've spoken at length about how important our RCMP are, and that's absolutely true, and I'll never change that, Mr. Speaker. At the same time, I'll also say that the RCMP, as they've acknowledged in this motion, and they've said themselves, you know, they're not social workers, and sometimes when the call comes in and they're the only one answering the phone, they cannot unanswer that phone. They can't let it ring...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table a statement of consistency for Bill 8-20(1), An Act to Amend the Student SFA Act. And I'll just say the final statement notes it complies with section 35, which is very important. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement today talked about trying to find ways to help de-escalate violence in shelter and programs and opportunities that exist, and I even pointed at our First Nations -- Saskatchewan First Nations training program. Now, there's a lot of good in all of that, of course, but there's also opportunities. So my question will be directed to the Minister of Finance. And I'm going to give her a little second here or two.

The department, this section has the human resource department, and we do a lot of employee training currently right now. And so my question for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first off, I want to say thank you to the Member of Monfwi for sharing her concerns, being honest about her concerns in the sense of -- I respect that. And I don't have a problem that she has questions, by any means. And I think this is the debate I'm talking about when, you know, sometimes you find those arguments and challenges in debates, but I think the important thing here to focus in on is this: That could become some of the discussion during the review after second reading if it goes to committee and get some public feedback and maybe find out -- the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off, I'm going to thank and acknowledge the Minister from -- or sorry, the Member -- maybe one day -- but certainly the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh for seconding the motion. He raises some really good concerns, and I fully support the issues he brings, which is many of these small communities are so underresourced and they're piled on with more challenges, you know, they just have nowhere to go and they're challenged all the way around to find ways to move dollars around just to get the job done and, yet, here they are they're often struggling and one could say...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to kick off debate as I did earlier, but I probably won't spend as much time going through this one. This motion speaks for itself.

Communities, whether you live in a large one or a small one, are all starved for resources. We talked about the municipal funding gap at length. And this is just one more thing piled on to them that they need to respond to.

Mr. Speaker, the challenge is, of course, we know, first of all, it's money, so the resource of money is not there for these communities. Then you have the skills and abilities to do this. I mean...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First off, I want to thank all the committee members on this side of the House for their very rich and important and thoughtful comments. Mr. Speaker, a couple of them I want to highlight.

First of all, I'll start with the Member on my left, for Range Lake. These are the types of issues on his agenda, constantly raising with committee, trying to support community members. You know, and I often hear him say he recognizes the Mackenzie Delta Member who's dealing with his challenges in his community. I hear the Member from the Sahtu talk about the community impacts that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the rate of violent crime is on the rise in the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS the RCMP have publicly acknowledged the link between drugs and unprecedented homicides in the Northwest Territories;

AND WHEREAS the RCMP have publicly stated they appear to be the only resource to deal with mental health emergencies;

AND WHEREAS the RCMP responding to a mental health crisis is time consuming and uses significant valuable RCMP resources that could be managed by a worker trained to respond to mental health crises;

AND WHEREAS support for Northwest Territories-trained...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I raise the issue of the Saskatchewan First Nations offered a program, and I guess I would say to the Minister that, you know, is something like this in general -- could this be worked into contribution agreements whereas in the GNWT works with the department of education through the Department of Finance under contribution agreements to find ways to bring NGOs supportive training up to a higher standard than what we're currently offering them, which is, you know, one-offs from time to time. So in other words -- allowing the Minister to get a second there...