Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to express different concerns of issues that affect my constituents. However, first of all, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the time to thank my constituency for their support in re-electing me as their MLA. I would also like to take the time to thank my family for the support that they have given me.
Thebacha Concerns
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of concerns that are of importance to my constituency, and there are a number of goals I would like to work towards achieving. It is my hope that the goals I am attempting to achieve are indeed achievable, and I will be candid in advising the particular Ministers regarding the types of goals I will be working towards over the next four years.
Paving Of Highway
To the Minister of Transportation, I will be working towards pavement on our highway from Sandy Lake to Bell Rock. The government should make every effort to complete the stretch of pavement that they started some six years ago. I want the Minister of Transportation to know that this particular area of highway has a solid base and, therefore, would not cost as much as other estimates when they were doing pavement in other areas of the Territories.
Education
To the same Minister, although under another responsibility as the Minister of Education, it is my hope that the completion of the academic building that they have started working on in their planning work for the college in Fort Smith will be completed in the next four years. Mr. Speaker, I know that there has been some concern with regard to the whole college concept in the Territories, but I still feel that fundamentally we are progressing. I believe we have to give opportunity to our northern students to be able to take up the education in their homeland prior to being told that they have to go south for further education.
Mr. Speaker, I want the Minister of Education to know so that he is aware that in Fort Smith we have a 32-year old elementary school. Structurally it is a very sound building. However, I know that there are certain components in the building that have fulfilled their purpose. I know the heating system could probably use a more updated heating system. So I certainly hope that he takes a serious look at renovating the Joseph Burr Tyrrell Elementary School. I believe it is critical and important for students that are attending that school to be able to be learning under a healthy and good atmosphere.
CL-215 Base In Fort Smith
To the Minister of Renewable Resources, Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that he supports the construction of a CL-215 base in Fort Smith. A CL-215 base is basically a base that will look after water bombers. Every year for the past number of years, the water bombers that are based in Fort Smith return south. They come back in the summertime and are based out of the community to fight fires that we may expect around our area and in the western Arctic. But unfortunately, as I stated, they go south every fall. I used to wonder what they go south for. But now I know it is because we do not have a hangar or a proper base to be able to accommodate them in the North. They also go south to get repaired. After all their hours of flying, they need to get checked and repaired. If we had a base that could look at providing that service up north, the funding -- I am sure Members will agree with me the amount of funding we spend will stay in the North instead of flowing south and would no doubt be phenomenal. Therefore, I hope the Minister of Renewable Resources will support the proposed base. I do not believe the CL-215 base has to be taken out of your capital funding to be built. I certainly would like to see, and I fully support the concept, a base built on a lease-back purchase to this government. It allows the opportunity for business to co-ordinate and pursue a venture that is accommodating the concept of attempting to keep as many economic opportunities and many economic dollars in the North. I certainly hope that the Minister of Renewable Resources will consider my request.
Bison Ranch
In speaking to the chief of the band, I have agreed with his suggestion that the bison ranch be given to the band and the Metis only; half of the ownership to the band and half to the Metis. If this arrangement cannot be made, then the department should seriously consider taking it back. They should at least take it back until the HTA can get their act together. The current president of the HTA in Fort Smith has not had a meeting for at least two or three years. He is probably operating illegally. I know for sure that they would be in violation of the Societies Act. I certainly do not support that. I feel that the president should at least hold an HTA meeting.
Another issue is how the government continues to fund such organizations when they do not operate properly. I hope the Minister of Renewable Resources will seriously look at this particular HTA and make sure that they are operating properly before future funding is granted.
Housing
Mr. Speaker, another important issue that relates to my constituency is the issue of housing. This is government housing. Since the government is not reconsidering to reinstate the buy-back policy, and since the government is requesting that after one year any employee living in a government unit must make every effort to get their own unit, one way the government is doing this is by decreasing the housing allowance. I urge the government to sell government units as soon as possible, or else consider halting the reduction of housing allowances. I ask the Minister of Personnel to seriously look at the number of units deemed surplus in Fort Smith and find a proper method to be able to dispose of these units. However, I want to caution him to not place every unit on the market at once because he will flood the market which will cause terrible effects on the housing market in our community.
Health
To the Minister of Health, I sincerely hope that you take my advice under consideration of placing the chairmen of the health boards for a specific time frame because of the fact that in our community there have been many problems with respect to the health centre. I sometimes feel that it is the fault of the chairman in addition to the fault of the board. But I sometimes feel that when chairmen are appointed at pleasure, it gives them a chance to be able to deem that they can do whatever they want, because they are appointed at pleasure and I think that is unfair. So I hope he takes my advice under serious consideration.
Mr. Speaker, those are the areas of my constituency, but I do have other areas that I do want to speak about and I feel is important. I know when we were going forward for our cabinet seats, we had 10 minutes to be able to address many of the issues on the floor. At the time I did not feel 10 minutes was enough, but I went with the majority of Members.
Past Social Services Scandal
So I would like to speak on an area that I feel I have to get out of my mind and out of my system. I have to speak on the issue of what I call in this House the past "Social Services scandal". Over the past week I have been harping on the government and advised them of three social workers that did what you would call politically, an end run.
As a Minister I know that is one of the things that you have to watch out for. When you are a Minister and you want to do something, particularly the new Ministers, I certainly hope this does not deter you from making decisions and I hope you can address concerns that this House directs you to, but at the same time when you direct concerns, do not forget that you direct the bureaucrats to fulfill those concerns. Sometimes the bureaucrats simply do not like that.
There are many directions that I gave for change and naturally, particularly, so-called professional bureaucrats did not agree with it. People often wonder how I knew who dealt with these documents, how do I know how they got these documents and how do I know how they were released. Well today I am willing to tell the House.
First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to stress to this House how disgusted I was to know that confidential files of a personal nature were released for public consumption. Highly confidential information, where people go in despair to a social worker, were released for public consumption. And if this is allowed and nothing is done, I believe that even as a Member, I will formulate a private Members' bill to avoid things like this from happening again. Because I would not like this to happen to anyone else, regardless of whether they be a Minister or a client of Social Services.
It scares me to think of who or what could be the next target if we do not address this issue. Could it be personal information that is released to the public or could it be medical files? So I want you to know that I am very concerned and to keep it from going on, that I will formulate a privacy act if the government does not consider one.
One of my purposes in politics, Mr. Speaker, is to try and correct injustices that are done to people and I certainly plan to continue working in that manner.
Now I did not tell the House as to how I got the information. In the middle of July I received a call from my dear sister -- thank goodness for families -- who works with Keith Dowling who is a regional vice-president in Fort Smith. He indicated that the union, particularly Dianne Strilaeff here in Yellowknife, received a lot of clients' files from Ann Enge. Dianne Strilaeff advised Ann to bring this information to Keith Dowling because he was the regional vice-president of the union in Fort Smith. But Keith did not want anything to do with this. At least he was level-headed enough to recognize that this was scandalous.
That was one of the ways that I found out. But I wondered, knowing that Ann Enge was the acting regional superintendent for Social Services in Fort Smith, I wondered how she got this information; how would she get clients' files? Then I was told by a worker in the Fort Smith area office, and it certainly was not Priscilla Hamann or Marj Sakundiak, how she got the information. She went into the area office and retrieved all the information with the assistance of her niece, Priscilla Hamann, and the other social worker in the office, Marj Sakundiak. Why would she take such information and send it to the public for public consumption?
Last spring, Mr. Speaker, I knew there were concerns in the Yellowknife area office and as a result I got an audit done and everyone knows today what happened. The former superintendent had many charges against her. Out of that office they also fired one social worker, Eileen Gruben, because she acted unprofessionally. So for fear of getting fired like her friend Eileen Gruben, Ann Enge felt that she would make sure that her Minister and her deputy minister and her senior staff would go down with her if she went down. But she did not get fired, she just got reprimanded.
It is so unprofessional and so unfortunate that she had to act in such an unprofessional and unethical manner. This is why I felt that I should bring it to the government's attention and I seriously, honestly feel that to avoid it for anyone else, that they should take into consideration to do something like this, because if they do not do anything about it, it will happen again and maybe it could be one of you Ministers that could get set up. So that is what happened, Mr. Speaker, and I am happy it is out now. I feel a lot better now. Now I will be more happy to deal with the government. I will not be as bitter and I will be more co-operative.
People wondered why I could not comment to the media. Because when I was a Minister I was advised, and I was given the wrong advice, now that I can see things, when you sit back and look at things, I got the wrong advice from the former Government Leader. He basically said not to say anything. So taking his advice and respecting him, I did not say anything. But now I will not stay quiet for anyone. The media even suggested that why I brought forth my budget last spring was because I had something to hide. Lord only knows, Mr. Speaker, I had nothing to hide in my budget. I brought forth my budget because I knew it, not because I had anything to hide. That is one thing I want the Ministers to know, not next year or the year after, I expect you guys to know your budgets and if you do not, I will question you.
Mr. Speaker, I mentioned that I had lack of guidance from the past Government Leader and I want to make a public statement in regard to how I have lost a lot of respect for the former Government Leader because of the fact that he was not what you call a leader. I want to commend our current Government Leader for giving the advice and guidance, and particularly to her new cabinet Ministers for attempting to make every effort to work as a team. You are doing a good job Nellie and I commend you, and I would like you to keep it up, because you will get a team out of the method that you are using.
---Applause
Appreciation Of Past Staff
Mr. Speaker, in my closing remarks I want to indicate that I want to thank Bernie Doyle, the deputy minister of Social Services, for his dedication, his loyalty and his service that he gave to the department. I know that he went through a difficult time this past summer. I want him to know that even though he went through a difficult time, he pulled through it and certainly has my utmost respect and I would like to indiciate this to Mr. Doyle. He is a very hard worker, a dedicated worker, and I certainly know that I am sure that I speak in confidence and that the Minister, even the current Minister of Social Services will probably agree with me, that he is an honest man; he is a hard worker and I am sure that he will be able to address the issues of social issues that we face in the North.