Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to take a little pause in the bit of a theme about renewable resources and how Northerners can benefit more from them. Today I want to comment on the quality of the answers that I have been hearing during this session.
As we are reminded, it is question period and not answer period. I am not standing in this House to hear myself talk. I have been bringing forward very good ideas, asking questions in the hope of turning the government’s attention to the issue of renewable resources and how the abundance of these resources can be used in a sustainable way to offset the cost of living and create economy in the North.
I went to Mr. Miltenberger’s office to give him a heads-up that I wanted to discuss the harvesting of bison. In response to my questions I got answers like, “I don’t really know how many there are in the Mackenzie sanctuary. I don’t really know how many tags are issued each year,” and this is just one example of less than quality answers.
Mr. Speaker, for the love of all that is pure and simple, once in a while it would be nice to raise an issue or an idea and hear from the other side of the House, “that is an idea worth pursuing; that is an idea that has merit; let’s work on that together.” I would like to hear that more often.
It is just not me and my ideas. Mr. Krutko has been raising the issue of a mental health worker in Fort McPherson and a nurse for Tsiigehtchic for so long I am even getting tired of hearing about it. But we could have put people through college in the amount of time it has taken the government and the Department of Health and Social Services and the Minister to respond to that particular issue.
Mr. Speaker, how about the issue the other day about mould at Stanton Hospital? That was a dandy. How many ways can you ask if there is an issue? The Minister doesn’t have to be defensive. It is not her fault there is mould in there, but she could have just said, yes, we had mould at Stanton and, yes, we have taken measures to address it. It is a department and a facility she oversees, but we don’t need to be defensive about it. We just want to hear what you are doing about it.
Mr. Speaker, we are on the same side. We are not the enemy over here. There is no need to be defensive. How do we get into this adversarial mindset?
I am going to continue putting forward ideas and asking questions. We are all here for the same reason, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to some answers. I am going to ask Mr. Miltenberger yet
again today about the bison. I hope he has some answers today. Thank you.