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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE -Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins tried his hand at comedy earlier this month, while raising concerns about a lack of public pay phones in the city.

"Nowadays it seems even the term 'pay phone' belongs in a different time and perhaps a different generation," he said.

"I wonder even today if I'll have to take my son to the museum to see what a pay phone might have looked like."

"As well, there will be a few here who will remember that Superman had to run into a phone booth to change into his costume to do public good. Many people out there wouldn't even know that and wonder what the pay phone was," he said.

After he put the jokes aside, he said not everyone in the city could afford cell phones and many people visiting the city don't have cell phones because there is no access in some communities.

"Public access to communication is a right," he said.

Michael McLeod, minister of public works, said the area of pay phones was a private industry concern.

Get gov't out of personal lives: Bisaro

Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro wants to know why some supervisors in government departments were asking their employees what kind of activities and organizations they were involved with outside of work.

She said she agreed some employees require impartiality or the perception of impartiality, adding some deputy ministers or directors should not engage actively in political activities, for instance.

"The vast majority of our employees, however, should have free reign to take part in any activity of their choice as long as it is outside of their work environment or their work hours, and as long as it does not put them in a conflict of interest position," she said.

"Imagine my surprise and disbelief when I learned that many GNWT employees are required to report their personal activities to their supervisor."

Human Resources Minister Bob McLeod said government employees are bound to a code of conduct regarding conflict of interests and to an oath of secrecy.

McLeod said he would look into Bisaro's allegations.

"Certainly we don't want employees reporting on things that we have no interest or no need to be involved with," he said.

More centralized communication

Premier Floyd Roland spoke briefly on March 5 about some of the changes he will be making with regard to communications from the government.

As part of new communication protocols, Roland said anything emanating from the government will go through the department of the executive, in order to "bring a better co-ordination between all departments."

"We're going to make it mandatory that all departments' communications meet with the office here, whether on a weekly basis, to go over materials and the messaging being sent out to ensure that our messaging is consistent," he said.

Presently, each department has a communication section that takes care of their own press releases, advertisements and ministerial messaging.

No GST on heating fuel, electricity and transportation costs: MLAs

On the last day of session last Thursday, regular MLAs voted to urge cabinet to join with Nunavut and the Yukon, and lobby the federal government to waive the GST on the cost of home heating fuel, electricity and the cost of transporting goods to and within the NWT.

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins raised the motion and said the high costs of heating oil and electricity are of serious concern to all residents of the NWT, and said the elimination of the five per cent goods and services tax on those items would provide some day-to-day relief on the cost of living for Northerners.

He said the federal government collects only about $44 million in revenue each year from the goods and services tax from NWT residents.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay, who seconded the motion, had spoken about this issue last year, comparing the revenue generated by the GST from the populations of the three Northern territories to be somewhere in the vicinity of what comes from a city the size of Red Deer.

Quote of the week

"We've reached a point where it's hard to believe that pay phones are even less common than public washrooms."

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins on his worries about the extinction of pay phones around the city.