Bob Bromley

I hope I would have your support to get an answer here. I know what the decision was, obviously. It’s represented in the budget here. I’m asking why. What was the thinking? What was the assessment of increases in the payroll tax? What were the barriers? Why didn’t we go there?

This is not the first year that this has been raised. This has been raised repeatedly during my short career as a politician, so I’m looking to find out why we are not taking advantage of this apparent real opportunity to increase our revenue when we so very clearly need revenue, as the Minister has said. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. The experience has no correlation with doing it right; of course, we know that.

The National Energy Board recently announced that it would require worst case financial security deposits on all oil and gas exploration. Some junior exploration companies were complaining that they could not afford to explore on the same scale as big companies if they had to pay clean-up costs in advance and I heard the Minister complain about this progressive attempt towards responsible management, presumably from lobbying by these companies. Is this shift away from...

The Minister has said that there may be compliance issues at play in the collection of the payroll tax and that he was considering having the program review office take a look at it with that in mind. Thank you.

Thank you. I see an increase there of about $1.5 million. How is this related to, or perhaps I could ask, I see this is through the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Climate Change Committee of Cabinet. Could I get some clarification on what greenhouse gas emissions – I assume that’s what we’re talking about here – are being achieved through this work and how it relates to the Greenhouse Gas Strategy? Thank you.

No. That was very clear. Thank you.

Thanks for that information. With my rudimentary math, that leaves 25 percent still remaining. Is that in this department somewhere?

Thanks to the Minister for that information. I appreciate Mr. Hawkins’ comments. I would like to follow up on that with a motion. If I may go ahead, I move that this committee defer consideration of minerals and petroleum resources activity on page 12-17 at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I never turn down a briefing, as the Minister knows, but my questions stand here because I think this is something that the public is bringing to my attention and would obviously appreciate the Minister’s response to these questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Bisaro asked most of the questions that I had as well there, but perhaps I could just ask, do we know what the adjustments are to the $120 million to resource revenue royalties and so on that we are responsible for collecting, that this department is collecting? Do we know what the adjustments will be?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I accept your caution, and I offer any apologies that are needed. I know Mr. Vician is a man of integrity and proven record, and I feel like I can speak very frankly with him, and he is here speaking on behalf of the Minister, but if I stepped on any toes there, I apologize. I will try and come up with another word other than baloney.

Obviously, lots of things to discuss here. Another issue that I wanted to speak about was the geoscience office. Now, I know we’re proposing – I don’t think it’s obvious here, the way the budget is laid out, of course – another $650,000 on...