Bob Bromley

Mr. Chairman, if you look at the third paragraph, the second last line. The Environmental Liability Fund.

I think that’s it. I’m sure most of all the unsettled land claims people would like to see these things settled so we can get on with other priorities, but this is a priority and I appreciate the work the department’s doing here, and I hope we can make progress on these files. That’s all I had.

Okay, thank you. I see that the last year we contributed $10.6 million to the general rate application. That is a subsidy, I believe, to electricity rates and that’s dropping to $3.5 million for this proposed fiscal year. Will that continue in future years? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just interested in the progress report on the offices of the children’s lawyer and how this is working out. I believe it’s a new position. Maybe the Minister could refresh my memory on when we implemented this and how that program is working out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just ask a little bit about the Environmental Liability Fund. It came up in one of the previous departments we were discussing, it might have been Public Works and Services, I can’t remember now, or Transportation. Maybe I could just start by getting clarification on what this is, how much is in the fund if it is a set amount, and how it’s managed to meet the needs. I know that environmental liability can go from zip to a whole bunch in no time at all. How does it work to meet that sort of volatile need?

I know that if we continue to go to individual community negotiations for self-government and so on, this could really add to the workload and sort of the fine grained collection of agreements that we would have at the end of it, and we want to be able to try and come up with a system, ultimately, I think, once we get to the point where we can start talking constitutional development, that we can smoothly figure out a way to work together, once we all have our authorities. Is there anything we can do, or what’s the situation with that tendency to get into smaller and smaller parts of...

Thanks for that information. Does that mean the same sort of rate of increase, or does it mean the amount we’re getting this year is what we’re getting annually until ’18-19?

Thanks for that information. I know the Minister’s interest in the sorts of things we were hearing at the early childhood conference as opposed to what we heard in some of our reviews of the Child and Family Services Act, so I know he’ll follow up on that. How do these resources compare to what we think should be in place, or will need to be in place if we had a wellness court or a mental health court? Are we at a position yet? I know the feasibility study is not completed but the Minister has looked at a draft. Is there a sense on how this would compare to what would be needed?

Are there investment opportunities here? Will the government make money on this? Thank you.

These are confidential negotiations, but is there anything that we can say about where we’re at, for example, with the Akaitcho and Dehcho land claims settlement negotiations with the federal government and ourselves? I know we’ve been at it a long time. How long have we been at it and what is it looking like? Is there anything that the Minister can see that we can do to help move those files along?