Bob Bromley

Thanks for that immediate info. I appreciate the Minister’s response there. I wonder if the Minister could just confirm that and give us that information for each of our regional centres at least, including Yellowknife. The added aspect I’m interested in is the number of nurse practitioners who are hired in the Northwest Territories and where they are who are not in nurse practitioner jobs. I’d like to find out what the size of our resource is that we’re not using very well, for whatever reason, then we can explore that.

Thank you for the response there, but that’s very lame, Mr. Minister. This is a First Nation we’re talking about here and the fundamental first thing we know in consultation on anything that we do involving the land is to talk immediately and thoroughly with the First Nation. So I hope the Minister will ask his staff, inform his staff on that protocol. It certainly should be routine by now.

Regarding the recommendations, MACA has admitted that the consultant plotting new lease sites did not even leave his office and walk the ground. Area leaseholders, a gold mine of knowledge and experience...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize and express appreciation for all the work of the Homelessness Coalition and especially mention Mr. Mayor Gordon Van Tighem, a resident of Weledeh.

I prefer to take the Minister’s word at face value there. I mean, I don’t say that this is a mechanism to gain control over the money, but in fact in practical reality that’s what it is if we don’t have some evidence that the work is continuing on these programs. I’m not talking about normal services; I realize that that’s the vast majority of our budget and those will be continuing as the Minister said, but we established a number of reviews and really some new looks and new directions in the last government, and I’m looking for assurance that those will continue to be developed with the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is an extremely important topic here. The Minister says we are not able to discuss what will happen with these critical, important programs that this House has approved as priorities and put in place in this first quarter of the next fiscal year, and yet we are approving 33 percent or, actually, more of the budget, or well over a quarter of the budget, about a third for those three months.

In this budget that we are approving, it is simply a mirror of last year’s, and during last year’s budget those dollars were intended to serve the priorities and programs...

I guess I’d like to know a little more specifically than that. There was actually four. I will mention them again. There’s the child and family services community committees; we’ve committed to getting five of those up and running this fiscal year. I’m assuming that’s going to happen and that we will continue that work. Obviously, we want one in every community. What is the goal for the first quarter that we’re confirming a budget for here with the child and family services committee?

The second one is the early childhood development review that’s being done and I believe should be completed –...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments. I guess I’d like to put them forward in terms of questions. Do we want to start with witnesses?

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s response. The next question I have is enforcement. Again I am astounded that a department with the responsibility of regulating land use has essentially no familiarity with the land and admits it, and they’re responsible for regulation and they admit they have no capacity and yet they propose no remedy. Or at least I have not heard one so far. At the same time, MACA is proposing to double a number of leases here and the past leases are in complete disarray in terms of any adherence to regulations. We lack the enforcement. So why is the Minister proposing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my colleague’s questions to the Minister of MACA on the whole business as per my statement earlier. I’d like to start by saying that I do appreciate the department going after a renewal of this policy. It was desperately needed and I think there are a lot of lessons obviously being learned along the way and that’s what I want to do is improve this process. I’d like to start by asking the Minister if he could explain how it is possible that the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and the central holders and users of these lands had not even received...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Public consultation towards the recreational leasing policy framework has no sooner been launched than they’ve gone off the rails. Overwhelming feedback from First Nations, leaseholders and the public has demonstrated such basic flaws in MACA’s process and planning that we’re back at square one. How much more wise it would have been to start with consultations, especially given the dearth of MACA’s knowledge and capacity.

Incredibly, the rights of First Nations have not been taken into account. MACA failed to provide the consultation documents directly to the...