Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering how complete our community governments are in terms of administrators. Obviously, I think the senior administration officer is a keystone position in all the communities. I’m also wondering: I think there’s been a program put in place recently to try and be more responsive to communities with some of their needs. I can’t remember the name of that program, but if I can get an update on that and whether we’re missing SAOs in many communities and how we’re doing at sort of reducing the turnover and keeping people in place there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the deputy minister for that information. As we staff these people – and I see looking ahead we will probably have a few employees there – do we have those sorts of skills in the NWT workforce, or will there be a training component to this to try and bump the opportunities for local residents? Thank you.

I greatly appreciate that move on the part of the Minister, but what we are committing to here is an ongoing, ever-increasing subsidy, as the Minister said in his own words in response to my first question.

In 2013 the Auditor General’s report found that 90 percent of the income assistance files they reviewed did not meet one or more key system requirements. Not only is this a huge administrative cost, we are not getting value for money. The system is broken and we are no longer closer to the considerable improvements required. We have an opportunity to start from square one with a guaranteed...

Thank you for that response. Given the court case and things being put on hold, what is the department doing? What is the department’s role maybe in concert with other departments to shift plans to support, I guess, the current land and water boards, if I’m interpreting what I’m hearing about the court’s decision correctly, for some undetermined amount of time? What are the consequences to this department? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Is that all we know that there will be royalties or revenue there, or do we actually know what are revenues are so far this fiscal year?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The pilot program in Dauphin, Manitoba, showed that the guaranteed basic income saved money in the long run through decreased costs in health care and provided better outcomes for clients. We have all the same issues as were prevalent in Dauphin, only in spades.

Given our ongoing record of failure of income support to save money, reduce health care needs, improve graduation rates and reduce unemployment rates, all things that the Dauphin five-year pilot...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple areas that I have questions on here. First, on the land use planning side, I believe we have a role in that in the unsettled land claim areas which are extensive in the southern and western NWT. I note that we have the potential to play a GNWT lead role in land use planning initiatives in the activity description.

What are we doing to address the land use planning needs in light of the lack of land use plans for those areas? Certainly, in some areas there is no hint of them being on the horizon and yet development initiatives are out there and interests are out...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to complete for my mind, unless quarries are gravel that is being called minerals here, maybe that’s the issue. If that’s the case, understood. Would we ever expect any oil and gas royalties in this division? I guess I’ll ask the question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The current system of income assistance in the NWT is not working. It is complex, intrusive and inefficient, and too many dollars are being used up to administer a system that does too little to lift people out of poverty.

In 2013, income support payments of $16 million cost almost $4 million to deliver. Twenty percent of the dollars available went to administration. Given these shortcomings, another approach is needed.

Currently, before a person qualifies for income assistance they must be destitute. All of their assets, right down to their retirement savings and vehicle...

Thanks for that response. It seems that I’ve been misinterpreting some of the responses I’ve been hearing, and hearing responses to questions that I didn’t think I’d been asking, so I’m going to seek some clarification here. When I was talking about inspectors earlier, I was talking about inspectors of resource developments, which I believe is different than, say, the Recreational Leasing Policy inspectors but maybe not. When I was talking about variances, I am talking about the experience of inspecting, for example, diamond mines. When there are clearly some that have a whole lot of variances...