Thank you, Madam Chair. I think my colleague Mr. Hawkins, chair of the EDI, I agree with all the points that were made. Basically, the concerns in particular were emphasized on the development of the Mineral Development Strategy and I think were well laid out in the report.

Just to do a quick review, basically there was a stakeholder engagement panel made up of industrial representatives put together by the Minister. They went out and did consultation. We had serious concerns that the public interest was not represented on that panel and that a lousy job – speaking straightforwardly here – was...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I also heard the department’s official saying that they have to balance protection from environmental liabilities with a supportive economic development as some sort of justification, I suppose, for accepting a lesser form of security. I think the Minister is well aware that that approach by the federal government has resulted in $8 billion in liabilities that the taxpayers of Canada will be paying, mostly from northern mining companies that have failed to clean up their messes. These are real things that we are talking about.

Is it the purpose of the Department...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Lands today in follow-up on an earlier set of questions about financial security. We last talked about surety bonds being a promise to pay, a form of security, and I asked the Minister if he would agree that that’s not acceptable. He said we will ensure that we have security that’s, as the Member said, something other than a promise to pay.

Now, surety bonds, the point of discussion, Wikipedia defines surety bonds as a promise to pay. Is the Minister still sticking with this or is the media right that in fact we are taking security...

Thanks to the Minister. The Minister anticipated my next question. The department obviously has the largest O and M budget in our government, and most residents consider it the most important department when it comes to quality of life. So any savings that can be made in the efficient delivery of health programs will result, presumably, in increased health delivery.

Will the shift to the leadership council result in significant savings in the delivery of health care programs? I think the Minister has indicated probably. How much can we anticipate? Has the Minister identified any sorts of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health of Social Services in follow-up from his Minister’s statement earlier today. I’ve been following the Minister of Health and Services’ plans to improve our territorial health system through the amalgamation of our eight current regional health boards into one territorial health leadership council.

On the whole, I’m pleased with what I see, but I do have questions. One of the original reasons for regional boards was to ensure a system responsive to regional needs in health care delivery.

Can the Minister tell me, what plans are...

The living wage movement is fairly recent to Canada, but where living wage policies have been implemented in the United States and the United Kingdom, employers and communities have realized significant benefits including increased productivity, lower employee turnover and, most importantly, less poverty and healthier families.

I urge this government to stay tuned on what is happening with communities adopting this standard, to pay attention to the Alternatives North study and to help the communities and people of the North through establishment of living wage communities in the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if the Premier would consider decentralizing my position to Hay River.

Just kidding, Mr. Speaker. This week is… Don’t answer that question.

---Interjection

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that committee recommends that when developing future strategies, that government departments undertake public consultation in a thorough, transparent, meaningful public engagement process, free of perceived biases, with ample opportunity for public response and a reasonable time frame for dialogue between government departments and all Members of the House;

And further, that expertise in public interest policy be an integral part of such strategy development exercises.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s obvious the Minister hasn’t heard a word that we said, the ongoing record of committee bringing concerns to the Minister and getting no joy.

I appreciate that committee’s done a good job laying the issue out here in this report. I hope the Minister will, at some point in his life, read it over and really take it to heart.

The motions that I have are the motions that are in the paragraphs on the last page. There are no changes to those. We thought, let’s formalize them and just see if the Minister might eventually acknowledge that a lousy job was done on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for that commitment, I think. Just my last question here. The tabled document, the letter from the Environment and Natural Resources to the Wek’eezhii board. The Wek’eezhii board is saying they want to put some teeth into the legislation and require that securities for liability assessed be provided within 90 days, and the department is fighting this, and of course, the result is that it might take six months or a year. I don’t know. It’s probably been more than a year. It’s probably been years, in fact, for the Ekati Mine without providing this security. This...