Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize all the students in the House today. It adds a certain energy to the room. I would also like to recognize that there are undoubtedly students from Weledeh, that’s the Old Town and Niven Lake and Ndilo and Detah. I certainly recognize Rae Panayi, a neighbour from down there in Peace River Flats. Welcome to the House. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that question. It’s not unusual. In fact, it’s probably more common than not that candidates have some expenses that they incur before there is an official representative, so that the financial aspects remain at arm’s length. Perhaps ordering signs for a remote community or something to ensure that they are there in time, whatever it might be. Usually they are fairly modest. This is to legitimize those expenditures and make it clear that those are legitimate for the actual candidate to be doing spending early on, perhaps even before everything has been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of my fondest memories from early childhood was visiting O’Callahan’s amazing and magical cabbage patch near where the Explorer Hotel now stands.

In those days if you wanted fresh vegetables here or, indeed, anywhere in the NWT, you usually grew them yourself. Back then, home and market gardens throughout the Territories supplied people with enough vegetables to meet their needs for a healthy diet. After losing that tradition, the Growing Forward II Program, a joint funding program between Canada and the GNWT, was meant to support a local produce revival...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this, as Ms. Bisaro identified, clarifies the terminology under election advertising and tries to level the playing field. There are some forms of advertising that are active and can be deactivated, others that are print form that can’t, and so it clarifies under election advertising which of those categories it falls into.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move that the Elections NWT and the Government of the Northwest Territories work together to expand the coverage of government issued photo identification among residents of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to increase the number of times an elector may vouch for another elector from one to five. This is in recognition in some of our communities where more than 50 percent of the residents eligible to vote do not have government issued identification.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion. We started originally with the recognition that we really needed to move forward strongly and quickly on the early childhood development front, which is also handled by this department. We said we wanted to focus on the ages zero to three. The Minister chose to focus on junior kindergarten, so he developed a lot of support for that, and we saw the potential for it. It wasn’t that we disagreed with it. We had different priorities, but we went with the Minister’s priority, but with the important recognition that all of the research shows...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Lands. According to Section 6.5 of the Devolution Agreement, the GNWT assumes overall liability for the operating sites listed in Schedule 7, Part A.1 of the Final Devolution Agreement.

Could the Premier please provide the following information for each of the 13 sites listed:

amount of financial security currently held by the federal or territorial government;

the form of that security, e.g. irrevocable letter of credit;

the authority under which each security amount is held;

the expiry date of each security instrument;

the amount...

I said we’ll be tabling this document and it’s got the Minister’s senior official’s signature on it. ECE has failed to increase the departmental budget over the last few years to the extent that they have not even met the increase in the CPI, the Consumer Price Index. That says something, but now that we do have full information here, even though the Minister cannot seem to put the numbers together and out in words here today, we do have full information.

Will the Minister finally give serious consideration to address the real budget issues that have become clear? That is, the Minister’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Returning to the topic at hand, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment made statements in the House yesterday, which despite bemoaning the lack of facts, fell far short of the full truth on school board funding and junior kindergarten. Because of those omissions, the statements were very misleading and unhelpful. The Minister presented, again, only some of the facts, those recognizing budget increases demanded by the Education Act to meet legislated PTR rations, but he ignored the net impacts of his total funding plans which yield substantial and cumulative...