Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a document that was actually buried in our legislative library and was actually never a tabled document of our House. It’s the Electrical Generation Transmission and Distribution in the Northwest Territories, A Design for Tomorrow, in December 28, 2000, referred to as the Robertson Report. Thank you.

Can the Minister of Finance please clarify that this report that he doesn’t want to answer the question to, a report that we know and we have some degree of reassurance that was done in secret by the Cabinet without any knowledge to Ordinary Members and that we assume and are led to believe was done by the same consulting firm InterGroup that is on the payroll of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, the exact organization that the Minister is responsible for and is set to gain from the expropriation of Northlands?

All I am asking is for the Minister to clear the air and set the record...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a follow-up to my Member’s statement, I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance, is it the intention of Cabinet to waste taxpayers’ dollars to expropriate a successful First Nation-owned business in the Northwest Territories when this money can be better spent and more responsibly used to address real issues? We heard some today here from Mr. Bromley such things as homelessness, housing, mental health or education.

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee?  Ms. Bisaro.

I believe I heard $24 an hour but I’m assuming it means per diem per day. I’m assuming that’s the number we’re referring to here.

Again, I’m not quite understanding whether or not there was a change in 2007 to the per diem rate for foster care families. It is alleged that $24 was the rate that may not have changed since 1996, as indicated in yesterday’s Hansard, but I’ll leave it at that. The question still is that that there is a CPI index that needs to be looked at since 2007. So, if by minimum compounded standards of 1.83 percent per annum, there would still have to have some considerable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After a review of yesterday’s Hansard, I’d like to continue where my colleague from Yellowknife Centre left off yesterday during questions on foster families. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Referencing the 2014 Report of the Auditor General on Child and Family Services, it was stated by the Auditor, and subsequently noted by committee, that there was no standardized approach for foster care. Beyond the standard rates of pay for foster parents, there were no territory-wide standards of delivering foster care.

Can the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment work closely with the Standing Committee on Government Operations to revise and bring forward its legislative proposal for amendments to the Official Languages Act in the life of this Assembly;

And further, if the department has received any legal opinions related to the issue of federal concurrence with changes to the NWT’s Official Languages Act, this information should be shared in confidence with the Standing Committee on Government Operations, so that the department and the...

  Thank you. We will commence after a short break.

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  Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s still not clear here. I am led to believe, from what we’ve heard today and what we hear from yesterday, is that the $24 rate per day has not changed for Yellowknife since 1996. Again, if we were just to apply simple math of 1.83 percent compounded annually over the 19-year period, that would be a 41.25 percent increase in that rate, or should be, applied to that rate, so that at a minimum, that number should be at least $33.90 per day.

Would the Minister at least consider raising the per diem rate for Yellowknife for foster families to at least $33.90 per day?