Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every year a large amount of money gets thrown on the proverbial table of the Legislative Assembly. For our approximately 42,000 residents, $1.2 billion in round numbers goes on the table. Departments and deputies and their Ministers elected to oversee them put together business plans which form the basis of our annual budget. Our territory is diverse in so many ways, and although our resources are great, so are the many needs of our regions, communities and residents.

It’s our job as the stewards of the public purse to spend our resources in the public interest in the...

That’s all. Thank you.

I really do appreciate the Premier tabling this, because this goes toward one of my issues with transparency. However, not everything that I want to know as a Regular Member is contained in this tabled document.

I would like to know if the Premier, in the spirit of transparency, would be prepared to table the results of the review that took place of the ministerial benefits policy in the 15th Assembly.

Of course, heaven forbid that anything untoward should ever happen to any Member of this House — or anybody, for that matter — but here is an example of where this difference in the enhanced benefit would come into play. If Mr. Roland and I were flying on the same airplane and if the airplane crashed and we both lost our lives, Mr. Roland’s family would receive a benefit of $750,000; my family would receive a benefit of $250,000. It is a discrepancy. I just don’t understand why it’s necessary. It doesn’t make sense to me. And, honestly, it costs the taxpayers, the public purse, money for that...

I thank the Premier for that. I did mention yesterday that, understandably, capital accommodation, home travel, spousal travel, perhaps even the entertainment allowance — some of these things will definitely be there. There is one area of the ministerial benefit which I find a little bit curious and that I referred to yesterday as well, and that is the accruing of holidays that get paid out to Ministers at the end of the year or at the end of their term. This is something quite unique and different, obviously, than what Regular Members have access to. So I am going to ask the Premier: why...

It is my pleasure today to recognize in the visitor’s gallery the mayor for Hay River, his Worship Marc Miltenberger.

I thought that the Cabinet actually made decisions on policies reflecting Ministers’ benefits. Anyway, moving on from there, I got the answer I thought was going to hear. I still don’t really know what the answer is. I don’t want to waste all four questions on the same topic, so moving on.

The capital living allowance for members of the Executive Council, I have no problem with that. Members are expected to live here on a full time basis, and that certainly requires a certain level of comfort and an amount of space. No problem. Home travel is absolutely reasonable. Members have got to go back...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks, colleagues. I am sorry; I am not feeling well today and not doing as good a job of communicating as I should be. As I said, I believe that we can get answers to these questions and we can bring clarity to these policies. I think it will be to the benefit of everyone, and that is what I intend to do.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to summarize for the record what we have learned about the process for the acquisition of a few replacement schools in Inuvik.

No one will dispute that the Inuvik schools were old and in need of being replaced. The process that ensued, however, raises questions for me about the role of Ministers and Premiers in performing their duties as Cabinet Ministers in relation to their work as representatives of their constituencies.

We don’t expect Minister’s constituencies to be passed over for enhanced program services or infrastructure, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting the motion as well. Certainly, it’s not entirely clearly defined how this is going to work. If people think that having a milk subsidy is too administrative a burden, then maybe we should just give it away. Maybe in a small community where milk’s expensive, we should just have a cooler full of milk that anybody can take and not just people ages one to 12.

People have mentioned some of the pressures on seniors. Everybody could stand to use a little more milk. I don’t know about everybody else’s kids, but I’ll tell you, when my kids were growing up, if...