Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Christina Popa. She is the executive assistant to the vice president of Public Service Alliance of Canada. I would also like to acknowledge Mr. Rami Kassem, who has several businesses in my constituency. Thank you.

As we all know, mining tradeshows are numerous. Not just the roundup, but the Geoscience Forum, and coming soon, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. Has the Minister's department done a cost-benefit analysis of attending tradeshows, and if he has, can he share the results?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Last week, he, his Cabinet colleagues, and various officials attended the annual Mineral Exploration Roundup in Vancouver at an estimated cost of $75,000. Unsurprisingly, my constituents have been in touch with me about both the cost and the benefits of this trip. The media quoted the Minister saying: "I am confident that we will be returning to the North with the solutions that will define the next generation of exploration and mining in the NWT."

Could the Minister please elaborate on the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our country is coping with a terrible tragedy, the death of six men who were gunned down while worshipping at a mosque in Quebec City. We are a society in which targeted gun violence has struck again, as it did in 1989 at the Ecole Polytechnique when 14 women were massacred because they were women. The six men in Quebec were gunned down for being Muslim. Today we are adjusting to the fact that we are not the tolerant society we thought we were.

Mr. Speaker, these men were sons and brothers, husbands, and fathers. They were raising children, some of them just...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Finally, on this point, I'm wondering whether the Minister will deliver with this plan a costed implementation plan and the assignment of the resources needed to deliver on it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the Minister for that reassurance. Of course, having a plan is one thing; but if the plan is not to suffer the fate of the last one, we'll need deliverables, evaluation, and reporting. Can the Minister commit that no plan will be produced without these features, including a mandatory annual reporting to this Assembly and an evaluation framework?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi, colleagues. Representatives of the NGO sector are reporting positively and hopefully on the efforts with the disability action plan, but the test here will be whether this new plan suffers the same fate as the last. Clear deliverables, regular evaluation and reporting, and, above all, adequate resourcing will be essentially for making progress on helping persons with disabilities make the most of their potential. We'd like to see an end to the resolution of disability access cases through human rights complaints and settlements, as reported twice in recent media. It...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in March of this year I raised the issue of the dormant NWT Disabilities Action Plan, completed in 2008 but apparently forgotten until the NWT Disabilities Council resurrected it in 2015 with questions about its implementation and status. Their evaluation contained a number of recommendations, all based on the principle that we have all the information we need on current supports, or the lack thereof, and that we now need to move on to action.

I attempted to move this process forward through a motion, which was adopted by this House and supported by my...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave Lake, that notwithstanding Rule 4 when this House adjourns on November 4, 2016, it shall be adjourned until Tuesday, January 31, 2017;

AND FURTHER, that at any time prior to January 31, 2017, if this Speaker is satisfied after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly that the public interests requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice...

To break out one of the multiple questions there, could the Minister commit to annual reporting to the Assembly on the Disabilities Plan once it is delivered?