Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Madame la Presidente. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 65719(2) Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 1, 20222023 be now concluded, and that Tabled Document 65719(2) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that.

I don't know how you actively participate in something if you don't have the position. But I'm going to leave it to the Minister.

You know, the most important resource in this area of the proposed regional study is the Bathurst caribou herd, which doesn't pay any attention to boundaries.

So can the Minister explain whether our government is taking a position on the geographic scope of this proposed regional study and the need for a transboundary approach? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thanks, Madam Chair. Yes, I'd appreciate that from the Minister. I think that's the kind of transparency, accountability, and sharing of what should be publiclyavailable information that I'm looking for. So I'm happy on that one.

The question, though, I want to ask is, you know, and I would have asked it at the beginning, but I'm going to try to sneak it in here. We're getting really close to the reserve for the entire supplementary estimates, and I think some of it is largely due to spending on asset management in particular.

But what happens we've only got I think 11 million maybe the...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources.

The Tlicho government asked for a regional study covering the Slave Geological Province almost exactly a year ago. The June 7th, 2021, letter for the Tlicho government stated, "we need an independent assessment of options, impacts, and benefits before permanent infrastructure is built and there's only one chance to get it right.

So the regional study seems to have been put on hold during the recent federal election.

Can the Minister give us an update on the status of the proposed regional...

Thanks, Madam Chair. So this is, I think, the largest item in the sup, and it seems to be a big area of our spending as well. So I guess the question I want to ask is were there any projects from 20212022 or 20202021 that were carried over but lapsed and taken out of the, say the capital plan? I'm not sure if I'm making any sense.

Is there stuff that we're not seeing here that it's been lapsed totally, is not going to come back in the books, and it's not part of the capital plan? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Yes, and I too fully recognize the work that's being done by Indigenous governments and organizations, like the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute. They've done a lot of work on place names.

But I think that we need a concerted effort and a program to fully recognize and change colonial and racist place names here in the Northwest Territories. It's not clear, you know, whether we actually have such a program ourselves. So I want to ask the Minister whether he intends to fully implement UNDRIP article 13 and whether any...

Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. And thanks to the Minister for that.

The second conclusion I draw from this is that we're spending, or attempting to spend, or budgeting too much on capital. And what means is that we have less money for programs and services because it's all too much, in my opinion, is going into capital, and then it gets carried over and over and over and over, over a series of years in some cases, maybe it never gets spent. But what it does is eats up some of the money in the operating surplus which means that we are spending less than we could, and perhaps even should, on...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Minister said the only thing holding us back from renaming the territorial museum is ourselves. I'd like would like to establish what the position of Cabinet is on this issue and what, if any, priority it may have.

Can the Minister tell us whether this government supports and takes responsibility for giving the territorial museum a more regionally and culturally appropriate name within a reasonable timeframe; say, perhaps my lifetime. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Without breaching confidentiality, I want to compliment the Minister and her staff for their improved tracking of the reason why money's not getting out the door. Unfortunately, I can't speak to it. I can't share it with the public. But I think it's improved, and that's a good thing. So I want to compliment them for doing that but I want to find a way to share that information publicly, because I want to give them more compliments but I can't.

So in any event, we're not doing a good job at reconciling the capital spending and how it figures into supplementary appropriations...

Yes, thanks, Madam Chair. And I might have blown the whistle on my colleague beside me in terms of the time but, yes, I want to pick up where he's left off.

You know, I find it really difficult that we're trying to do a reconciliation of 2021 capital budget publicly when we've got confidential information. That's what we're trying to do here. And it's not working very well.

So I think I heard somebody say that there's a free balance of about $222 million, if I got it right, or $200 million. Basically the money that wasn't spent on the capital budget from 2021, if I got it right.

So what...