Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Two yeses in a row? Wow, that's great, let's keep it up. Go for a third one.

I could not see anywhere in the evaluation criteria or the applications where environmental innovation or efforts to reduce environmental disturbance is rewarded in any way during the Mining Incentive Program.

Can the Minister explain how environmental best practices and innovation are considered in all Mining Incentive Program applications? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Against.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Yes, and I would like her to release it publicly. I've asked her privately about that, and now I've done it publicly.

Under the current guidelines and forms, applicants are not required to disclose any permits or licenses already obtained to commit to comply with them or disclose billing compliance to ITI if successful. Can the Minister commit to make these changes to the Mining Incentive Program applications to ensure bad actors are not eligible and only legitimate work is funded? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

For.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Although some Members of this Assembly supported a priority to increase resource exploration and development, I believe that subsidies are not the best tool to achieve this. Increasing our overreliance on resource extraction is not my priority but if we are going to provide subsidies, these should be properly configured and evaluated. So I recently reviewed the guidelines and applications forms for the Mining Incentive Program. I'm going to offer a number of observations and suggestions for improvement.

In the last mandate progress report tabled earlier in this...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Well, that's good to hear about the work at the Council of Leaders with the working group on housing, and they're going to look at policies. But I guess I'm hoping that they're going to look at more than just policies, that they're actually going to be sharing information, as our government can and should as well, about what the housing needs are in terms of our stock and the programs and so on that we have in place.

Look, I don't really care who improves the housing. The question is getting the work done. And if partnerships are part of the answer, just go and do it, but. So...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Although it's not one of the specific action items in here, we did get the Minister and the deputy minister to agree to prepare a plan to get our housing out of core need, and I had understood that that plan was going to be available before March 31st so I guess they got three days to go. But I'm just wondering if I can get an update as to the status of that work. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 56719(2) and Minister's Statement 20219(2) concurrently at the same time. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

In favour.