Kevin O'Reilly
Statements in Debates
Okay, can I ask how much? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So this is the section of the ENR budget where transboundary waters matters are found, and I just have one question, to start with, about page 89. There's these contributions. It shows transboundary waters as a line item there back in 20202021. It was $414,000, and now it's being become proposed at 185. Can I just get an explanation as to what happened in that previous year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So I'm looking at the information item on the Inuvialuit water board on page 98, and the Main Estimates amount for the Inuvialuit board shows zero. I don't think that that's the case but I guess I'm seeing what I thought were typos before in Main Estimates. Can the Minister tell us what's going on here? Thanks.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Maybe I'll try it one more time. So are we looking for volunteers do this, or is this going to be across the whole industry? Or how's this actually going to get piloted, and will it get piloted this summer? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Merci, Madam la Presidente. I want to thank the Minister for that and, of course, probably have a few more questions this afternoon about where it's found in the main estimates. But it's not clear what the longterm plan is for the financing of the Housing Corporation, whether its governance model needs adjusting. Can the Minister briefly discuss the lessons learned from the NWT CoInvestment Fund carve out? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that. Yeah, this work has been underway for at least a couple summers. I think that it might have been slowed down by COVID. But I didn't actually get a response to my question. When will we actually see changes that require mineral exploration, in particular, to actually shut down whether there's caribou around their property? That's what these measures would do. Right now, the diamond mines do it because it's best practice; it's consistent with ESG that our Minister of ITI keeps talking about. We don't do that in this jurisdiction, though. It's voluntary. So is...
Merci, Madam la Presidente. I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course it's good news, but I wonder about the cost of these units. The average cost of the units appears to be about $520,000. Can the Minister explain how this compares to previous new builds undertaken by the NWT Housing Corporation. Mahsi, Madam Speaker. And I gave a head's up to the Minister so she got these ahead of this afternoon's proceeding.
Yeah, okay, thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that. If I could get the detailed list with absolute numbers beside it, that would be great.
I just want to know whether also whether any of that funding is actually for habitat protection, which has not happened during my six years here, really, and is the one part of caribou management that is yet to be addressed. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Merci, Madam la Presidente. On January 25th of this year, there was another announcement about funding for 29 houses being built in small communities. That’s all good but it got me thinking about that federal coinvestment carve out for $60 million that was set aside for the NWT.
After the last Cabinet failed to make housing a priority, we got very little under the National Housing Strategy, but that’s another story.
Recently I got an accounting of the funds spent and used under the NWT coinvestment carve out. $25.5 million of this amount was allocated to the NWT Housing Corp to assist with the...