Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I look forward to a call on New Year's Day from him, a personal call. But, yes, look, we can do a lot more on heritage.

You know, I've mentioned that there's a revenue review underway, and I'm just not sure that it's actually going to result in any significant new funding. You know, I think the much more likely route for us to get more funding is go to the federal government and build on COVID relief or a tourism product development.

Can the Minister tell us the status of this revenue review and whether there's any likelihood...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. In my June 4th, 2021, statement, I noted the old name of the museum here in Yellowknife. I've been raising this issue now for about six years in this House. I don't understand why we just don't change the name to something that embraces reconciliation and our northern reality.

Can the Minister tell us why the name of the museum has not been changed and what the obstacles are to moving forward with a name that reflects our northern realities? Merci, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Look, I realize I'm the only thing standing between a pizza party and my colleagues here so I want to recognize and thank the Minister of Finance for the collaborative discussions that led to concurrence in Committee of the Whole to proceed with an appropriation bill, and I meant that.

However, this is the largest ever capital project for the Northwest Territories at $502 million. In short, we are overspending on capital and not spending enough on the right priorities, in my view.

There is a relationship between capital and our programs and services. It's called...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Although I wasn't a Member of the GOVOPS committee in the last Assembly, I do want to acknowledge that there has been some improvements made in the public accounts in the six years I've been here. There's kind of like a plain language user guide that's available now. P3 reporting has improved. I think that's also a reflection of evolving accounting standards throughout the world.

So anyways, there's a number of other recommendations that had been adopted that I just can't think of off the top of my head, but there had been some significant improvements in the public...

Thanks, Madam Chair. So there's an interesting graph in the report by the committee, and it shows that, you know, from 2010-11, to 2015-16, the contingent liability amount in the public accounts was single digit numbers in the millions of dollars, and then it leapfrogged to $67 million, and now it's at $107 million for 2019-20. And I guess I have my own suspicions of what's driving this, but I think it's partly that the very complex P3 arrangements that our government is getting into. These are like a thousand pages of documents for each project. And I think it just leaves lots of room for...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes, I just want to encourage that the department does get out some more information about what the next steps are. There was the PricewaterhouseCooper's study done in that was publicly released in October of 2020, and I understand there's some more work in progress. But what those next steps are and the timeline for them and how that's going to relate to regulation development, whether the regulations are going to cover a variety of topics like map staking, transparency, that's just not clear at all. And so I want to encourage the department, the Minister, to put out...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just briefly, I checked the heritage fund balance, and it's predicted to be $27 million at the end of 2020-2021. And I calculated the value of the diamonds that have been exported from the Northwest Territories since diamond production began, and it's about $35 billion.

I know we got a late start on the heritage fund, and the heritage fund is something that's going to be reviewed hopefully during the life of this Assembly, but I think we kind of need to do better for our future generations. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Committee would like to consider Tabled Document 437-19(2), Capital Estimates 2022-2023; Committee Report 22-19(2), Report on Telecommunications; Committee Report 20-19(2), Report on Bill 30, an Act to Amend the Aurora College Act; and Bill 30, an Act to Amend the Aurora College Act. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. And I'm really happy to try to help him get the money but I'm sure that he can work more closely with his Cabinet colleagues. But I'm still just not convinced that culture and heritage gets all the attention it deserves, especially when it comes to federal relations and opportunities.

Can the Minister describe the department's recent attempts to secure federal funding for culture and heritage and how this relates to our efforts to towards reconciliation; and, more specifically, what this means for the museum? Merci, Mr...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I've seen so many documents calling for renovations or a new facility that it isn't even funny anymore. Some of us have visited the museum and seen the problems firsthand. If our government actually made culture and heritage our higher priority, I think we would have had a new museum by now. And that's exactly what the Yukon did, Mr. Speaker.

Does the Minister have a renovation or upgrade plan to address the museum's practical needs that he's going to bring forward for funding approval or when will such a plan be presented...