Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes, this is, I guess, another one that I am passionate about. I've raised this issue with my colleague, the Minister of Finance, several times about the wage top-up program and want to commend her again. I think Cabinet did the right thing in extending this wage top-up to all low wage income earners in the Northwest Territories. It's not focused just on essential service workers.

I can support this but the real answer here is to increase our minimum wage, and that's what needs to happen. It's not just maybe into $18 an hour. It needs to be closer to a living wage that we...

Merci, Monsieur le President. On March 16th, I presented written questions to the Minister of Infrastructure on GNWT contracts for the Slave Geological Province road. The Minister tabled the response on May 26th. The results were shocking in terms of the failure to deliver northern benefits. The information tabled by the Minister shows that, for the contracts issued from September 1, 2015, to date: only four of the 14 contracts went to northern contractors; only three of the successful contractors were Business Incentive Policy registered; only nine percent of the contracted amounts went to...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I will not be supporting this recommendation for a variety of reasons. I tried to work within committee to broaden the scope of the recommendation beyond the Taltson Hydro Expansion to look at building Indigenous capacity and partnerships in general to maximize benefits, which I certainly support. The work proposed in this motion is already underway, so I don't really see the need to make this recommendation.

Natural Resources Canada and Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada are providing $619,950 to "support Indigenous engagement" in the Taltson Hydro...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess I have a few comments I want to make with my remaining three minutes. I want to commend the Minister and my colleagues in Cabinet for bringing this forward. I know, early on during the pandemic, I actually sent an email to the Minister saying, "Geez, we're going to be sitting soon. Is there any legislative changes that we should look at making in terms of COVID response and planning and recovery and so on?" This, eventually, ended up on our desks.

This is something that other jurisdictions have done, so this is not something terribly unusual. Other jurisdictions in...

Thanks, Madam Chair. How does the bill set out that Cabinet is going to work with Regular MLAs in looking at what orders might come forward? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm asking a few questions that I actually know the answers to, just so that the public might have a better understanding of where we're going, and why we are doing this. How long would the authority to make these temporary variations or extensions, how long would that stay in place? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess I have a similar question as my colleague from Yellowknife North. Can the Minister just get a little bit more specific about what kind of time periods we're actually talking about here? Some more examples would be really helpful. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Finance. Please provide a list and amounts of all current financial obligations to the Government of the Northwest Territories and subsidies provided to the Dominion Diamond group of companies that includes the following:

an itemized listing of and outstanding amounts due to the Government of the Northwest Territories for payroll taxes, property taxes, corporate taxes, mining royalties, carbon and fuel taxes, land lease rents, water use fees, Worker's Safety and Compensation Commission assessments, and any other financial...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want a second to sum up the concerns raised by my colleague by Yellowknife Centre. On March 21st, the public health order was issued closing the border. I started asking questions three days later of my Cabinet colleagues to try to find out what was actually happening, whether information was being collected, what information was being given out. I guess for the first few days the people at the border stop didn't even have pamphlets, brochures, nothing to give out. Then they started to collect photos of drivers' IDs, they were collecting names of passengers, but it wasn...

I was hoping for a "yes." Look, I take the Minister's points, but what I would like to hear him say is that he is actually prepared to take that proposal to FMB. During COVID-19, there has been a global recognition of how childcare workers provide an essential service. Early in this sitting, the Premier reiterated her support for universal childcare. I agree with it, too. We also have an early childhood development framework and an action plan in place that will start to help us get there. Can the Minister commit that he'll get his senior staff to discuss with early childcare providers, and...