Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our GNWT staff and the Chief Public Health Officer for all their work and sacrifices during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our residents have also endured a lot and deserve our thanks for their patience and calm during these unprecedented times. On May 12, Emerging Wisely was released by the Chief Public Health Officer. It is the phased approach to easing of restrictions for the NWT. I have some personal experience with risk assessment, having developed a plan for the small NGO I worked with before becoming an MLA. I...

Thanks, Madam Chair. That is quite helpful in understanding the consolidated statement page that I'm looking at. I didn't have a chance to look at all of the notes. I guess I would like to ask the Minister, then, what is the plan to reorganize, rejig, reinvigorate BDIC moving forward so that we can find ways to ensure that the money that it does have is going to create jobs in small communities and help with economic recovery? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Okay. I guess I will go down this rabbit hole, then. There was a five-year review done in, I think it was 2019. I am just wondering whether the department or the Minister has actually ever responded to that, and what is the status of progress on implementing the changes that were recommended? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Well, I'll try this again. Just on Yellowknife being an international airport, I raised this in the last Assembly. Whitehorse, they get direct charters from Europe, and I don't know why we're not pursuing federal funding to try to do the same here.

I asked the Minister whether there is any funding in this budget beyond $160,000 that is given to the City of Yellowknife to support the tourist visitors' centre, such as it is in the basement of city hall? Is there any other funding in the budget to support planning and development of a visitors' centre for Yellowknife? Thanks...

Thanks. I appreciate the fact that some of the assets might be in tangible assets of some sort. What is this sort of cash surplus that is available to BDIC that gets carried over? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. One of the ideas that I raised with the Premier the other day was this idea of a travel bubble, and it's been in the news in some other jurisdictions. It'd be great if we could have a way where the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories residents could travel across the territorial borders to visit each other's jurisdictions for summer holidays. I really want to see that idea pursued by Cabinet.

I want to raise one other issue while I still have three minutes on the clock. It's about the lack of a proper visitors' centre in Yellowknife. About 500 metres south of us here...

Thanks, Madam Chair. The standing committee, though, reported on the Mineral Resources Act in August of last year, so it has actually been substantially longer than six months. I understand, new Minister, new Cabinet, new approach, but we have to get a plan together so that the public has some confidence in where we're going and that we as Regular MLAs actually know where we're going. I'm just not sure that having no additional resources in here, no timelines, no plan, is really where we need to be. I'll just leave it at that. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to pick up on a few points made by some of my colleagues, and we'll start with the outhouse issue. If the Minister digs down into her pile from the previous Assembly, she will see that there were a number of complaints about the 60th parallel outhouse in particular. I don't know what it was like this spring, but there were photos sent to me. They were shared with the previous ITI Minister. The Minister made a commitment to try to improve the cleaning regimen, so I don't know whatever happened, but, if the Minister digs down far enough in her pile, she'll find...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I heard one of our witnesses say that there is going to be some kind of a government-wide approach on regulations. I know that I have raised this on the floor of the house with the Minister of Justice. Is there any sense of when this government-wide approach on development of regulations is going to be developed, and when the Regular MLAs, at least, and the public are going to have a chance to look at that and maybe provide comments and feedback? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that these people are doing nothing. There's nothing happening in terms of oil and gas exploration, development, rights issuances. There's nothing happening. I'm not saying these people are not doing anything, and I hope that the Minister will correct the record to reflect what I said rather than what she thinks I said. I know some of these people. I've worked with them in the past. I think they do good work. Some of these positions, at least it seems to me that they've been renamed, reconfigured, even from a year ago. Can the Minister...