Kevin O'Reilly

I want to thank the Minister for that. I can assure him, though, that, from the correspondence I have seen from my constituents, the appeal rights are not mentioned, so I would ask that the Minister investigate some of the actual correspondence Income Assistance recipients receive when they are refused, and so on. I want to move on. I have repeatedly mentioned the need to index our Income Security programs. That includes Income Assistance, Student Financial Assistance, seniors and other benefits, and those should be indexed, Mr. Speaker, to the cost of living. Forced growth is the norm...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Yellowknife North for stealing a number of my questions, but I will try to do a mop-up operation here. For land use planning, can someone tell me how much we're spending on land use planning in the Wek'eezhii Management Area for 2020-2021? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess my advice to the Minister and the department is that I understand there might be some relationship to the work that they are going to do during a four-year business plan, but that's not the same, necessarily, as a strategic plan. That's my two cents' worth.

Madam Chair, can I move over to the Northwest Territories Surface Rights Board found on 302? I would like to ask how many disputes the Northwest Territories Surface Rights Board has ever dealt with. I think it was created in 2014 or 2015. How many disputes have they dealt with? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to recognize one of my neighbours, Louise Elder, and thank her for her work as executive director of the NWT Status of Women Council. Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. That's one of the best words I've heard here today. I want to move on to diamond resource management. That's on page 305. We actually had a high of $643,000 back in 2018-2019, and now, this year, it's proposed for $596,000. I think that this is the, basically, staffing of, I may not get the titles right, but lands inspectors to go up and inspect the diamond mines. These are huge operations; I've been there myself to all of them, except for Gahcho Kue. They're very complex areas, and I am sure the ADM has been up there himself and seen these areas, some of them are starting...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Is a new strategic plan going to be developed during 2020-2021? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. We have eight done, 218 to go. How many more years of funding does the department require or was originally budgeted to get this equity lease issue completed? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I understand that the department has a strategic plan in place. I think it was supposed to run from 2016-2017 to 2020-2021, which is next year. What are the plans of the Minister or the department to renew or revise or come up with a new strategic plan? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to go to the equity lease line here. It's declining from last year. My understanding was that there was an issue with regard to the terms of some of these equity leases, and there was an appearance of lack of fairness around this and that the department was trying to bring some consistency with this and get all of the equity leases moved over into fee simple title.

It's not really a question of revenue here; it's a question about cleaning up this mess that we inherited from previous land administration. Whether it was GNWT and/or the feds, it was a bad practice...

I want to thank the Minister for that. I would like to know from the Minister whether the department has looked into the issue of whether these liability caps are going to impede our ability to recover any funds or carry out the remediation work that is going to be required at the Cameron Hills field?