Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. Education, Culture and Employment offers a number of programs to support our residents in several ways. These programs include income support for post-secondary students and seniors and income assistance for low-income families and children, with additional amounts for people with disabilities. Many recipients of support programs say that accessing them can be difficult, discouraging, and demoralizing. The processes for income assistance, in particular, are very rigid and prescribed in regulations providing very little flexibility in response to client needs.

The...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The Minister well knows my views on this, that the mandate is so broad you could drive trucks through it. Here is a clear example of the Minister driving some trucks through the mandate. Look, if the priority is public safety, and I believe it should be, the Minister and his department should be working at replacing the Frank Channel bridge. The Slave Geological Province road should wait. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Minister putting that on the record that is his priority and for the department, his work on the Slave Geological Province road over the Frank Channel bridge. I am glad that he put it on the record, because I don't think that should be the priority. The Minister even said public safety should be number one, so I really don't understand why the Minister is putting the Slave Geological Province Road as a priority over the Frank Channel bridge. That is what he said. You can check Hansard if we want, but I disagree with that priority and I don't think that is in...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister for that. Well, not only is it a problem maybe for the supplies that are going to the diamond mines, but it is a public safety hazard. I have driven across that bridge. It is unsafe. There are not even stop lights at either end. It is an accident waiting to happen. Can the Minister tell me what kind of priority that project has within his department? Is it being given the same level of effort and so on as the Slave Geological Province Road? How much of a priority is this Frank Channel bridge with the department? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I would like a commitment out of the Minister. If he could just sort of identify how much in terms of the O and M budget is being devoted to these two projects, the Frank Channel bridge and the Slave Geological Province road, I would find that information helpful. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In the Minister's opening remarks, I was kind of dazzled with all the millions of dollars that he was talking about. I am wondering how many millions of dollars are going towards the Slave Geological Province road in 2019-2020? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Members may speak to the object, expediency, principles, and merits of a bill at second reading, and I will exercise that right with the proposed changes to the Petroleum Resources Act.

I will speak to the process that got us here. I will also provide some comments on the bill and concerns with what is there and what is missing.

The Petroleum Resources Act set the rules on the rights to explore and produce oil and gas in those lands where the GNWT owns the resources. It sets out how the GNWT will act as the owner of onshore oil and gas resources and those...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that description. I don't think I got an answer to the question. I am going to ask this directly to the Minister: can the Minister make a commitment that, in future business plans, there is going to be more than just a dollar amount of the carryovers? That there is going to be some explanation of the reasons for the carryover, categorization of those reasons, and how the department is becoming to address those? If it takes a page or something in the business plans, I think that is time well spent, so that we understand, and his department seems to better...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I will certainly be recommending indexing, and the Minister knows this. I have also mentioned problems where income assistance recipients find themselves where they don't actually have any money to live on because of windfalls or wages from previous benefit periods, recalculations, and so on. Is there any consideration being given to repayment plans, much like rental arrears plans, to reduce the hardship of drastic benefit reductions?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I understand that this isn't wrapped up into one figure, and we see that in the business plan itself. The deputy minister talked about the figure for 2017-2018, I guess.

In that tracking, is there a way of breaking down the reasons for the carryovers as well? If we understand the reasons why there are so many carryovers, then we can start to address the cause. Are the reasons identified more than just the dollar figures? Thanks, Mr. Chair.