Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have tried very carefully to choose my words here today. I take the issue of removal of a Cabinet Minister very seriously.

There is nothing personal in how I have arrived at my decision on the two Ministers up for review. This is about getting results for NWT residents and whether we have the right team in place for doing this for the remainder of our term. I personally like the Minister under discussion. I believe he brings valuable experience to this Assembly and has made a valuable contribution. However, I must assess his progress objectively on mandate items...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I think I differ with the Premier's assessment of the state of the industry and our capacity to regulate it. My statement also mentioned the inadequacy of consumer protection laws. Here, tourism officers of course cannot sit around and read to see what kind of advertising and services are out there. It's important that we have a vigorous system to receive and investigate complaints and provide restitution where appropriate, and that includes, of course, the ability for tourists to hear back about complaints, even while they are here, in town. So can the Minister...

Recent years have seen an explosion of tourism, and I believe the Minister talked about that in his statement earlier today, and a lot of this a related to aurora viewing. Can the Minister give us some idea in the growth in the number of Yellowknife operators and licences in recent years?

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment; and my apologies, well, I can't.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the assistance of the law clerk. I still think that this is going to create some uncertainty and may lead to something being marched off to court, where the better solution is to just remove any temporal restriction on the mandate of the Ombud.

I am concerned that this will still act as a deterrent to individuals who wish to bring forward complaints. I guess I want to go on the public record as saying that, whoever the Ombud is, if this passes, I would encourage them to take the broadest possible interpretation of their mandate, that anything that has started...

I think there may be a motion coming forward on this. The last point I want to make is that this kind of restriction on the mandate of the Ombud sends out all of the wrong signals to the public, and I think it will deter people from coming to this officer for trying to resolve their issues with our government. I just don't think it serves the public interest. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I am interested in hearing more about this compromise, but the way this has been written, you know, this bill is coming forward a year later than it should have under the mandate commitment. I think there are people out there expecting that they are going to be able to access the services that may be provided under this act.

Having this kind of restriction on the mandate of the Ombud is not helpful at all in terms of resolution of complaints that may come forward from our constituents. I have expressed this concern to the Minister. We are not even sure what the word...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I would like to understand from the Minister what the intent of 17(3) is. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. As I said earlier, I have tried to choose my words very carefully. I take the issue of removal of a Cabinet Minister very seriously.

While I personally like the Minister and often agree with him, this motion is about leadership and priorities. I have no doubt that this Minister works very, very hard in managing one of the largest and most important departments. The Minister has led some very important initiatives, and I give him full credit for the accomplishments that he will no doubt raise. I also find the Minister to be very receptive and responsive to the...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Non-renewable resource production and royalties. My questions are for the Minister of Finance, who has responsibility for the collection and reporting of revenues.

Data on commodity production values and amounts of royalties collected for non-renewable resource commodities do not fully disclose details of sources. On a calendar year basis for the years 1999 to 2017, can the Minister provide:

The annual values of production of individual commodities for all those non-renewable commodities upon which royalties are levied; and

The amount of royalties collected for each...