Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't want to repeat some of the comments I made at second reading. But I just want to ask this happened in the last Legislative Assembly where the new bunch of MLAs were kind of marched off a plank metaphorically and agreed to a twoyear freeze in their salary. But in doing that, it was only later that we found that the freeze actually impacted the and I'm not going to get all of this right. But I think it impacted the staff in the Legislative Assembly itself. So I want to just get a really good understandings of whether this proposal in anyway impact the remuneration...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister. It seems like it's a real hot potato over there. No one wants to answer the questions. But, of course, we ask questions; we don't actually sometimes get answers. But this government has not done enough to protect and serve caribou. We called out Alaska for allowing development in the camping grounds of the porcupine caribou herd, but we didn't do the same for a gold mine in the calving grounds of the Bathurst caribou herd on the Nunavut side. So can the Premier tell us why we failed to protect the Canadaing grounds of the Bathurst...

Thanks, Madam Chair. So I'm going to push this a little bit further. So can the Minister commit to get a legislative proposal for phase two to the Regular MLAs before the end of the life of this Assembly. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President, I want to thank the Minister for that. Of course I didn't agree with the 19 priorities identified by this Assembly, and I think it is probably safe to say that not everybody in this room would agree with every one of them as well. But I think some of the issues of the timing of the work with the socalled Slave Geological Province Road is a requirement to spend the money by a certain point in time. There has been a lot of slippage in this work and I don't see why the funding arrangement could not be changed to allow for more time or even reallocation of this money...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm going to try to choose my words carefully because I did hear some conciliatory words from the Minister of Finance. But I worked really, really hard to try to not end up where we did. And I'm really, really disappointed. You know, and with all due respect, this is not the way consensus government is supposed to work, and this is not the way that most of the work in this Assembly's actually gotten done. So that is that in itself is actually quite tragic, that it's been this divisive. And I really want the Minister and her department to think really carefully about what...

Merci, le President. I want to recognize a couple of people, or a couple of groups in the gallery today. Rosella Stoesz served as my official agent way back in 2019 in the general election. And I also want to recognize the board and staff of the NWT Seniors Society. My wife served as the former executive director and passes on, I am sure, her best regards to you all. Thank you very much for being here. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Madame la Présidente. I move that appendix of Bill 60 be deleted and the following be substituted. Madam Chair, the motion has been well, it's being distributed. It shows an appendix with a schedule that is identical to that in the bill except that the carbon tax rate for all types of fuel that aren't otherwise exempt is set at zero. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I don't think I can tell you how many times in the last Assembly we tried to get into legislation some obligations for Ministers, Cabinets, department, whatever, to actually consult in the development of regulations. So this is a really significant concession that committee negotiated with the Minister, and I'm just not sure that people really realize how significant this is. You know, we do this with Indigenous governments now, and we're required to do it, but to get this for a sector, this is really good. And to get it actually in legislation, not just practice...

Merci, Madame la Presidente. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 81319(2), Main Estimates 20232024, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 81319(2) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just love this place. Here we are, at what time is this? It's 9:30 talking about salaries for MLAs. I just gotta love this place.

Okay, I think there is a problem with this, where MLAs are talking about their own salaries, period, any time. I just think it's a no winner.

So what this motion would actually do is, and I should have let me take a step back. I am okay with going with a fiveyear rolling average. I think that it probably will even out some of the bumps and so on, but I just don't think that we should you be doing it and applying it to ourselves. It should...