Kevin O'Reilly

I would like to thank the Minister for that information. He did not answer the last part of my question, whether he was willing to table that letter in the House without delay, so I would like to repeat that question.

Merci, Monsieur le President. The federal deadline for a carbon pricing plan has come and gone, and the public has heard almost nothing from our Cabinet colleagues on an issue commanding priority attention everywhere else. I pointed out this gap in this House on February the 12th. Nothing meaningful has been revealed since. On July 26th of last year, the Minister of Finance released a discussion paper and public comment on carbon pricing, and that public comment period closed on September the 15th. A public survey was also conducted.

Where are the results of the public engagement? Here we are...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I will be supporting this motion. Part of the problem here is that we do not even have a plan for implementation of cannabis legalization. We have asked for that. I know we dealt with that in the first motion, but we do not even know what the costs are going to be. You know, the Regular MLAs who travelled to the communities, we were put in the position of having to explain that all the revenues were just going to go into the consolidated revenue fund. There is no guarantee that any of this money, revenues from cannabis sales, is actually going to get spent on health...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to acknowledge the additional information that we did receive from the Minister of Justice on enforcement, and we had a discussion around this in the clausebyclause review. It does appear that our Cabinet colleagues and their staff have been doing some work to try to clarify the issues around enforcement, but obviously there's still a lot of confusion out there, and that's why I think this is a good idea and I will support it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I support this motion. I have been asking for this kind of information for over a year from our Cabinet colleagues. I raised it during business plans, and we still do not have anything. The effect of this motion is to ask that that plan be developed and given back to the standing committees. Look, I recognize that this is something new and that it's evolving, but, if you do not even have a game plan, how are we going to do it? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. In my Member's statement, I referred to an unprecedented letter sent by the regional superintendent of Infrastructure to the Minister of Lands on April 30th that attempts to override the recommendations of the review board in an almost two-year-long environmental assessment of the Tlicho all-season road.

My questions are for the Minister of Infrastructure as the proponent for this project. Did the Minister know about this April 30th letter, and why was it sent when there was supposed to be some kind of a firewall set up? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am not going to take up three minutes. Look, we can get way bigger bang for our buck and reduce the cost of energy in small communities by not going ahead with this and putting in space heating that relies on wood pallets, biomass, small-scale power energy retrofits. We can get way bigger bang for our buck than the billions of dollars this is going to cost.

I look forward to seeing what kind of business case is prepared, but this is not the way that we are going to be able to meet our Pan-Canadian Framework targets. This is not the way that we are going to lower the cost of...

Merci, Monsieur le President. The project assessment policy requires "Any technical advice and evidence provided by two boards by their respective staff is in line with legislation, Cabinet direction, and Ministerial policies established under this policy." This policy reads like a way of muzzling our scientists and preventing presentation of evidence that may be critical of Cabinet direction.

My concerns were borne out by the review board in its March 29, 2018, report on the Tlicho all-season road. The board found that the so-called whole-of-government approach "has limited the ability of...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Look, Deger Energy didn't go ahead for a bunch of reasons, but one of the key ones was there was no buyer, no buyers identified at the end of the day. We still don't have any buyers either north of the lake or south of the lake. I just don't understand why this is being pursued.

If we use the money that we are trying to put into this project for almost anything else, whether it is energy retrofits in housing, small energy projects in smaller communities, we would get way more value for our money, I think. I am very interested in...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the long answer from the Minister. Are we going to have any discussion about this on the tour on Friday? Thanks, Mr. Chair.