Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. As I said, it was disappointing to hear the Minister say yesterday that this important work is not likely to take place during this Assembly. Why did we bother to get devolution when something as fundamental as how much money the public gets from resource extraction is not going to be reviewed? Why should Ottawa give us any more authority when we won't even exercise what we have? Needless to say, Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the mining Minister later today. Mahsi.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I just need to nail this down. The Premier mentioned that he was prepared to share drafts of the Arctic Policy Framework, NWT chapter, but he just didn't go as far as to say that the sharing is going to happen on this side of the House. Can the Minister clearly commit to sharing drafts of this NWT chapter, the Arctic Policy Framework, with Regular MLAs? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Premier for that. I am certainly more than a bit disappointed to hear that our government has basically rejected the work, then, that was done by the ministerial special representative.

Of course, sustainable development is more than just about resources; it's about people, things like cultural sustainability, Indigenous language and cultural revitalization, social sustainability, recognizing the roles and contributions of business and civil society. Is there going to be some incorporation of these ideas of cultural sustainability, social sustainability, into the NWT chapter...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier, and they are with regard to the PanTerritorial Vision on Sustainable Development and the Arctic Policy Framework. I don't recall there being any public consultations on the panterritorial vision. Can the Premier confirm that for me? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. It sounds like there are a lot of things that are still coming, but we actually have a hard deadline we have to deal with. The federal government keeps moving forward with the national approach on climate change that will allow Canada to meet its international obligations. We now have a deadline of March 30th, about seven weeks away, to make a decision about our own carbon pricing system or rely on the federal backstop. Can the Minister tell us how he intends to meet this federal deadline and still include the input of committee, and perhaps the...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Yes, I can clarify that. Can the Minister of Finance, then, tell the public: what is the position of our government with regard to climate change, impacts on our environment and our people, and whether carbon pricing is an essential tool to address this threat? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Regular MLAs and the public have heard almost nothing from our Cabinet colleagues on the issue of carbon pricing since the fall of 2017. On July 26th of last year, the Minister of Finance released a discussion paper and public comment closed on September 15th. A public survey was also conducted.

Although the discussion paper shows a heavy antitax bias, the right questions were generally asked in terms of taxes versus cap and trade, revenue use, sectoral distribution, implementation, and reporting. Where are the results of this public engagement? Here we are, five...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm going to raise a number of the same concerns that my colleague from Yellowknife Centre has already expressed. We did have a good briefing at noon today from the Minister of Education and his colleague the Minister of Health and Social Services on the youth mental health support investments. It will require transitioning some of the money that's now given to the district education authorities to support that work, and there is additional money that's coming in, and I think that's all a good effort, but there is still a number of outstanding issues with regard to...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I can help him with his memory there. It is $13.46 million. It is found on page B14 of the budget address, and I am sure he is going to have the main estimates in front of him shortly. Tobacco taxes are $16 million. In the interest of transparency, can the Minister tell us who actually calculates and predicts these royalties?

Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks again to the Minister for that, but we do not have a firm schedule from the Minister. He has admitted there is a lot of work that has to be done. We do not even have the results from the discussion paper consultations. He has to work with committee. He says he is going to talk to the public. Can the Minister commit to table a schedule of these sort of consultations leading up to the March 30th deadline in this House as soon as possible? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.