Kevin O'Reilly

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Again, I would like to thank the Minister for his answer. I did give him a head's up on what these questions would be. It looks like this progress and implementation is not happening nearly as quickly as it should be. I am just wondering: what is the problem here? Is it funding, political will? Can the Minister please explain the lack of publicly available information, real progress on finishing these agreements and fully implementing them? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the commitment, then, by the Minister that he would bring forward a supplementary appropriation if Student Financial Assistance gets maxed out. I hope we don't have to go there, but I think I have got a firm commitment from the Minister to do that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is it.

Thank you to the Minister for his response. It looks like we have at least one of the three in active negotiations. That is helpful information. I wish the Minister could put that sort of detail on the departmental website.

Have water quality objectives and learning plans been started under any of the existing agreements with Alberta and British Columbia?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am looking at the line for Student Financial Assistance on page 40. It actually shows a decrease between 201617 and 201718. Even when I look at the revised estimates, there is a decrease. Can someone from the department explain what is going on here, why we are decreasing our funding for Student Financial Assistance? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. If we finish early enough today, I will be playing hockey tonight; but more seriously, Mr. Speaker, GNWT has negotiated a number of transboundary water agreements with the following jurisdictions:

Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Yukon, and Canada for the Mackenzie River Basin Master Agreement in 1997;

the Yukon in 2002;

Alberta in 2015; and

British Columbia in 2015.

These are very important agreements for the health of our aquatic life and communities on our shared watersheds, which includes the vast majority of our population. These arrangements also help...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister for his explanation. Can he just provide a little bit more detail about what is being cut in public library services? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks. I guess I was not clear on enough, Mr. Chair, with regard to my question. So if the loss of this revenue, though, I understand there might be a staff reduction related to it, can the Minister confirm that there have been no other reductions made to the Prince of Wales and Northern Heritage Centre?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm just skimming through this section to see if I've got anything else. I think most of my questions were already asked by my colleagues. Sorry, there's one here. Public library services have been declining over time. Can someone from the department tell us what's going on? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So okay, now we have the paper trail right. The department told the college about reductions. They came back with a revised budget. That was then approved by the Minister and the department. The Minister has known about the cuts to these programs for several months, and now word is coming out about these because of e-mails to students and so on. Regular MLAs, we weren't really told about what was being reduced or cut in terms of the programs offered by the college. Once again, poor communications. Just unacceptable that this is the way that this sort of thing takes place...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to start with some general comments about Education, Culture and Employment. I'll start with our youngest citizens. I've reviewed the business plan for the department, I've reviewed the main estimates, and I'm not sure where we are with the mandate commitment towards universal daycare. So I'll have some questions on that. The two-year deadline is coming up very quickly and I'm not sure what's being done by the department from that front.

Now, I'll talk about junior kindergarten implementation, and issues around this continue no matter what the Minister seems to...