Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes. I’m thinking that, if there could be a letter sent by the three Finance Ministers from the three territories, that might help get some attention of the federal Finance Minister. If our Finance Minister could also see fit to include something in the letter about the need for Canada Revenue Agency to tell Northern residents what the value of a flight out of here is, rather than us having to guess and then get audited continually, that would be really helpful. This is a really bothersome thing for folks here, and I’m hoping that the Minister can undertake to do some work...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. No other questions, thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the response from the department. The cost recovery is a consideration. Do we look at what other jurisdictions charge for these services as well? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. I look forward to having more of a discussion about this in the context of this Energy Plan that the government is going to develop. We can’t continue to throw money at diesel without increasing our investment in renewables and taking a longer term view to getting us out of this problem in the first place. That is more of a comment. Thanks, Mr. Chair. That is all I have.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There’s also a couple of other changes here. There’s a reduction in the Language Commissioner’s expense line and a slight increase in the Human Rights Adjudication Panel. Can someone help me understand those, please? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There’s a number of fees that the department collects through licences and so on, are those reviewed on an annual basis and do we compare ourselves to other jurisdictions as well? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Appreciate that explanation. If we made an effort to set aside some money in 2015-16 because of the $20 million subsidy for diesel operations, was there any consideration in make a similar allocation in 2016-17, the current year? Because we are still spending $7.5 million on a diesel subsidy. Why are we not setting aside some more money this year to try to get us out of this perpetual problem we seem to be in? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’ve been listening to the discussion here. To me, so we’ve got a 2006 report. I’m not sure if all of the recommendations followed up. There’s an amount of funding here that is made available to build capacity for these services. There’s a cap of $40,000 a year for applications. Maybe the problem is with the cap. I don’t know how often the cap has been reconsidered, but there seems to be a problem here with the program, itself. Reducing the amount of money that’s available does not seem to be addressing the need that’s out there. I guess what I’m looking for is a commitment...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Maybe I will just ask the next question a little bit more delicately. Are we breaking the law here in having a bigger amount in the fund than we are supposed to under legislation? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am still trying to puzzle over this. I guess, certainly from this MLA, there is a concern when we are actually reducing our contributions towards housing. We already had a debate here and a motion was passed about setting firm targets to ensure that we can get our housing out of core need or at least meet the national average over the life of this Assembly. When we are actually reducing our funding to the Housing Corporation, that is not the direction I want to be going in. This is not the direction I understood we were going in. This comes as a bit of a surprise to me...