Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have no further questions, just a quick comment: that I'm still trying to understand how closing the legal aid clinic in the Beaufort-Delta, closing court registry, and closing the court library actually improves access to justice, but that's more of a statement. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm very happy to hear that and I look forward to the meeting on Tuesday. Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess this is the section where the contributions of the Law Society and the NWT Law Foundation are shown towards the court library over the years. There was a commentary piece on CBC by a local lawyer that talked about how there was a 2012 special committee of the Law Society that was set up to make recommendations on the court library and they came up with a number of recommendations to actually reduce the costs of the library but it doesn't appear that any of those were actually implemented. I'm just wondering if anybody from the department can talk about what happened...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer. So to just put that maybe in plain language: the money that's used to subsidize the diesel costs associated with low water levels, part of that extra funding was used so we could build capacity in the renewable side of things so that we wouldn't to keep, hopefully, paying money for diesel? Is that correct? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, when I look at page 274, program detail, there are cuts between what was in the mains for 201516 and 201617 for court workers, legal aid commission, and the Yellowknife Legal Aid Clinic. Even the Somba K’e Legal Aid Clinic, there's a small decrease there. So, with this decrease in expenditures for legal aid services, how are we actually improving access to justice, which is in our mandate? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, and I appreciate it. We are dealing with labels on a page, which really don't translate into very much. I guess what I am most concerned about is the reduction overall from 7.3 in the mains in 2015-16 down to $6.8 million this year. That is why I guess I am asking these sorts of questions. Why the overall reduction in this part of the Lands department? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I guess what I’m trying to figure out here is the costs that have been quoted by the Minister in the House yesterday, $467,000. We’ve got a part of a staff person or staff PY. I understood that that would save us about $50,000, that the $417,000, that’s really just publications, or does it actually include the costs that we would pay to rent that space within the building?

I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Out of that working group and range planning exercise that’s going on, can we actually expect that there’s going to be proposals to withdraw lands, protect habitat on this side of the border when it comes to the Bathurst caribou herd because that hasn’t happened so far to date and that the herd is in a bad situation. Are we going to see some specific land protection on this side of the border coming out of that process?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the long explanation from the Minister. Probably don’t agree with it, but I’d like to ask the Minister, he said in the House yesterday that cutting the court library would save $467,000. When we were looking at this in the business plan, I understood the only cost savings would be from cutting the staff position that’s associated with the library. Can the Minister tell us how this figure of $467,000 was calculated?

Masi, Mr. Speaker. I apologize. I didn’t give my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources any warning of this, but earlier this week, he tabled a response to oral questions where he gave notice about some caribou matters and I wanted to follow-up on some of that. I wanted to ask the Minister, it appears to me that the burden of the management responses to the decline of the Bathurst caribou herd have fallen on resource harvesters. Can the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources tell us what concrete actions have been taken in terms of habitat protection on this side...