Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Are we going to be making more effective use of the facility? Are there other purposes that it can be used for? I understand that the number of youth offenders in there is not that great, which is a good thing overall, but are we able to repurpose parts of it or use it for other purposes to get some efficiencies? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, colleagues, and mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The federal government calculated the liability at over $19 million, should the site actually go into production. The Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board settled on over $17 million. Clearly the financial security currently held would not allow for a proper remediation of the Prairie Creek site, and leaves the taxpayers at risk. In these times of fiscal restraint, this is not sound public policy. I will have questions for the Minister of Lands later today. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Under “program detail” there’s a line here for youth facilities and there’s some significant changes that have taken place and I’m wondering if the Minister and his staff can talk a little bit about that? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have no further questions.

Mr. Chair, I’m glad to hear that a letter was sent to the Law Society when the main estimates were tabled. Was there any advance consultation with the Law Society as one of the funding partners for the library? Thanks, Mr. Chair, and if so, what was that? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. When the department’s constantly looking at ways to raise new revenues, do we look at how we compare to other jurisdictions? Is it more systematic and rigorous in terms of comparing our fees against other jurisdictions in Canada? And how often might that sort of exercise happen? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

That’s helpful in understanding this. Is any portion of the $467,000 that the Minister has stated in this House, is any of that related to cost of this space rental?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Under the revenue section, regulatory revenue, access to information to information and privacy fees, I see $4,000. I guess I’ve heard from some people that the fees may be an impediment or a barrier for individuals to request information, and it looks from this that we don’t actually raise a lot of revenue from this. Is this an item that the department is looking at perhaps even doing away with fees, given the low amount of revenues here in the interest of open government? 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?