Kevin O'Reilly

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?

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...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don’t have any further questions on this page.

I appreciate the response from the Minister. The issue is: the security under the lease is not going to cover what’s actually at the site now. The issue is this company is having some financial issues. I outlined the financial warning signals on Prairie Creek in my Member’s statement. Can the Minister tell us what work his department does to monitor and track the financial stability of companies where we hold financial security and if we have developed thresholds or triggers for us taking action and the action might include things like bumping up security or turning the site back to the...

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and I do appreciate the responses from the department to that, and that’s it for me on this one. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Masi, Mr. Speaker. Maybe it’s environmental liabilities day or week. I apologize, I didn’t give the Minister much heads up on this. It’s been a busy week. Earlier this week, I made a statement about the significant financial security shortfall for the Cantung mine and how our government really didn’t deal with the issue after we inherited the site under devolution. Today, though, I made a statement about the significant financial security shortfall for the Prairie Creek site. Can the Minister of Lands tell this House whether the GNWT holds the surface lease for the Prairie Creek site? Masi, Mr...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. My apologies, I understand that one of my colleagues has raised this issue already, but at the risk of going over the same ground, what’s the long-term future of that facility? Thanks, Mr. Chair.