Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Will we continue to work with Wilfrid Laurier in any way, given that this was a ten-year partnership with them? Thanks Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have one other question. For the Electronics Recycling Program, people pay a fee when they purchase an item, and the fee is basically used to try to pay for the recycling of that item when it’s finished. With beverage containers, there’s a part of the deposit you pay that’s a fee to help cover the recycling cost, but there’s also a deposit that you get back that’s sort of an incentive then for people that bring their beverage containers into a depot and get the refund for it. A colleague asked me to ask about the potential of having a deposit on electronics, so that when...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On June 1st, budget day, I asked the Minister of Finance if we could get a table that would lay out the job changes that were being proposed in the budget, things like whether the positions were vacant or not; whether these changes were a result of reductions, sunsets, or new initiatives full-time, part-time, and I’m still waiting for that information. I raised it again with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment a couple of days ago and he committed to work with his Cabinet colleagues on this. Mr. Speaker, we’ve now finished four of the departments and this is...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a few other people in the gallery. We have Kelly and Todd Slack and the new addition to their family, Sam, probably one of the youngest people who has ever been in the gallery. David Wasylciw, who runs Open NWT, a valuable resource for political junkies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and I'll save up some questions then for the Finance Minister then. These guys are off the hook for now. Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. My colleague's questions about contaminated sites made me just wonder: is this sort of like a program where ENR is responsible for cleaning up or remediating all contaminated sites that are GNWT responsibility or are those broken up by the department that may own the land or caused the contamination in the first place? Or what's that money actually used for? I understand that ENR does have some expertise in terms of assessing sites and developing policy and so on, but how is the remediation cost actually split up among various departments? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and, as I recall, the consultations on this climate change strategic framework are going to start very shortly so that they could feed into whatever positions that the government might bring forward in terms of the national work that's being done on climate change. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. First, I want to start off by reassuring the Minister that in no way was I ever questioning his integrity earlier in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The fact that we may agree to disagree or question things is no basis for questioning somebody's integrity. In any event, I firmly support the work of this department, but I did want to ask a question about the waste reduction line on page 91. Last year, we had $100,000 in the budget, and this year there's none. I think it may be because there was some extra funding providing there to allow for some program...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that when the business plan came forward to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment, I'm pretty sure I asked about this position, and I was told by the department that they have other folks that would pick up the work that this position would normally carry out, and I was a bit skeptical about that. I've known the people that have been in that position probably for most of the time I've been in Yellowknife, which is close to 30 years, or that have been involved particularly in that field. They do very important work. I'm not sure if the MLA for...

In the area of midwifery services, Nunavut appears to be ahead of the Northwest Territories in meeting birthing service needs. Nunavut staffs midwives in the regional centres of Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet, and Iqaluit, which seems to be at least partly based on cost savings. Would the Minister agree that having an NWT midwifery program focused on regional centres, including Yellowknife, would likely result in some cost savings, or will he research the Nunavut model to investigate this?