Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I note here in this departmental budget and some of the others that there is funding shown for implementation for a number of the agreements with Aboriginal governments for the Tlicho implementation. It varies quite a bit from one year to the next, so I'm just wondering what's going on. Is that part of the original contribution agreement, or is it based on some sort of level of activity or work that's being done? I'm just wondering if the department might have some explanation here that would help me. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate your efforts at chairing this meeting. I appreciate the response from the Minister. Why I am raising this is that I have had representatives from both Dechinta and College nordique contact me in an effort to try to find out the status of these submissions. That is why I am pressuring the Minister to find out what is going on with the proposals. I understand he has now committed to getting back to them within a week or so and that is great. If the response is that those proposals will be considered in the context of developing an action plan, that is fine...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of questions to follow up on my colleague from Kam Lake. It is my understanding that Dechinta and College nordique have submitted proposals to the department for core funding to help them get established. I think those proposals have been in with the department for several months now. I am just wondering whether the department has responded to those proposals and what that response might be or when we can expect to get our responses. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks Mr. Chair. I just want to indulge the Minister. I think I may have asked this question yesterday, but I see that the contributions in particular, there's a line item here, literacy funding and there's a rather large amount of $2.3 million. Presumably this is some funding that the NWT Literacy Council would be able to access or maybe is accessing. Can the Minister confirm for me that the GNWT's not looking at making any reductions in funding to the NWT Literacy Council? Thanks, Mr. Chair. This might be project-based, but if there's core funding being provided to the organization, is the...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm a little confused now if I wasn't before. There's the Canada Child Benefit, the NWT Child Benefit. Do we have to change our Income Tax Act to ensure that people can take full advantage of both of those benefits and when would those changes actually legally come into effect? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Might we see a conservation areas act, or whatever it gets called, move forward before the end of this financial year, and the Forestry Act as well? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that I've asked the Minister some questions about indexing of income assistance over the last week, and there was some further discussion of that to increase that appropriately even here in the House today. I understand that there has to be changes brought in, legislative changes, in terms of the NWT Child Benefit, the Canada Child Benefit, but when I look at our schedule, it looks like that legislation's probably not going to get into the House until October or November, and presumably at the end of that session we might need the Commissioner to sign off on it, so...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am not sure where to ask this but it is presumably somewhere under corporate management. I guess I see a policy in strategic planning function for this part of ENR. I am just wondering if someone from the department can tell us a little bit about what sort of legislative proposals they have in the hopper and when we might get to see some of those. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and once again, thanks to the Minister for that. Just stay tuned. I have a reply to the budget address a little later. There are some good ideas in there, I hope. I have one other idea that I'd like to pitch with the Minister. There was a recent court case where Bell lost a court case about non-existent 911 services, and that was recently a recent settlement coming out of that. Congratulations to the Andersons for bringing that case forward in their public service. Now that it's out of the courts, maybe it is time that we look at approaching Bell and the Andersons to become...

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister for his response. Maybe I could just try to understand, so the fund went into a deficit probably in 2015 16. That was when the Electronics Recycling Program was under development and we were also looking at revising the Beverage Container Program deposits to get a better understanding of how the revenues were working and so on, so there is probably some adjustments going on. Now that that's settled down and the electronics recycling money is going to start coming in, we are looking at turning the fund around again. Is that what's happening here...