Kevin O'Reilly

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for his response. It is helpful to tell committee but I would prefer that he actually table that information in the House. Lastly, I want to ask about the job losses and if the Minister would be willing to table in this House a list of the communities where the cuts will be made and how many jobs will actually be lost in each community. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the Minister for that response. We all know that loss of jobs in the public service ultimately results in loss of jobs in the private sector as customers move away or they stop spending. I have heard that for every ten government jobs cut in our economy, five jobs will be lost in the service sectors. What multiplier did the government use to evaluate the impact of government job losses into the private sector in the wider NWT economy?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There were a lot of friends and even family in the gallery today. Not so sure if she is still here, she may be sitting behind me, but I did want to recognize my wife, Suzette Montreuil. Merci.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Now that the Finance Minister has revealed the contents of his budget, our Regular MLAs, media, and the public at large may be wondering what the past 12 months of austerity messaging of gloom and doom have been all about. For the past year, this government has barely made a public statement that wasn't prefaced with a reminder that this government must find money, now set at $150 million, through cuts or more revenues. The public and our civil service have lived in anxiety at the prospect of deep cuts. Businesses, investors, and homeowners have been warned of lean times...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just had one follow-up that I wanted to ask the Minister of Finance. Part of the issue is that we do a lot of work behind the scenes as Regular MLAs and with the Ministers on the departmental budgets through the business plans. I agreed with the Minister, that a lot of the information that I asked about earlier had been provided to this Member and other regular MLAs, but I'm hoping that he could table the information about the multiplier for impacts into the private sector, the potential lost revenues to the government, and where the job cuts are actually going to...

I don't think I actually got an answer on the question about multipliers. But I also want to ask the Minister what this government has predicted from the job cuts in terms of losses to personal income tax, payroll, and other taxes and then the territorial transfer payments.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I look forward to getting the information from the Minister. The last question I have on this is this. I did attend a public consultation session on the Thaidene Nene last year. I was a bit alarmed to hear the Minister of the day of Environment and Natural Resources say that the primary objective of the territorial government was to limit the federal footprint in the Northwest Territories with regard to Thaidene Nene. I don't think that's a good idea. The feds actually can bring money to the table, and actually have a lot of experience with co-managing parks. I just...

I want to thank the Minister for the response. I think one of the key pieces that's missing to get this going a little more quickly is a review of the Territorial Parks Act. This is an ancient piece of legislation that dates from the 1970s that helped us set up roadside campgrounds, and it really needs to be updated to provide for much bigger protected areas, landscape-level sort of protection. Is the Minister prepared to review and amend the Territorial Parks Act?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the response from the Minister. I'd be happy to work with him on this issue. I've got a little bit of experience in this area and would be happy to share that with him, though Canadians south of 60 degrees are entitled to participant funding through federal environmental assessment legislation. Here in the Northwest Territories there's the Interim Resource Management Assistance Program, or IRMA, to build capacity in Aboriginal governments outside the areas covered by land rights agreements. This is a very helpful initiative, but can the Minister tell us...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I'm glad I'm not a pencil today.

---Laughter

The current federal government has realized the mistakes associated with excluding Canadians from pipeline project assessments and has announced changes in the way that citizens can be involved in such decisions in the future. Can the Minister of Lands tell this House what he is prepared to do to ensure NWT residents have access to the resources necessary to meaningfully participant in environmental assessments?