Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would certainly encourage the department to do everything they can from internal sources to look at the problem areas in the Liquor Act and see what changes we can make. I know that a lot of the things that are in the Liquor Act now probably would have a lot more impact on residents just if they were enforced. We hear about it on the radio quite often now where they are starting to enforce the Liquor Act a little bit more to establishments that serve alcoholic beverages and that sort of thing. I don’t think we have to go to multi hundred thousand dollar reviews to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know if any penalties or fines that are levied ever do have to go through the court before they are paid, but if there was a fine associated with the Liquor Commission that had to go through a court system and there was a fine established, then would it go to general revenues or go back into the revolving fund?

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the area of our fiscal arrangement with Canada on the formula financing agreement, I know that we are in the process of renegotiating that. I don’t know what the timelines are or where we are in finalizing that, but I would like the Minister to tie in…The first bullet is finalizing the discussion with Finance Canada and changes to the formula financing agreement, then the fourth and fifth paragraph deals with providing taxation for formula financing input and resource revenue sharing discussions with Canada and aboriginal governments. There are two bullets that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few comments. Everybody is tying the opening comments and the budget together. I just wanted to mention a few things. The Minister is right when he says that yesterday was the first step, especially in these initiatives for revenue generating by putting it out there in the budget. It seemed to be accepted fairly well yesterday, I didn’t hear too much in the Great Hall afterwards.

However, I did get about three calls today that are very concerned about the government starting to introduce taxes. As soon as you mention taxes, we can do all of the explaining we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Premier for those answers, but at the same time we have a policy that government follows, and that policy was put in place to benefit northern businesses, to encourage northern business to build capacity and be able to survive in the North. I don't believe that if Cabinet is going to take a view of this now that we're going to be picking and choosing on what projects we can apply the BIP on. For two years, we've been asking what is the cost to government and how much are we saving by doing this. We have not been able to see these figures yet...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from that answer am I to take that Cabinet is going to have a look at every contract that's going out from departments? If a department comes to Cabinet with a contract to say we want to waive the BIP on this, they're just going to be picking and choosing what projects they're going to apply the BIP to and what they aren't. Is that the direction we're going now? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question was, is the Minister aware if the government still considers this policy to be beneficial to the government?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if this is a government policy and it’s to be applied government-wide, how does the Housing Corporation get to waive the BIP on a contract that they put out? Who do they get permission from? Is it from RWED or is it from the government itself, the Cabinet? Where do they get permission to waive the BIP on a contract? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to bring up an issue that has been talked about for too long in the past government. Today we heard a budget address that addresses us going forward in a new direction and bringing prosperity to our country. The issue that I’m talking about, Mr. Speaker, is the BIP policy. I want to ask my questions to the Minister of RWED today, but I’m sure that this issue is going to be around now for awhile and eventually I’ll have some questions for the Premier on it.

Over the life of the 14th Legislative Assembly we spent probably two years going around...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll try and change the subject a little bit.

---Laughter

Oh, no, we’re having fun here. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge and draw attention to International Women’s Day that occurred last week on March the 8th. Mr. Speaker, since I was first elected over four years ago, I have always given recognition to this important day and to women in general, as I believe it is vital to draw as much attention as we can to the issue of gender equality.

I was looking over some interesting statistics provided by the NWT Status of Women Council. Mr. Speaker...