Steve Norn

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I had a question for the Minister of Finance, but I just want to say what the Minister from ECE said about having plans to move forward and taking steps to be more open and transparent to the people of the Northwest Territories. They deserve that. With that, my question to the Minister of Finance is: would the Minister commit to having the Department of Finance do more public communications around the budget process, including supplementary appropriations? Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the responses. I just have one more quick question on this policy. I mentioned earlier about home business. This might be more a question for the Minister for ECE, but are we going to give home business better public units, some grace period to not have their rents just sky-rocket because they are making a little bit of income or have their income assistance be cut off because they are just starting off; they have a start-up business? Are we going to allow for a little bit of space for them to breathe, to get them started? Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that response, Madam Premier. With this departmental review, it says the winter of 2021. What steps are we going to expect to get this work done over the summer? What kind of work are we going to do between now and this timeline? Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all I have for now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will make a quick statement about this. Out of all our 22 items, if I had to label a keystone item, this would be it. I think a lot hinges on this mandate item. I want to just make a quick comment about Oliver Edjericon, who is my great-grandfather, who signed a Treaty 8 in Deninu Kue in 1900. I often think what he would say if he was in here. I could imagine him saying, "What took you so bloody long?" I think in honour of our relations who signed that, I think we have to do it right and do it properly. To echo what my colleague from Thebacha said about having...

I am hearing a couple of different accounts here. I just want to make sure I get this straight in my head. Do I need to direct this question to the Minister of Lands? I didn't hear that.

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. After much thought and deliberation about the mandate and our list of 22 priorities, I personally feel like I would have done things a little differently, like you mentioned. We're all very strong alpha males and females in this room, and we wouldn't be here if we weren't. We all have 19 different ideologies and 19 different ways of doing business, but I'm very happy we came to a consensus and came to this document.

For me personally, I think it would be extremely helpful to have knowledge of our current financial state before going into this exercise, but that's how we...

Thank you for the response from the Minister. Not quite what I wanted to hear, but, you know, I try to look at it this way: the States have the CIA; Canada has CSIS. You know, they have their secret committees, but we're the GNWT. We're a consensus government. I think we need to be more open, wherever we can, and I'm hoping that that's the way moving forward. People deserve transparency, as I mentioned earlier. I guess my next question is: can the Minister commit to having the department do more to inform the public about the various GNWT budgets, such as the capital budget and the main...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. As a new Member of this House, I have a steep learning curve, and I know a few of our other Members do, as well, mainly in regards to the budgeting process of the GNWT. One area in particular that stands out is our Assembly's usage of supplementary budget appropriations. Now, this terminology is just fancy language to mean additional government funds being allocated to certain departments due to unforeseen circumstances or unforeseen expenses that were not anticipated during the original development process, or new federal funding which was not previously included.

Mr...

I would like to rise and report progress.