Wendy Bisaro

This will be a new outdoor activity opportunity for Yellowknife residents and visitors both. It’s a potential tourism draw. The revenue from that would be a benefit to local businesses and to the Northwest Territories as a whole. The Minister can make this happen. He can allow this lease application and get the process started.

I will have questions for the Minister later, and my first one will be: Why won’t he do that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make a brief comment here. The committee has found, as we’ve reviewed public accounts over the last couple of years, that Finance has done a good job at getting the public accounts ready earlier and earlier each year, and they were able to get us the interim public accounts prior to August 31st in 2014 and we simply wanted to reiterate that this is an excellent practice and we want to make sure that Finance continues to do that in years going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Bill 66, Committee Report 16-17(5) and Committee Report 19-17(5).

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My stated goal is that we have a comprehensive public review of fracking, and that is what I wish for. I don’t believe that this motion will give enough time for that to happen. I support, certainly, the wish of my colleagues to hear the voice of the people, and I am always open to the voice of the people.

At this point, I don’t feel that I can make a decision on this motion. I haven’t had time to canvass my constituents. As mentioned, we saw this quite late in the week this week. I’ve been considering it ever since I first saw the motion and I really don’t know how I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to make a comment here about a change that committee wanted to bring forward. I wanted to just explain that this amendment did not change the bill, and what it was that committee wished to highlight.

The amendment that committee brought forward was to allow for the court to order mediation. It would have a family or someone could apply to the court for an order directing that mediation or some other mechanism could occur. The amendment also directed that the costs of the mediation or the mechanism would be paid by the director of child and family services.

Co...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to deal with Committee Report 17-17(5), Bill 47, Committee Report 18-17(5) and Bill 66.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We hear a lot about our financial situation from the government every year almost every time the House sits, and it’s all doom and gloom. “We have no money,” we keep hearing.

I’m all for being fiscally prudent and I compliment the Finance Minister and staff for their ability to keep us financially solvent, but I’m also a firm believer in searching for new revenues and thinking outside the box to find them. We haven’t done much of either in my years in the Assembly.

Towards the end of the 16th Assembly, action was taken to look at supplementary health benefits. A working...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make some comments on this bill similar to the comments that I made the other night when we reviewed the bill clause by clause.

As the Minister said, this has been a long time coming. It’s four years of work by the department, but it started with work in the 16th Assembly, as has been mentioned. I’m very glad to see that these amendments are here. They don’t go as far as I would have liked them to have gone, but certainly it’s going to address a gap in our services for youth, which has been a concern for Members since 2010 when we did the review of the Child and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Moses.

The committee commends the Minister for including a new provision requiring an application for an apprehension order to be accompanied by a sworn statement listing the alternatives to apprehension that were considered. The provision is meant to curb the frequency of apprehensions and to ensure that child protection workers have availed themselves of the least intrusive measures. All too often in the Northwest Territories, families lose their children instead of getting help.

The committee approached the department about an additional provision...