Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask a question here about the transfer from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment of the Child and Family Resource Program to the Health and Social Services Healthy Family Program. It’s not clear here why the transfer either is necessary or why it’s happening, if I could get an explanation, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a motion. I would like to move that $516,000 be deleted from the activity “directorate” under the Department of Executive, operations expenditures, not previously authorized, on page 7, for the provision of funding for costs associated with the communications functional review. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to add a few comments to those and my thoughts are very similar to those of my colleague. This bill has been overdue for a very long time and I want to commend the Minister and the staff of his department for getting it done in short order. They’ve been working very hard to get this brought forward for this particular sitting.

There are many of our residents who are affected by mental health. There are many of our residents who don’t get the treatment they need because the current Mental Health Act is outdated and it will be totally replaced by this new act. I’m...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some comments that I made the other night but would like to repeat them. At the outset, I want to say that this bill, not quite as long time in coming as Bill 37 but this one has been a long time in the works. I want to commend the work of the Minister to get out and speak to regional health authorities, speaking to regional Aboriginal governments and explain the concept that he was trying to put through and make sure that people really understood the concept before we got to this point of looking at a bill. I think that groundwork went a long way to what we found...

Thanks to the Minister for that fulsome response. I am somewhat dismayed. The Minister says that we are fully aware. Yes, I would say we may be fully aware of some of them through the media. I’m not sure that we’ve had full disclosure from Cabinet on some of those suggestions. Certainly we’re aware that there are projects that are in the works and we’ve been advised of those.

One of the other statements that the Minister made last week was “…infrastructure that will support the responsible development of the NWT and its economy.” When I read that, it said to me that we’re certainly narrowing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 248-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 248-17(5) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to move away from fracking for a little bit today, and I have some questions for the Minister of Finance. I would like to ask the Minister some questions about a statement he made last week about our borrowing limit. The Minister, in his statement, made two comments about what this new borrowing limit, this increase of $500 million will do for us. He said it would give us “increased flexibility to invest,” and “in consultation with Members of the Legislative Assembly.”

To date, we haven’t heard from the Minister, as Regular Members. We haven’t heard any...

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the fact that it is federal money, but just because it is federal money it doesn’t mean that we should spend it on something that isn’t really necessary.

So, if we have a report already, what is it that we are monitoring? Can I get an explanation of the work? Was the report done on a period of work that is now completed and we are doing further work that is being measured and monitored? It’s not clear to me why we are still continuing to spend money when a report has been done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any mining operation is fraught with risk, financial risk for the company, environmental risk for the residents, social risk for communities and so on. Any company starting a development must weigh the risks to benefits to determine if they should proceed with their development.

Development of oil and gas operations is not dissimilar. There are many of the same inherent risks; but when extracting unconventional oil and gas, the risks are greatly increased. That may not be a big deal for a multinational company with deep financial pockets, but it is a big deal for the...

That’s all I have on airports. I do have a question on highways. Thank you.