Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Ramsay.

Agreed?

We will move on. Page 11-29, Transportation, activity summary, Community Access Program, operations expenditure summary, $1.008 million.

Thank to the Minister. I appreciate that commitment. From what I understand from the constituents in Yellowknife that talk to me, that’s the desire, I think of the Yellowknife hotel operators, is that a community can choose… We need to give the authority to the municipalities so they can choose to implement the levy or choose not to. I appreciate the difficulty with four pieces of legislation having to be amended. I mean, it takes a long time for us to get any legislation anywhere to be amended, so I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to try and bring it forward as soon as possible.

Thank you. I hear the Minister saying that this is going to be a committee. I didn’t hear how many members. I’d like to know how many people are going to be sitting on this committee. I presume it’s going to be GNWT employees and I worry about the added workload that it’s going to mean for them. I gather this committee will be a permanent committee. So all these things I’d like the Minister to clarify. How many members on the committee, is it a permanent committee and how much time does he expect this will add to their already heavy workload? Thank you.

Thank you, committee. We will move on to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. I’d like to thank the witnesses for their attendance here. Thank you, Minister. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.

Alright, committee, Municipal and Community Affairs starts on page 6-7, but before we start, I will go to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and ask Minister McLeod if he has any opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Maybe you could clarify which website you were referencing.

Committee, we are on page 11-25, Transportation, activity summary, marine, operations expenditure summary, $5.717 million.

That’s great. Thanks very much, Ms. Young. The next thing I wanted to talk about was legislation. I think it goes under this section. I mentioned in my general comments that I feel very strongly that it’s time that municipalities be included under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I’ll mention two other things here as well. They’re sort of legislation but they’re policy oriented more so.

The municipal taxation authority been delayed, I think, for communities which are currently non-tax-based, and I wonder if we have a date when the department intends to download that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’m hearing that this committee will be established and I gather that it’s a permanent committee. It will look at increasing minimum wages on a regular basis, I gather.

I’d like to know from the Minister how many people are part of this committee. I would think it would be rather cumbersome, and I’d like to know what kind of an expense this committee is going to cost us.