Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a question with regards to the $300,000 for a planning study for Taiga Lab. I guess I would like to know, this is a new expense, I think. It looks to me like it’s a new expense. So, why are we not able to put this into our budget which we passed not very long ago? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some questions. I presume that’s acceptable? Thank you. I don’t have major concerns, but I think I need to ask some questions to ensure anybody who is listening to this and wondering about this great expense, to ensure that they understand what this is all about. The Minister stated in his opening remarks that this is a one-time expenditure, but I would suspect that we would see that it’s entirely possible with new developments happening, and/or the discovery of contaminated sites which we haven’t yet discovered, that we would see another one-time increase.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look at the list here in tourism and parks and it’s not a huge amount of money. I mean, it’s $2.4 million but in the grand scheme of things it’s not that huge, but there are an awful lot of projects in here. So I’m wondering if this is a situation where ITI is trying to get too much done in a year. I seem to recall that in previous years we had a fairly long list in each of the last several years of tourism and parks projects, which didn’t get done.

So, although there’s not much in each of these projects, there are a lot of projects here and it adds up to $2.4 million...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister: I have to say that I am very dismayed. I am quite surprised. This is something that started last September, October, and now we have to wait until the 18th Assembly for any kind of change to take place. I’m very dismayed. I urge the Minister to get it done sooner. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Ministers for that info. The other item here that I have questions about is the health centre in Norman Wells. It’s a large amount of money, almost $15 million. It suggests that that project wasn’t even started. Could I get an explanation as to why we are carrying over such a large amount?

Thanks to the Minister. He mentioned a lot of types of funding. My understanding was that this was a review of licenced daycare operations, governance and funding for daycare operators. I appreciate that they’re reviewing the information, but according to the terms of reference, which I found on the website, there was supposed to be a report as of the 31st of March of 2015.

So I’d like to ask the Minister, you’ve got answers from some 100-plus operators. Two things. Did it include the Montessori Children’s Centre here in Yellowknife? I don’t believe it did. Secondly, was there a report? I...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the amount of money for the H.H. Williams Hospital in Hay River. I see that this is a carry-over amount of some $200,000. I thought that we had advanced money for this project, so I’m wondering why we still have a carry-over at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to revisit the subject of daycares and daycare funding. Over the years this government has repeatedly professed that children are important and that we care for our children, but the actions they’ve taken belie their words.

We don’t have many licenced daycares in the territory. Lots of communities have no daycare at all. Those licenced daycares which do exist in the NWT can get some funding from Education, Culture and Employment to help them with their operations, but it’s well-known that the current funding opportunities are not really working for them. For...

Thanks to Mr. Aumond for that. I’m presuming that if we are advancing $1.5 million that we’re probably going to have to borrow it. Have we considered the cost of advancing the money in terms of borrowing against the money that we’re saving? I imagine it probably isn’t a heck of a lot, but I have to ask the question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I want to follow up on the questions from my colleague to my right, but also from my Member’s statement. I want to ask the Minister some questions about fracking and why we are not consulting.

So, my first question to the Minister is exactly that. Why is the Minister avoiding doing a consultation process on the practice and the process of fracking? The Yukon did it and it took them a year, I think, to do a thorough evaluation of the process to do consultation in all parts of their territory. Why...