Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess in looking at this page, there’s $3.754 million that this government gives to the BDIC, and if the Minister does not have any opportunity to have more input than just having a chat with the board, I’m a little concerned about that. I would think that if we are funding the organization, we should be able to have a bit more input and direction given to the board about what they do with the money that we’re giving them.

So in regard to the $3.7 million for ‘13-14 that is scheduled to be given to BDIC, I’d like to know how much of that is admin, how much of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to seeing the information that he can provide. I don’t really have a question, but I’d simply like to point out that we do have an awful lot of women deputy ministers and I think that’s a good thing, so I’ll be really interested to seeing women versus men as managers. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. Good to hear that. I’ll look forward to an update in a year’s time and see how well this particular strategy worked.

I wanted to also ask about homelessness. I can’t let the Minister go through a budget without asking about homelessness. There is $325,000 there. It supports two programs and I hope by now that we have a homelessness coordinator, which the corporation was going to hire, to run these programs but I think also to look at what needs to be done with regard to homelessness in a larger sense.

I did note that the Minister, somewhere in here in his remarks, talked...

Mr. Chair, my questions are actually on 12-33 if we want to wait until we get there. I can ask them now, they’re sort of related.

If the Minister is asking for advice, he will always get some from this side of the House and I would hope that every Minister over there would want to hear our advice. Following up on the Affirmative Action Policy, Mr. Speaker, and it’s not referenced in the policy but it is found within the Human Resources manual, which falls under the authority, pretty much, only of the Minister. There are a number of – two, actually – priority lists which list the priorities of the special groups we have within our government. So I’d like to know from the Minister, as part of the policy review, whether he...

I guess, then, that tells me that there is no intent to go out and actively replace the electric hot water heaters in these 100 units with oil-fired. The research is very clear; it’s a savings on several fronts. I would encourage the corporation to look at the cost; it’s not a heck of a lot of money, but I would encourage the corporation to look at actively replacing electric hot water heaters with oil-fired. I think you could probably find the money to do 50 of those hundred units within this budget year if you look really carefully. That’s a comment. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Madam Chair, thanks to the Minister. I have to say that I do appreciate that this money is here and I’m sure the outfitters do as well. To the tourism diversification efforts, there have been efforts but they haven’t panned out. I think the Minister probably knows that. It’s not replacing the outfitting business that these guys had before.

I’ve lost my thought. I want to go back to something that the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources committed to when we were doing that department, and I guess I would like to ask the Minister of ITI if he would perhaps attend the same meeting. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of local Yellowknife educators who are with us in the gallery. Bernie Giacobbo, who is the assistant superintendent for Yellowknife Education District No. 1, Gayla Meredith, who is president of the NWT Teachers’ Association. Another educator who is now working in a different field, my constituency assistant, Amanda Mallon, and her niece Madeline Holloway. Welcome, all.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow up on the energy infrastructure work that’s being done. I’m really pleased, as well, to see that there’s a focus on putting wood pellet boilers into a number of units.

The Minister will know that there’s a desire by the Members on this side of the House to look at replacing electric hot water heaters with oil-fired hot water heaters. I’d like to know if the corporation can advise how many units would have electric hot water heaters. Thank you.

Madam Chair, that’s a great explanation for the outfitters: Sorry, guys; that’s the way it is. I want to reiterate my comments from previously. It is imperative that we find some way to assist these outfitters to maintain at least break-even year to year in keeping their camps from deteriorating any more than they currently are. I think I mentioned the other day that it costs them right now more to maintain a camp for a year when there’s nobody there – and they’re not getting any revenue but they still have to do the maintenance and the upkeep – it costs them more than what they’re getting out...