Bob Bromley

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the update. Not unlike previous year’s updates. Will it happen this year?

Sorry, Mr. Chair, did you want me to run through all of my comments? I’m easy which way we do it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister doesn’t know that we make those policies, we make those guidelines, we make those regulations, we have the power. When an elder becomes eligible for a pension, no one asks them if they have spent every penny and sold their vehicle before they are eligible. When a business owner goes bankrupt they are allowed to keep their registered retirement savings. So why does the income support system require a single parent who cannot work because they are looking after their children to use up all their assets before they are eligible for income support and thus...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hunters have a saying that tracks make for thin soup, and that is exactly what the Minister has provided to the hunters. Pretty thin soup here. I have to say it’s interesting that this government is willing to bend over backwards to help one group of people and do nothing but create barriers for another group. Just a comment there.

I’d like to talk about the Yellowknives Dene First Nations work with the department. They’ve been trying to work cooperatively with the department and had an agreement with the department for three years running, and all of a sudden the...

Will we be starting these renewals with existing funds?

Thank you for that detail. What are the GNWT contributions to the Biomass Energy Strategy?

Thanks to the Minister. I know that the Minister is working hard on this. Unfortunately, it’s an inherent thing that I think even enters the policy-maker’s view of things and ends up with these policies that create poverty traps.

The Minister recently provided information in a response to a written question on the cost of running our income security programs. Income support spent $3.5 million to distribute $16 million. In comparison, Student Financial Assistance costs $660,000 to distribute $16 million while the cost of living tax distributed $21.5 million and did not cost us anything. Why does...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to talk about caribou briefly. I know there’s a lot of concern from the Minister and certainly from biologists about the loss of cows, particularly from depleted herds through hunting. Again, as the Minister knows, we’ve had years and years of restrictions for non-Aboriginal hunters to bulls only. I suppose hundreds or thousands of animals were taken and I’m not aware of any charges for shooting cows. Yet the department is still letting cows be taken even from dangerously reduced populations like the Bathurst herd. Biologists will tell you that cows are the...

Thank you. I recall that now. It was the one that we had already achieved when we set that because of the recession, and I suspect that’s not likely true any longer with the amount of oil and gas exploration activity and mineral development activity we have, the number of new mines coming on. So it would be good to get an update. I know this information is not up to date. Perhaps the Minister could commit to getting the up-to-date information, and what is our plan. Are there dollars in the budget for renewing these strategies?

I’ll leave it at that and see if I can get a different response next year at this time. Thank you.