Bob Bromley

Thank you, Madam Chair. The School of Community Government is obviously a busy place. They provide training in areas that include a long list such as governance, management, lands, infrastructure, bylaw enforcement, fire protection, water and wastewater, emergency management, works, asset management and finances. For a number of years I’ve been asking if they would consider giving energy management courses, because, of course, that’s a primary area for savings and so on. Is that included? Are they doing that now?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow-up with the Minister a little bit on the wellness court, the mental health court. Obviously, the Minister remembers passing a motion in the House for a mental health court in the 16th Assembly and we were led, by the Minister of Justice at that time, to understand work was underway. Now again we’ve passed a similar motion in the House and work is underway again here. My understanding is that a feasibility study will be completed this 31st, March. I’d like to know is this done in concert with Health and Social Services and will it provide direction...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one last question with regard to those. Yellowknife obviously seems to be a bit of a magnet for people from across the NWT for people who choose to move somewhere. Are some of these increases going to Yellowknife in recognition of that?

Thanks to the Minister for that update. You mentioned the 70 percent. That was true before. The infrastructure, I think there were some changes there. Would that largely explain the more expensive comment?

Thanks for that information. I guess I would select the ones that apply and leave out the ones that don’t. There’s a couple of them mentioned here, the fuel and electricity. I think our funding, the Minister said about $47 million to provide for community government operations and maintenance costs. What was the increase in that amount due to these factors?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I just get a little reminder of what we’re doing in the protection against family violence with that budget? I notice there’s a small increase there this year. I know this is recognized as a priority for the government and across many departments. If I can get the Minister to give me some detail or some information on what that is being used for.

I appreciate the Minister’s hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, it’s not always the people of the Northwest Territories, to start with, that are building these buildings. It’s often people that are not residents of the Northwest Territories and, unfortunately, there is good reason – I’m sure the Minister is aware – that every jurisdiction in Canada has a Building Standards Act with an inspection function that’s filled. I’m not saying the Minister doesn’t have lots of points on this. I want to express appreciation that the gap analysis is being done. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, and I will...

What are we doing about it? Is this just a, sort of, ephemeral program? It seems like a basic program that we want to maintain. Do we have any information? Why is it declining?

Thanks to Ms. Young for that information. That’s 2015, I believe Ms. Young said. That’s good to know that that’s coming down the pipe. We know that every jurisdiction except the Northwest Territories has a building standards act, and that ensures that all buildings get inspected and so on. We are trying to achieve the same without a building standards act. The difficulty is that there are a lot of codes that are out there that are not necessarily in the National Building Code and a lot of updates and so on, so it’s a complex, sort of, situation for the public. But just given the current...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Very quickly I just noticed Yellowknife is down one and we were just talking about it being one up for the enforcement positions. So I just bring that to the Minister’s attention. So somehow there must have been a cut of two positions for us to still have an additional in enforcement. If there’s any light to be shed on that, I’d welcome it, or later. Whatever serves. Thank you.