Bob Bromley

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, Mr. Speaker. Just a comment. I found in these sorts of things that local businesses are the ones that are the real workhorses in this area of social responsibility. Keeping all departments coordinated in the development of the strategy has been a major challenge.

Will the Minister build in the creation of a funded secretariat to introduce the strategy, guide its integration into our programming, and do the evaluations we’ll need for continued improvement, working with our partners, of course?

I guess the draft should be coming out very soon, obviously, if the final is expected by the end of the month. This time frame stretches us, I would say, based on that, into the spring, and yes, we want to get it right to have a strategy that public groups can support and be ready to resource the strategy adequately.

The budget address noted that funding for a strategy would be brought forward as a supp before the next main budget, which is good news. Since we’re gathering comment on the final draft strategy now, will the Minister commit to contracting peer review from outside experts so that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Previous programs to help businesses acquire renewable energy equipment and technology have been cut back. These programs promoted business prosperity and success, by cutting the consumption and high costs of electrical and heat energy. Given our reliance on fossil fuel, greenhouse gas production is also cut, an important bonus. But even with adequately funded programs, many businesses can’t take advantage because they lack the seed funds to go ahead. Programs provided up to $10,000 for projects of up to $40,000, but first you need to have the $30,000.

The savings...