Bob Bromley

So let’s see, it’s currently $2.5 million and we are adding a little bit more than .5, so something like a 20 percent increase here. When was the last time this was increased?

This Minister, I know, has some history and knowledge about the back and forth between public servants and contracting out these services. I wonder if he could remind me of what that has been and what our current thinking is. Thank you.

Thank you, again, for those remarks from the deputy minister. That sounds reasonable to me. I know that this will take a little time to put in place, and I would think it would take even longer to do an evaluation. I just appreciate the opportunity to ask questions and make sure that that evaluation process is in place. That’s all the questions I had.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wonder if I could just get an explanation. I see there are a number of transactions related to the implementation of financial shared services. I believe that this is an opportunity for increased efficiency and, ultimately, lower operations costs. This is sort of related to the previous one we had – $436,000 – where various departments have expenses listed. I wonder if I could just get an explanation.

Again, are we further ahead? Are there efficiencies and savings related to these new expenditures for shared financial services? Just a brief explanation overview would...

Thank you. Sounds like a worthy project. I wonder, do we have any estimates of what efficiency this would gain over the normal course of events and/or do we plan to install monitoring so that we can learn valuable lessons and collect useful data on which to base future similar decisions? Thank you.

That’s all I had. One last request, I guess. I want to thank the Minister for those comments, once again, and just ask if he would bring forward a report, a briefing on lessons learned, say by this spring or winter session, and how we’re better prepared to handle things when the next outbreak occurs. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a letter from the Union of British Columbia Chiefs to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, entitled Canada-China Agreement Abrogates Rights of Indigenous People, wherein the request that they direct the Government of Canada to reject the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we heard today in the House with the Minister’s statement, severe loss, up to 50 percent of this herd, due to anthrax. This is the Mackenzie Bison Herd, one of the few herds of this threatened species, so this is a very serious loss. I’m wondering, just so that we’re learning along the way and making sure we are taking advantage of any opportunities to us, I wanted to ask, is there such thing as an inoculation program for anthrax that we might consider taking advantage of to help strengthen the herd and also help the population recovery. Thank you.

Thanks for the remarks from the Minister. Again, we want to see action here and less studying. Surely, we must know something about why this is happening. Is it bad decisions? Are some people making bad decisions? If so, what are we doing about correcting those decisions? You know, bad decisions, I’m going to gamble this week with my income support and then starve later. That’s a bad decision. What are we doing to help people make better decisions, if that’s the case?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wondered, I know we didn’t have a record number of fires, but I understand that a number of them were close to communities and were particularly intense. I believe the information that I saw was that we fought a very small percentage of forest fires out there. I’m wondering if the Minister can say what percentage of forest fires we fought this year and what the trend is over time. My impression is that it’s going down over time, that we’re choosing to fight fewer and there might be good reasons for that, but if that’s happening and we’re still having exceptional...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to follow up on some really distressing reports we’ve heard on CBC over the last couple of days about food not being on the table of our people across the North, and the failure of our food banks. Our people are, obviously, suffering here. If they didn’t have country food they would be starving. I would like to ask – recognizing that there are ripple effects through our families, education, health, so on – first of all, what is the situation from the Minister’s understanding? To what...