Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Budget sessions are always the most demanding and we’ve covered much ground over the past few several weeks. A review of these issues before breaking will serve us well.

We’ve made progress in law. We have set in motion the critical actions in the review of the Child and Family Services Act. There have been important revisions to the Dog Act. There have been modest improvements in our controls over Members’ post-term activities and we’ve started on the Heritage Fund.

The debate on the social ills has dominated this session and with good reason. The issues of family...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to speak to the principle of this bill. This bill is very late in coming, Mr. Speaker, but it is highly desirable and provides an important opportunity to begin capturing some lasting benefits from the exploitation of our richest resources, an opportunity we have simply not had in the past.

The bill has, however, a key shortcoming, and that includes that it fails to directly connect building the Heritage Fund to the exploitation of our resources as they are exploited and shipped afar. This bill leaves this role to future legislators and that, in my opinion...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion suggests yet another way to skin the cat; an alternative to dropping the affordable housing threshold from 30 percent to 25 percent of gross income as proposed in another motion passed in the House this winter. This motion again recognizes the special considerations needed for our small communities where employment rates are devastatingly low.

I would like to compliment my colleagues for this innovative idea and request that the government clearly hear that our housing policies in this area are not working. New policies such as this motion proposes are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To help consultation on the Wildlife Act, will the Minister be able to put out a table of concordance that shows where the changes have been made and the most recent draft to assist people in making their comments? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ENR and having to do with the Wildlife Act. Hopefully, we will be moving this bill into the House, but it is a huge bill and there are big changes...

That response is pitiful. We have people out there, having babies, that are demanding this service. To take four years to do this, Mr. Speaker, is, well, unacceptable. Mr. Speaker, we need to get on with this. The Minister could take a page from her colleague, the Minister of ITI, who designed a film industry review with the full participation of industry in devising the terms of reference, participation from the ground up. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to including the informed and committed midwifery advocates and an early start on terms of reference for this analysis? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Health and Social Services. The Minister has responded in writing to my previous oral questions on midwifery and the answers are not inspiring. The reply says, “analysis to develop an expanded NWT model of midwifery care will be undertaken in 2011-12.” Unfortunately, the exact same promise precisely mirrors a November 9, 2009, letter from the department’s deputy minister. That work was to be completed in three weeks, Mr. Speaker.

When is the Minister going to get serious on this? Is the work starting now? Next month? When is the work...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to speak principally to the elements of the bill dealing with contracting employment of Ministers and Members after they leave office. I’d like to begin by thanking the members of the independent commission and all the staff that have done considerable work towards putting this bill together and my colleagues for discussions we’ve had over it.

I’d like to go back to the public climate that focused attention on these matters. Members will remember particularly the case of two sole-sourced contracts with a total value of $225,000 awarded to two former Ministers...

I hope doing what they can do includes involving their partners. I’m told as well that the Coalition Against Family Violence was not informed or consulted on the development of the Domestic Family Violence Treatment Option Court Program. This in spite of the fact that the same GNWT Justice officials who participate in the coalition meetings are part of the separate team that came up with the court program. Two different programs, some of the same individuals, spending resources possibly at cross purposes with no cross consultation by the same people who are members of both groups. This is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Justice in the area of family violence prevention and intervention programs. The Minister made a statement on Friday on the Victim Notification Program. Feedback from interest groups indicates the program could be “fantastic,” was the word they used, but they say no one knows about it. The Minister’s statement said only three applications had been received since May 2010, its launch. That’s pretty modest. The Minister’s statement said information is on the Justice website and that individuals interested in the program can ask for...