Bob Bromley

Mr. Chair, that’s all I have, but just following up on the Minister’s remarks, he has my point in spades. I think it would be great if he came into committee with how we will be achieving that, the plan that we’re going to put in place to get that. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, indeed, we will continue to pour money down this drain ad infinitum without achieving what we want to achieve as opposed to the Dauphin study which the positive benefits lasted eight years after the money stopped. What more can you say? What we are doing now has not worked for some time and shows no promise of getting better. This government needs to admit that the welfare system has no future and, more importantly, that the clients who depend on it have no future either. That’s the point that’s being made here.

When will the Minister begin to move towards a system...

I’ll leave it at that for now. Thank you.

Is this where we would see the Western Arctic Centre for Geomatics in Inuvik? If I can get a little explanation that way I see this centre for about exactly what that will be doing, how it will be serving our residents and maybe are we getting any federal support for that? I’d like to ask that question. Thank you.

The Minister failed to address the savings and the cost benefits of that program. They did invest money, and that’s what I’m suggesting we do instead of $20 million without getting any results.

In his ’13-14 review of income assistance, the Auditor General noted that in half of the NWT files examined, client eligibility was not confirmed. In half of the files, income was not verified. In 20 percent of the files requiring Productive Choices were not committed to, and in 30 percent of the files the participation in Productive Choices were not monitored. In one-third of the files, payments made to...

Thanks to the deputy minister. That’s great to hear. I think it would be interesting to have committee become aware of the Minister’s longer term thinking on this just to see which way we’re headed. This sounds like a very reasonable first step to get all parties together and so on, but it would be interesting to know the time frames and all that sort of thing. I’m not going to take up the time here for that, but, yes, a rich area for briefings and exploration there.

My second area is I see we’re talking about putting in place a legal advisor with respect to amendments to the MVRMA, and that’s...

Thank you. That clears that up and I understand that minerals would include the aggregate resources, so that explains the quarrying revenues here. I’m a little surprised. I believe I heard the Minister or the deputy minister say that there were more substantial revenues even in this fiscal year. I’m curious about why that doesn’t show up in the revised estimate. Was it a matter of timing with respect to when this was put together? Maybe I’ll ask what that amount is up to now just so we know.

How do we decide, I guess, and just cut to the chase on the last part of that, how do Members know what we’re choosing to put into short-term debt? Where is the transparency there and how can the public become informed about that during the normal course of events?

Thanks for the Minister’s comments there. Perhaps there’s another way to deal with this issue. I mean, I understand Mr. Hawkins, but those are drums that are in our possession. These are drums and contaminants that are being left out on the land in remote situations that by law are, I’m sure, supposed to be cleaned up but aren’t, simply because of this mechanism that’s been removed. Perhaps there’s another way the Minister could conceive of dealing with this in another section of this department. I’ll leave it at that. I’m just raising the issue and it sounds like it’s not going to happen in...

Thanks for that information. What sorts of things are eligible for short-term debt? I assume that this is not debt that is self-servicing. It’s debt that we intend to simply pay off with revenues on the 1st of April of each fiscal year. What sorts of things would go into this? What sorts of things would we borrow under this short-term borrowing category?