Bob Bromley

The extra time reflects the many artists we have: Tracy Riley, Azure Degrow and Stephen Kakfwi are a few of the well known Weledeh musicians. Our talented photographers include Tessa Macintosh, Fran Hurcomb, Alex Beaudin and Ozgur Culha, to name a few. Christine Bourqe is known for her unique and original fur garment designs. We have Inuit sculptors, potters, jewellry makers, graphic artists, writers such as Jamie Bastedo, who has written many books of various sorts.

Mr. Speaker, our amazing artist community contributes to quality of life and plays a key role in attracting and retaining...

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Minister’s Statement 80-16(2), Sessional Statement, and would like to report progress.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you again for those comments. One last question: could the Premier outline the role he sees this side of the House playing and how he intends to involve us as representatives of the people in this process in a meaningful and timely way?

Thank you for those comments. I want to state that I am the first one to recognize we have an extremely complex situation here, and a bull in a china shop is obviously not the right approach. We need to be very sensitive here.

Has the Premier assured these aboriginal governments that this process will in no way impinge upon their ability to negotiate their own devolution of resource revenue agreements as part of their self-government negotiations and land claim settlement negotiations?

Mr. Speaker, I made a statement on artists. I’d like to recognize Wynter and Montana as extraordinary up and coming fiddlers. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you for the comments from the Minister. I have spent a little time in that department in a past life and can appreciate the interest in utility for any surplus funds. Perhaps that’s an opportunity to look at sharing a surplus and rolling part of it into a fund, if that would be financially and administratively possible. So no question.

I assume there are no other remarks from the Minister on the likelihood of overcoming what’s left in the supplementary reserve this fiscal year.

I think the Minister semi-anticipated my next question. There are, as he mentioned, just less than a couple of weeks left. It happens to coincide almost with the federal election.

Are there any particular areas that our public should be aware of that you are interested in comments on that you have not heard from them on? This is an opportunity for our public to hear about that, and I think we’ve had some response on that. If there are any comments on how the public can best focus their comments on areas that might be most fruitful, this would be a good chance to hear about it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Finance can stay standing if he’d like.

My question is on revenue options. Specifically, in this case, one of the things I always hear back when I’m trying to come up with innovative ideas is that the cost of tax collection is prohibitive. Right now the federal government collects our taxes for us. If we take it on, is the Minister investigating what the actual cost of that tax collection would be so that we can make an informed judgment on whether that’s a valid response or not?