Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are following up on my Member’s statement directed to the Minister of ITI. When we were reviewing the budget for ITI a couple of weeks ago, the Minister promised to look into the policy requiring that commercial gardeners have at least one-sixth of an acre to be eligible for funding.

Given that only one commercial producer of these operating producers might actually meet this bar, is the Minister now able to explain the reasoning behind this policy? Mahsi.

I guess the obvious question is, to connect the two issues, will land designations be moved back and forth either to ensure that financial security is provided or not and will that mechanism tend to delay merging these two pieces of legislation? I’m hoping the Premier will tell me that, in fact, the review is meant to get these two pieces of legislation merged as quickly as possible, so we don’t have the confusing situation out there. Thank you.

There is a lot of enthusiasm for this in the Northwest Territories and I get messages and updates from constituents and others every week. With planting season starting now and wrapping up quickly, let’s get rid of barriers and make sure our programs readily support small-scale market gardens and the food security we want.

I will have questions for the Minister of ITI. Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d say if there was any place we could be generating confusion, this could be it given that we now have two lands acts, once we have this in place, the NWT Lands Act and the Commissioner’s Lands Act. Not only that, but, as I understand it, this legislation, Commissioner’s lands, it reaches out to the Commissioner’s Lands Act, changes it to allow Commissioner’s land to be considered under this NWT Lands Act and vice-versa, it provides for Territorial lands to be considered and regulated under the Commissioner’s Lands Act. How or when this will be happening, I haven’t...

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that Motion 16-17(5) be amended by adding the following to the resolution portion of the motion: “AND FURTHERMORE, that should federal legislation be enacted as requested, the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly propose a bill at the earliest opportunity to defer the election to a date within the month of October 2015 that maximizes coordination of concurrent elections and voter turnout.” Mahsi.

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that Motion 16-17(5) be amended by adding the following to the resolution portion of the motion: “AND FURTHERMORE, that should federal legislation be enacted as requested, the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly propose a bill at the earliest opportunity to defer the election to a date within the month of October 2015 that maximizes coordination of concurrent elections and voter turnout.” Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say that I respect this House and the voice of your authority.

As I was saying, almost all were very concerned about the lack of voice they had and the failure to give people their due in terms of consulting with the electorate.

The issue has come up far too suddenly for ordinary citizens to give it due consideration. We would ask the Assembly to delay or table a vote on this motion until sufficient time has passed for a reasonable public debate, if it is possible to do so.

Mr. Speaker, another voice: “This move is anti-democratic…”

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the first whereas mentioned in the motion, it’s noted that the federal Bill C-15 already provides flexibility on extending the Legislative Assembly’s length of term for the 18th and subsequent Legislative Assemblies and this is the crux of the matter. To avoid questions of ethics and avoid undemocratic stances, we as politicians should not be changing legislation that might provide benefits to ourselves, especially without clear direction from the electorate.

Yet this motion proposes that we circumvent normal public process and change both territorial and federal...

So, essentially they’ll be slightly less at the end of this time and, of course, the Minister forgot about the cost recovery programs that are in place that he’s requiring that they drop. So a net substantial loss. In the third year, obviously, with 120 extra people, small children to look after, they’ll be expected to provide junior kindergarten with no new funding in year three. This will be on the backs of services currently provided to our children, as I’ve mentioned.

What is the Minister’s assessment of the impact students will have to bear from this failure to provide new support for...

I appreciate all those clarifications and responses. Those are all the questions I had. I think there were some heads-up and pointers that could be considered as we work towards a review of the legislation. I appreciate this information. That’s all I had. Mahsi.