Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple quick questions on this activity on the revenue. As the Minister is aware, we’re currently doing the Health and Social Services Professions Act. This act is currently in committee and I’m sure will be coming back to the House. That said, with the potential regulation of a number of new professions that will be affected in this fiscal year, I’m surprised to see that the amount of professional licensing fees has remained the same from the revised of last year to this year.

Does the department not consider the fact that there will be a lift in registration fees...

Thank you, committee. We’ll commence after a short break.

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Good afternoon, committee. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.

The fog is starting to lift here. I’m seeing some of the numbers more clearly in that perspective and I appreciate the deputy minister’s response to that. I guess the question remains right now, as we speak, how many positons are currently vacant in the Department of Finance?

Mr. Speaker, on page 7 of the same action plan, the department’s senior officials are described as “risk adverse, where out of sight out of mind defines the optimal level when it comes to child protection services.”

Can the Minister inform the House, does this set the stage for further failures when there appears in a department’s own words a culture of complacency among its top officials? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the clarification on that. If I can get maybe some historical numbers. That $50 million that was put aside in the main estimates for last year, at what point does the money get into the hands of our 25 percent Aboriginal signatories? At that same question, this amount of $10.1 million, when are the cheques inked and when do our Aboriginal signatories receive that money? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll challenge the department to see if they can provide that to the Member here. I’m looking for that type of level of auditing and the backlog. It sounds like that backlog was very significant, so it does tell me that there’s potentially an issue here on the way we deal with these recovery allocations into our general revenues. With that, I will challenge the department if they can provide that level of detail at their earliest.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given the recent scathing report of the Auditor General of Canada and work done in the 16th Assembly on child and family services, and with over 100 combined recommendations between these two initiatives, we know the Minister and his department have their work cut out for them. Therefore, it’s important that we keep tabs on where this is going and their progress. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Following the Office of the Auditor General of Canada Report on Child and Family Services, the Minister indicated his intention of hiring...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would believe economists would be looking at this as a twofold opportunity for this government. I strongly applaud the raising of the average wage rate in the Northwest Territories, but yet doing nothing to this tax credit allowing more dollars in the hands of those on the lower end of the earning scale has some merit.

Will this government do any type of review during this fiscal year to make it part of a strategy to have this looked at, in conjunction with the good work they’ve done, with raising the average wage rate?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, what I’m getting from the response today is we’re not quite sure. Again, it is maybe a very difficult question but when I see the fact that some of the health determinants are showing certain trends, it’s just interesting that our trends on the revenue taxation line aren’t reflecting those two trends. Whether or not I’m predicting a price increase or taxation increase, it sounds like there’s not. I will leave it at that. I will probably be coming back to that sometime in the future.

With that same page, Mr. Chair, I want to move my question down to the bottom of that...