Daryl Dolynny

I don’t think I have any more questions on this activity. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce, through you and to you, a resident of Weledeh, Mr. Spencer Decorby. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As was eloquently just spoken by some of my colleagues, there are a number of initiatives on the go here in the Northwest Territories within this department. A lot of them have to do with legislative framework, and I just want to mention some of these here.

As I said earlier, we have the Health and Social Services Professions Act. We’ve got changes to the Child and Family Services Act. We’ve got the Mental Health Act, which is pending. We’ve got a Human Tissue Donation Act, which might have some dollars attached to it potentially during this year. We have, potentially, a...

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond, Mr. Kalgutkar, welcome back to the House. With that, we’ll go to general comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

If I can be as bold as saying it may be routine for the government to do these types of transformations, this is not routine for well-established businesses, businesses that have been in business for not just a couple of years but for, in some cases, a decade or two. I just want to make sure there’s fairness built in, there’s transparency built in and there’s the ability that if there is a dispute that we do have the mechanisms and the measures in place that these businesses can and have access to other than an MLA knocking on the door of Finance.

I guess my last question is: Even though we don...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am encouraged with that response. I know I’ve asked that many times. I guess we’ll have it before the end of the 17th, which is better late than never. So, congratulations to the department for recognizing that opportunity, because Members have been asking for that for some time.

Last, Mr. Chair, with respect to this activity. The treasury division looks after the administration of all legislative tax programs and I guess to the question and, again, I do applaud the good work that has been done in terms of increasing the frequency of tax audits, especially on tobacco...

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. With that, does committee agree?

Because this is a completely different change of business model, should there be a dispute arising with respect to the transformation and change forthcoming to the businesses in question, does the government have any type of dispute system, third-party adjudicator or any type of arbitrator that would be used in the event that there is an issue in this transformation?

I appreciate the clarification on risk management, but the question still remains. In 2013-2014 we were at $2.218 million. We had $2.305 million in the main estimates of 2014 and zero increase in 2015-2016. As I said, we had a significant amount of infrastructure that hit our books, which means that in the last two years, no change. In fact, there’s only a change of $87,000 since 2013. I find that premium very weak, given the amount of infrastructure that this has assumed in liability. Can I get more clarification on that? Thank you.

Good afternoon, committee. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. With that, we’ll continue with the Department of Finance, opening comments. Minister Miltenberger.