Daryl Dolynny

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions on this activity, the first of which is the cost of living tax credit where it appears that we’re regressing on our main estimates compared to last year, maybe as a reflection to the population decrease or increase. But, to the overall question, do we anticipate that the government may look at any changes to this cost of living tax credit during this fiscal year?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister and deputy minister here today. I do want to applaud the work of the department here. As I said in my reply to the budget address the other day, it is a daunting task and a lot of hard work goes into putting together a document of this magnitude. So I do want to commend the department and the Minister for providing the guidance and leadership to make this happen.

As you’ve heard from some of my previous colleagues here, there are some good things on the horizon which we should be very proud of. One of them is the Mackenzie Valley Fibre...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be brief. This question was brought up in my general comments. Unfortunately, it didn’t get a response to this. There was a significant change in the amount of expenditures from what this process incurred back in the fall to what we see today. Again, without being able to table a number or share a number, that change is just over 2 percent. So there were significant changes in the amount of expenditure line in the Department of Finance in a very short period of time between what was discussed in committee and what was tabled here just recently.

Can the department...

I want to congratulate the department for finally realizing where I firmly believe there are issues with respect to our loophole in our taxation system, so I’m going to be looking with much anticipation of the results of that audit. Can the department indicate how the findings of this audit will be made to Members and how will the findings of this audit will be made public? Thank you.