Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the House. Thank you.

Minister Abernethy, if you could introduce your witnesses to the House, please.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Heath.

Welcome back, committee. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. With that, we’ll continue, as indicated by Ms. Bisaro, with Tabled Document 115-17(5), Capital Estimates 2015-2016. We are going to start our proceedings with Health and Social Services on page 31. With that, we’ll turn it over to the Minister of Health and Social Services and ask if he has any witnesses. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Continuing on with general comments, I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Native Women’s Association has challenged this Minister, has challenged his department with this call for action. Clearly, there is still concern regarding unusually long wait times with respect to RCMP calls to various communities. We have heard a very detailed forensic reply to a lot of the questions here today, but of course, there is still some concern.

What, if any, are the future steps of this government, and what is the Minister prepared to do to ensure that we can improve our response times for the public and safety of our community residents? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Historically, environmental remediation costs have been handled as a post-year and supplementary appropriation by this government. Given our new-found post-devolution powers as stewards of the land and environmental cleanup, this current practice of seeing an appropriation for the annual accrual for such liability is a direct violation of current public accounting standards of practice. According to the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, these new accounting standards require these remediation costs to be done up front.

Can the Minister of Finance confirm that the...

Thank you, committee. Again, if you can return back to page 53 for total infrastructure. Municipal and Community Affairs, total infrastructure investments, $28.002 million. Does committee agree?