Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to expressly prohibit liquor and cannabis as campaign expenses. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank that Minister for that. In the Minister's replies to some email questions that I had sent, the Minister mentioned development of a suicide prevention and crisis response network in partnership with the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority. Can the Minister explain how this partnership will be brought to bear to support communities when a crisis occurs, where these resources will come from, and how communities can initiate the process themselves?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This issue was raised by OpenNWT. I want to compliment the Chief Electoral Officer. For anybody who has seen her reports, there is a lot of detail in there. There are some good graphics and so on that she has developed and presented over time, but the style and content sort of changes from one report to the next. Sometimes, it is hard to track trends and so on over time. There were also some issues around how absentee ballots are reported, including electronic ballots and mail-in ballots. That arose in the last election. What this does is ask the Chief Electoral Officer to...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that Section 121 and Section 309 of the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to include a prohibition on the sale of cannabis during the hours a poll is open on polling day. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my statement, I outlined some of the good work her department is doing on suicide prevention, but I also pointed out some issues around after-care as highlighted by a constituent with personal experience. Can the Minister tell us whether it is normal practice to develop an after-care plan for individuals who have attempted suicide, how such plans are monitored, and what support is available for affected families? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This issue was raised by Mr. Wasylciw and OpenNWT. There were some contracts that the Chief Electoral Officer entered into in the last election, particularly around online voting. Although some of the information was disclosed in the report on the conduct of the 2019 general election, it wasn't done in a systematic way. I don't think there was anything that was ever done wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but we just felt that it would be clear and more transparent to have that information presented in a consistent fashion in future reports following the practices that...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Just very quickly, the way the Elections Act reads now, there are some individuals who have information, say the Director of Medical Insurance, deputy minister responsible for student financial assistance, deputy minister of Justice, and they're named in the legislation. The Chief Electoral Officer recommended that there would also be additional information in the motor vehicle registry that would be very helpful in keeping our voters lists up to date. We are proposing some more general language so that the Chief Electoral Officer can acquire that data, with appropriate...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In the last election in 2019, what happened was that voting in the Office of the Returning Officer opened up the very next day after the nominations were cleared and accepted. If you did go in, you were given a slip of paper where you had to write in the candidate's name. That ballot doesn't look a lot like what you actually get if you go to the poll on election day.

This is to allow for a few more days to make sure that the proper ballots can be put together so that everybody is voting using the same ballots. This was raised by Mr. Wasylciw, as well, so I want to give him...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that "email address" be included under section 54(2) of the Elections and Plebiscite Act; and further, that email addresses should only be used to maintain or update the register of electors and not be shared with any candidate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This was raised by the Chief Electoral Officer in her report, but speaking personally as a candidate in a couple of elections and having heard from my official agent, and I have heard this from some other official agents and candidates, not being able to file your financial report electronically makes it difficult, particularly for folks from smaller communities sometimes. There is a deadline in which you have to get your report in. I think this is just to provide for the same level of accountability but just make it easier to get the proper information in the hands of the...