Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have one other issue I want to raise with this part of the bill. There are a number of reasons outlined that an employment standards officer could use to satisfy themselves that a waiver could be issued. Those are found in 6(a). The committee received correspondence from the Union of Northern Workers that expressed some concern about the broad and vague language of some of these provisions, in particular around (ii), climatic or economic conditions, so I would like to ask the Minister whether there is any kind of further case law or definitions or whatever that might...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes. This issue was raised in written submissions from the Status of Women Council and the Union of Northern Workers. As I mentioned earlier, it is good that people will have access to unpaid emergency leave. What that means is that, if they have to go and self-isolate, an employer has to allow them to take the time off. It's unpaid, but their job is kept for them so that they can return to a job. It's not just the individual employee; it can be a member of their family who might need care, and so on. I think that's a good thing to do, and in fact, we are actually required...

I want to thank the Minister for that. It kind of flows well into my next question. With the current travel restrictions in place and the likelihood that they will stay in place, probably for several more months, NWT residents, of course, are looking to explore the Northwest Territories a lot more. We certainly did that last summer ourselves. Can the Minister tell us what she is doing to support staycations and the tourism industry to take advantage of this new market of residents within the Northwest Territories?

Thanks, Madam Chair. Look, I don't want to drag this out any longer than I have to, but, Members, if you want to see what this actually does, everybody has a copy of Bill 20 in the grey binders underneath your desk. If you want to look at this, all this does is add two words at the beginning of clause 6 or whatever it's called here. The two words are "on application." Then it's very clear that it's an employer who is seeking a waiver and that they should be providing some information to the employment standards officer up front. I think this will shorten the period of time for getting to a...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate the responses from the Minister. I am about tax fairness, and I just want to give the Minister a couple of ways in which she could raise $1.4 million for the public record. She could actually keep the rental fees that are in the current exploration licence for Husky Energy and carry those over into the significant discovery licence and raise $1.4 million a year. That's one option; she doesn't really have to do very much on that one.

The other one is, and I've said this before, we're one of the few jurisdictions in Canada that only has three personal income tax...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I do appreciate that. Is the Minister willing to share some of that kind of analysis that she talked about? In the past, there have been revenue options papers generated by Finance Ministers. Is the Minister willing to make public perhaps an updated version of a tax options paper, or a revenue options paper, in preparation for the next budget? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Are there any plans, then, to make up this lost revenue somewhere else in the tax system? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't have any difficulty with the administrative changes here for the most part. I am concerned about the reduction in the small business tax rate. Can the Minister tell me why we are doing this? Thanks, Madam Chair.

I guess I have to guess what the third recommendation was, but I am not going to try to do any math on my feet here. Actually, I will. We have the Wage Top-Up program ending on August 31st, as I understand it, so $18 an hour. The very next day, people are going to see their hourly wages drop to $15.20. It just does not seem to make any sense, so can the Minister explain to the public, the people, the 9 percent of our workforce that is now accessing the Wage Top-Up program, why he chose $15.20, and can he explain why their wages are going to drop from $18 an hour one day to $15.20 the next?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to assure the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment that I was not dozing off, and he did have my attention when he announced the minimum-wage increase today. However, I want to ask him: I raised this issue about the Minimum Wage Committee in a previous Member's statement. I think he received some kind of report. Is he willing to make that report public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.