Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks. I think that was a little more helpful. Look, I'm not suggesting that there has to be public hearings and all of that. For the actual time change, yes, there would obviously be notice, but I would expect that there would be notice or at least an opportunity for the public to express their views about whether we should change to Daylight Saving Time, be consistent with Alberta if they make that change, that kind of thing. I am not expecting a big road show, but to say that there's just going to be an email address, I don't think that quite cuts it in terms of public engagement. I'm not...

I want to thank the Minister for his Minister's statement there. No. Look, I do appreciate the work that he and his staff are doing on this. I just wish it was a little bit faster. I described some of the actions and tools that are supposed to be taking place as part of the implementation of the Bathurst caribou range plan, and the Minister himself mentioned the cumulative land disturbance framework. Can the Minister tell us whether this framework has been applied against the proposed Slave Geological Province road, and if so, can he share that analysis with MLAs and the public?

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say that, in the last Assembly, there was a petition on changing the time, and there was some support for it. I don't think it was overwhelming, but the whole matter was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development in the last Assembly, and they did some work on this issue. At the end of the day, their recommendation was that we keep ourselves on Daylight Saving Time so that we would be in sync with Alberta. The bill, though, that we got from Cabinet did not really do that. It gave Cabinet a blank cheque to change time zones, get rid of...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to say it's a pretty hard act to follow the last couple of statements there. In August 2019, Cabinet finally approved the long-awaited Bathurst Caribou Range Plan. That plan calls for a variety of actions, including a cumulative land disturbance framework, community guardianship, habitat conservation, mobile caribou conservation measures, road planning and management, offsetting compensatory mechanisms, wildfire and fuels management, and online map staking.

It appears much of GNWT's efforts at trying to assist with the recovery of the Bathurst caribou herd...

Thanks, Madam Chair. It has been a long day, and I am just not getting it. I look forward, though, to this side of the House, the public, actually having a better understanding of what GNWT is trying to do to get control of the MVRMA. I just don't get it, and it's not been made clear; it's not been made public. I am really worried about that. I am going to leave it at that. Thanks, Madam Chair. Nothing further on this section.

I want to thank the Minister for that excellent reading of Section 30.3. Does this mean, then, that an applicant for a significant discovery licence has a veto over terms and conditions?

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I ask this almost every budget: the Inuvialuit Water Board. This is, I know, some kind of artefact of devolution. They do good work; they've got good staff. Why are they kind of on our payroll? I know we get money from the federal government for this, but these folks should be independent of GNWT, like the other land and water boards. I just don't understand why this is here. They should be getting their own money outside of the budget. This is just kind of like the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. It's another one of these instances where this was...

I am not going to say anything on that one, but I appreciate the commitment to share that information with us. Let's just go back to: my colleague from Yellowknife North was asking some questions about the legislative work of the department. I was in the last Assembly. We actually saw draft Air Regulations, the wording of it. They were shared with committee. There was a lot of work done on that, and then it just kind of disappeared. I know that there was a lot of work that was done on changes to the Water Resources Act. I talked to some colleagues with Indigenous governments and the NGO...

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for that. In the existing exploration licence for Husky Energy, there already is an annual fee per hectare the company has to pay. Now, is the Minister prepared to keep that kind of annual fee in the significant discovery licence, or is she just going to give everything away? I want to know from the Minister: she has discretion to do the right thing and secure benefits for the North. Is she going to do that, or is she going to give this away, not even include an annual fee, as there is in the current exploration licence? Will she impose a fee...

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister for that. I had understood that there were some meetings that were to take place in the fall, or maybe it was in January, with the Tlicho and some other Indigenous governments and communities to start to identify specific areas for habitat protection, critical habitat. Look, there is nothing else we can do on the harvest side, quite frankly. I do appreciate the work of the Minister and what he did in the media today, so maybe we can do some more enforcement stuff there. There's not much we can do with the harvesters to deal with that anymore. We...