Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. Home insurance is proving to be a growing barrier to home ownership in the NWT, and we heard the Minister of housing actually say that literally minutes ago in this House. I've had constituents contact me about their inability to obtain home insurance. This past holiday season, we had our own home insurance cancelled by Aviva Canada after five claim-free years simply because we put in a wood-pellet boiler system five years ago. The cancellation happened outside of the regular renewal period. Luckily, our broker was able to find only one other insurer willing to...

I appreciate the response from the Minister, but if you go to the federal government, you need to have an ask. You need to have a plan moving forward, a costed plan. I keep pushing my colleagues on the other side: When you go to the federal government, you have to have a specific ask. You have to have your act together. You have to have the money identified as to how to roll it out. We don't have that for universal childcare. It's something I pushed in the last Assembly, and I'm going to continue to push it in this Assembly. If the Minister is going to talk to the federal Minister responsible...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to follow up on my colleague from Kam Lake's questions about universal childcare, so I have some questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I know that he is good at thinking fast on his feet. We already know what the costs are for setting up universal childcare from a 2014 study done by people at the University of Toronto. I am looking at the study right now, Mr. Speaker. Back then, it was predicted that it would be $20 million a year to fund universal childcare across the NWT, the same level as Quebec, and $45 million a year if we...

That's great to get that from the Minister, but clearly there has been a failure of the private market. People can't get insurance, can't get affordable insurance. We're just going to stand there and watch? This government proclaims that homeownership is a critical part of addressing homelessness, yet residents can't find or obtain affordable insurance. We heard the Minister of housing earlier today talk about how they have to change programs because people can't get home insurance. What specifically has the Minister done to ensure that home insurance is not a barrier to homeownership?

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for the regulation of the insurance industry in the Northwest Territories. Section 270 of the Insurance Act requires that the superintendent of insurance prepare an annual report for the Minister. The last report available on the Department of Finance website is from 2013, seven years ago. Can the Minister tell us whether annual reports have been prepared since 2013 and why they have not been made public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. You might detect a little bit of frustration on my part. I was here the last Assembly. We identified universal childcare as a priority in that Assembly. It was even in the mandate to do it and to prepare a costed plan, but Cabinet wouldn't do it. At midterm review, the majority of MLAs -- I was not onside with this -- changed the priorities, changed the mandate so that we wouldn't even get a costed plan. If we had done the work back then, we would have been ready with a specific ask.

I know that the Minister is talking to the...

I want to thank the Minister for that commitment. Look, the work was already done in 2014. You can probably go back and ask them to refresh it. I think part of the problem here is that our government has not identified universal childcare as a high priority. We've got something as vague as advancing it in our mandate and in the priorities that we developed. This needs to be a much higher priority with us when we go to the federal government. We shouldn't be asking for $800 million for a Slave Geological Province Road. What we should be doing is asking for 40 years of funding for universal...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I appreciate the response. I want to thank the Minister for that, but I don't think it's good enough for us to just say that there's a problem. I've got a solution. I've pitched it before, so I'll try it again. In my Member's statement, I discussed how the Saskatchewan government, in 1944, set up its own Crown corporation to provide insurance because the private sector could not or would not provide coverage. That corporation now operates in five provinces to provide the kind of coverage that our residents need. Will the Minister commit to having discussions with...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for her passion today. I'm worried, though, that a lot of time and effort is going to go into this Government Renewal Initiative and it will not deliver the results we need to have our government going off a fiscal cliff. I think that's being driven by overspending on large infrastructure projects. We need to make some tough decisions and choices now because we can't possibly accomplish all the items in Cabinet's mandate. What assurance can the Minister give me today that the results of the Government Renewal Initiative are going to be...

I want to thank the Minister for the Minister's statement in response to my question. Look, I want to be generous here. The Minister has shared information with us as Regular MLAs. My questions here today are to try to get this out into the public because nobody really knows what is going on. Can the Minister tell us: She just mentioned that Finance and I believe Education, Culture and Employment are the first two departments that are going to be up for review. Is there a full schedule that she could provide to, perhaps, table in the House so that the public and our workforce knows what's...