Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. Okay. Maybe I can just get the Minister to agree that she will find out what that date was and give me and the Members of this House the chronology of events around this misstep or failure to budget properly for the tax bill from the city. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. "Fall of 2019," can we get a little more precision to that? Was it September?

Thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister is new to this file, but I can assure the Minister I sat in the House in the 18th Assembly, and we knew months in advance of the day that the new hospital was going to open on May 26, 2019. That was the scheduled date for months before that, and it must have been known to the Municipal and Community Affairs officials as well. How is it that our system failed to flag this and that the city was going to provide the assessment and that we would have to pay that to the City of Yellowknife? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It was certainly my understanding, having sat in on the committee meetings, that that was the intention of the committee, and I thought that's what the bill was going to do. In any event, recent media reports about the use of vaping products in southern Canada and the US describe an epidemic in use by youth, and that manufacturers and retailers have specifically designed advertising to entice youth. I've had this raised to me by teachers at schools in my riding. Can the Minister tell us whether her department has taken any...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I heard the Minister say that their department was going to look at ways to try to prevent this from happening again. Can the Minister get a little bit more specific about what specific measures the Department of Finance is going to do to make sure that our predictions are better in the future, that we have a better way of collecting money owed to us? Thanks, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the Minister for that comprehensive response, and I also want to acknowledge the work of the Standing committee on Social Development that had the forethought to anticipate this issue with vaping products, because there is a lot of news coverage on this now. I take it from the Minister's response, then, that the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act is going to take full legal effect on March 31, 2020. Can she confirm that again for me?

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister for that. I am trying to reconcile this against the information that was provided to us in the briefing and so on. Can the Minister commit to getting us an actual breakdown of what this MACA supplementary appropriation is actually for by property? I have now heard that it is Stanton Hospital, Norman Wells Hospital, as well as various other Yellowknife properties. That is what not what we heard before. Can I get a breakdown of the exact number associated with each property that makes up the $4.492 million that we are supposed to be approving today...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Once again, I want to thank the Premier for that. I guess what I am most worried about is where the initial direction is going to come from for each of the Ministers and the departments. Yesterday, the Premier suggested to the Member for Yellowknife Centre that people could go and walk into her office and talk to her about priorities. That's not a very efficient or effective way of doing this. It doesn't recognize the role that standing committees should play in terms of consensus government, so I have suggested privately and publicly that the Premier be prepared...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I thought this was going to be a little easier than it is. I am looking at the information that was provided to us, and it doesn't jive with what the Minister has told us. The amount on the table that she is referring to is different than the number that she has given to us in her opening remarks. Is there some way where I can get it clarified what the actual amount is and how much was actually paid in school taxes? Thanks, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the Premier for that. I don't think she really answered my question, though, which was really about whether the priorities that we have provide clear direction to all of her Ministers. Now, I don't want to get into the specifics of the process that we are engaged in in terms of developing a mandate, but I think it is pretty clear that those priorities don't provide sufficient direction to all of the Ministers. I am just wondering: can the Premier tell us how the initial direction will be set for each Minister to cover matters outside of the priorities?