Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Finance on the issue of carbon pricing. I would like to start with something simple. The federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada wrote to all her provincial and territorial counterparts on December 20, 2017. She requested a response by March 30, 2018 on whether each jurisdiction would implement its own carbon pricing scheme or rely on the federal government. Last time I asked the Minister of Finance, in April, we still had not responded, so can the Minister tell us and the general public if he has written a...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I'm going to support this, but I think that the expectations of some, in terms of the economic opportunities from cannabis sales, are not going to be nearly as significant as some folks seem to claim, and I am worried that we are setting up some people to fail by raising some very high expectations around this. I do think that there are probably more significant opportunities available around local production, but that is going to take a bit of time to sort out, as well. We do have programs under SEED that could support both, I think, sales and production. Having...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I will support this motion, but this is exactly the kind of task that could have been assigned to an advisory committee, had the committee been given the proper mandate and membership and so on.

You know, I served on the Waste Reduction and Recovery Advisory Committee to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for 10 years. I chaired it for a good part of that, as well. It was made up of a number of representatives with expertise in various areas, and it did provide, I think, good advice to the Minister. I think it has also allowed for the waste reduction and...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do want to start with some general remarks. It was a real privilege to travel to seven communities outside Yellowknife as part of this joint effort. I went to Ulukhaktok; that's the first time that I've had a chance to go to that community. We were made welcome in all the communities, and I want to certainly thank everyone for their assistance with the travel and logistics, and especially those who provided their input during the process.

I'm not going to speak at length about what's in the report, but I do want to note that this does represent a fundamental change for many...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to thank the Minister for that response, but he did not answer the question, again. This study that was done in collaboration with federal government experts on the impacts on the Northwest Territories of carbon pricing, is it done, and, if so, can he share it publicly?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions about Taltson Expansion. I know there is $200,000 in this supplementary appropriation package, in that $150,000 is coming from the federal government, so the rest is coming from us, and I thank the Minister and his staff for giving us a bit of a 10-year schedule of what might happen, but there is almost no information here, very little details on what this project is really all about. I understand he is prepared to provide some more information about the Great Slave Lake Crossing study, but this was something that was tried by Deger(ph) Energy. The...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know we are getting a tour of Stanton Renewal on Friday. Is there going to be some discussion about the extended care unit and what is happening with the old hospital while we are over there as well? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I appreciate the commitment on the part of the Minister, because some of these notes are dated May 14th and so on. This is clearly information that was generated internally for your own internal approvals through the FMB, or whatever, and it would helpful to be able to share that with us.

I take the Minister's commitment seriously that he is going to look at this, so I don't have anything further in terms of opening remarks. I will have some more detailed questions and comments on some of the items as we go through the package. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I, too, am concerned about the large amount of carry-over. I guess I wonder how much of that is due to reduced capacity within the Department of Infrastructure. This is a department that was a creation of amalgamating Public Works and Services and the Department of Transportation. It was one of three departments to actually take a cut last year in its O and M budget. I went back and tried to refresh my memory here about how many positions were lost during that amalgamation, and it looks like it was about 45, at least, on 580 when you combine the two departments, so that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that information from the Minister, and look forward to the reconciliation. One area that I am a bit concerned about is this active forestry carbon sequestration. What is that funding actually going to be used for? I think I saw in the briefing materials that some of it is going to be used to replant areas where there may have been fires, but it sounds like some of it is going to be used to replant areas that were supposed to be replanted after forests were harvested. We should be preventing that sort of thing from happening. If areas are harvested...