Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that Bill 30, Health Statutes Amendment Act (Cremation Services) be read for the second time. Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Public Health Act to clarify that the Commissioner may make regulations respecting cremation and crematoria. This bill also amends the Vital Statistics Act to define cremation and crematorium and prohibit cremation except by a funeral planner in a crematorium operated by a funeral planner. Merci, Monsieur le President.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have two written questions today. For the first one, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Minister provided Regular Members with the most recent version of its School Funding Framework that I tabled in the House yesterday. Can the Minister:

Identify the number of students enrolled in junior kindergarten alone, and in kindergarten to grade 12 cumulatively, and each school offering the Junior Kindergarten Program in 2016-2017;

Provide departmental projections of the above for 2017-2018; and

Identify differences between current K...

Thanks to the Minister for his response. I am not sure they are actually in the public realm yet, and that is why I am asking. So he has got commitment to share them with this side, and I am sure he is going to make sure that they are posted immediately to the Infrastructure website, but the economic advisory committee, has his deputy minister made the appointments to that body yet?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have some questions for the Minister of Infrastructure. Can he tell us when these fabulous new airport improvement fees are actually going to come into effect? Is it going to be July 1st? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister again for that information. I am glad that he recognizes that overtime is stressful on our employees, and that the idea of relief workers is a good one. I will be tracking this during the rest of my term, certainly. As I mentioned earlier today, though, a great deal of the overtime is concentrated in Health and Social Services authorities, and Stanton hospital alone accounted for 18 per cent of the overtime costs. This may not come as a surprise to our healthcare and social workers, but I believe this is causing a lot of stress and burnout. What is our government doing to...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today, I offered some observations on statistics for employees as provided by the Minister of Human Resources, now the Minister of Finance. There appear to be about 100 vacant, undetermined departmental positions at any given time. Can the Minister explain whether this is comparable to other jurisdictions, and what efforts we are making to improve our recruitment efficiency? Merci, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. On February 14, 2017, I sent a Valentine's Day message to the Minister of Human Resources, in the form of a set of written questions regarding vacancy and overtime statistics. I recognize this was a complicated and lengthy set of questions, and that the department likely had to expend a fair amount of effort to pull together that information. I sincerely thank the Minister and his staff for pulling the information together.

Today, I offer some observations on that data tabled in this House on May 25th. The vacancies in our department for indeterminate positions...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I'm pleased to recommend the Health Statutes Amendment Act, Cremation Services, Bill 30, for the consideration of this Assembly. This is a private Member's bill which proposes amendments to the Public Health Act and to the Vital Statistics Act. All Canadian jurisdictions except the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have legislation for cremation. The private Member's bill does not seek to create new powers with respect to cremation. It does not create any new regulatory structure to govern the performance of cremation. Above all, the private Member's bill does not...

Merci, Monsieur le President. For my second question, my questions are for the Premier. Members of Cabinet and their support staff travelled to Ottawa in November 2016 for intergovernmental meetings and parliamentary presentations. In his January 31, 2017 reply to my written question, the Premier said that "there were no lobbyists or consultants engaged in the planning or coordination of this trip." Can the Premier explain why we pay the lobbyist firm Earnscliffe Strategy Group more than $120,000 per year to provide "media and government relations and communications" services in Ottawa, but...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Minister for that response. Of course, I have expressed in this House my view that I think the appointments should be made by the Minister himself rather than a deputy minister, but when those names are finalized, is there a commitment from the Minister to release them publicly and make them available to the Members on this side as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.