Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources now has the authority to sign off water licences following devolution. When I raised issues around how this new authority is being exercised, the Minister tabled a response in this House on October 27th. The Minister said "when rendering a decision on a water licence, it is the responsibility of the Minister to ensure the quasi-judicial process administered by the board has been conducted in a fair and transparent manner. To this end, procedural fairness is a primary consideration."

This raises a number of...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I support this motion. Some of the reasons are outlined in the report itself, but our inventory of contaminated sites continues to grow. In 2014, it was 129. Last year, at March 31st, it was 216 contaminated sites. The liability associated with those sites continues to grow as well. In 2014, it was 32.1 million. Now, it is 68.9 as of March 31, 2015.

These are the reasons why I continue to raise these issues around contaminated sites and the need for us to have a proper system in place to prevent public liabilities and for financial security. I will keep raising these. We need...

My questions are for the Minister of Lands. Section 3.1 of the Commissioner's Land Act establishes the requirement for the posting of security on the factors for determining security amount, for restoration of lands, and for refund of security. Please provide a listing of the commercial and industrial leases on Commissioner’s land issued since February 15, 2011 including the lease number, general location, issue date, amount and form of security required, and:

Whether an exemption was granted under any leases from the requirement to provide security, including the reasons why the exemption was...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have three written questions. First one.

My questions are for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. Regarding the co-management boards governing the Mackenzie Valley and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, what progress has the Government of the Northwest Territories made on ensuring that all vacancies on the co-management boards are filled; and could the Minister provide background information on the current state of vacancies, including:

the current number of vacant positions on each of these boards;

how long each of these currently vacant...

Again, thanks to the Minister for his response. Does the Minister recognize that questions of law about a water licence issued by a board, including procedural fairness, are best dealt with through the appeal processes set out in the Waters Act; that is, an appeal to the court rather than trying to have the Minister sort out these matters?

Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today, I spoke of how the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources sees his new authority over water licences as one of determining procedural fairness. The implication is that perhaps we don't believe the land and water boards have procedurally fair processes already. Does the Minister believe that the land and water boards have procedurally fair processes for water licences, and what changes would he like to see? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. This was an issue that I raised in the review of the public accounts. Somewhere buried in those three or four volumes is a list of all of the students whose loans have been remitted and how much is outstanding, and they actually have the individual names of the students, which I found to be an invasion of their privacy. So I think that's what this is aimed at, trying to find a way to disclose what those amounts are without invading people's privacy. So I do support this and look forward to the other side responding in an appropriate manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Mr. Speaker. First off, I want to thank the mover, the Member for Deh Cho, and the seconder, the Member for Yellowknife Centre, for bringing forward this important public policy matter before the House and before the public. Really, it's about the future of men's healing programs in the Northwest Territories. That's what this is really about.

I recognize that the A New Day program was a pilot, but it's a pilot project that actually works. I think we will all welcome the evaluation report as it's likely to improve whatever the programming is and this program in particular, so that's...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response and thank the Premier for that. But I'm still a little bit concerned here, more than a little bit concerned, that we're not going to make progress on these legislative changes within the lifetime of the Assembly. So is the Premier prepared to work with Regular MLAs who might bring forward a private Member's Bill to make these legislative changes, which are essentially housekeeping matters, if the other side can't do it in a reasonable period of time? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I'm disappointed that the Premier is going to talk about my track record here in working as a city councillor. I know that when I was on the city council, we always worked well with the Yellowknife MLAs, so I'll try to keep this as a fair set of questions here. But why I raise these questions to the Premier is he is responsible for intergovernmental relations. He's also responsible for mandate commitments, and so I'm just going to ask the Premier for firm commitments when it comes to changing the Cities, Towns and Villages Act to allow for local improvement charges in relation to energy...