Kevin O'Reilly

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today we haven’t had the pleasure of hearing from the Minister of Health and Social Services, so I have a couple of questions for him. I understand that from previous discussions we’ve had here in the House that there’s a couple of midwifery consultants that have been hired to do some work to help design the territorial system. Can the Minister tell us when the contracts for those two individuals finish? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

No thanks, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the commitment of the Minister to follow up with NFTI and try to find a way to streamline or improve support for agriculture. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There’s some significant changes in the staffing levels. Can the Minister or staff explain generally what’s going on and how many of those positions are vacant? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m looking at the line, minor repairs, under rental housing programs. The figures here jump around quite a bit: 2014-15 it was over $7.4 million, next year is $1.7million in 2015-16, and then in 2016-17 is $2.2 million. Why are these figures jumping all over the place? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer. I think I understand much better now what the funding’s actually used for. I just want to move on to the Mining Incentive Program. Do we actually have any way to measure how effective this money has been in say the discovery of new properties? Have any of the properties that are being explored as a result of this program? Have any of them actually gone into production? How do we evaluate the effectiveness of the investment that’s made here? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. These funding arrangements, they’re finished. I guess, in particular, I was curious about the Canol Trail work. Has that actually been completed? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the response from the Premier, but my question was really not so much how we’re going to work with the federal and provincial governments but what are we going to do as a government. I’ll just give one example here. Can the Premier tell this House how GNWT will obtain free, prior, and informed consent from indigenous governments in developing and implementing new resource management legislation?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Look, I’m not suggesting that the money be centralized in Yellowknife but obviously if a small non-profit has to make a number of applications to different regions to support work and building capacity there that creates an administrative burden on a small NGO. Is this something that the department has considered and what sort of solutions might there be? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don’t want to prolong this. I appreciate the commitment from the Minister. Would the department be prepared to provide its communications plan on how it’s going to put together the Minerals Resources Act to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I apologize; I neglected to ask the Minister and her staff, there was a reduction of $115,000 for pre-1986 private non-profit housing under the contribution section. Can someone explain that to me, please? Thank you.