Kevin O'Reilly

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier today I have questions for the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations on NWT co-management board vacancies. Two of the boards do not have a quorum and 22 per cent of the positions are currently unfilled. What is the Minister doing to ensure that we have an effective co-management system with fully staffed boards? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am just wondering when the Minister might be able to get back to the Regular MLAs about this issue.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. In February, I asked what the Minister is doing to get vacancies to the comanagement boards filled. This part of my questions did not get an answer and I will be pursuing that with the Minister later today. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I’m just trying to understand the fluctuation of these numbers as well. Can I have some explanation of the fluctuation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am glad to hear that the Minister will consider this. Can the Minister commit to a timeframe to get back to us on how this might be done or whether he is prepared to actually implement something? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the response from the Minister, but I guess I'm starting to sense a lot of frustration from this side of the House in the lack of progress on this part of our mandate. This side of the House is willing to work. We want to work on this and help the Cabinet start to move these things forward, but progress has been extremely slow, and I really look forward to a lot more progress on these files. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am really glad to hear that there are folks within the Executive that actually track gender on the boards where we make appointments. I guess I am not as happy to hear that only 39 per cent of the people on boards are women. What actions are we taking to try to improve that? Do we actually have any policy on this? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've been in my position now since November 23rd, or whatever, and although we've had one, perhaps two, briefings on general negotiations, I don't recall actually seeing any sort of regular updates that are provided to Regular MLAs. Is there supposed to be some kind of regular report provided to Regular MLAs on negotiations? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I have questions for the Minister of Finance. First off, I would like to learn more, and the public deserves to know, how the government has studied and analyzed the impacts of the 58 GNWT job cuts in the budget, including the impacts on the territorial economy as a whole. In planning these cuts, did the government analyze how these job losses would take money out of the economy and our tax and transfer revenues and pursue cuts that were proven to have the least negative impact in these areas? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Now we'll turn to debating the budget and the public will have the opportunity to see where and how hard the axe has fallen and where we'll be devoting public funds to pursue opportunities. Over the coming days, I'll have questions for the Ministers on their vision for our economy, environment and society, and how a more forthright budgetary dialogue could improve cooperative development of tomorrow's NWT. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.