Kevin O'Reilly

I give notice that on Thursday, February 25, 2016 I will move the following motion: Now therefore, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that this Assembly refer the issue of standing committee public engagement and transparency to the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures to recommend a process that may be adopted by all standing committees of the 18th Legislative Assembly. And further, that the research and analysis include consultation with the public and a jurisdictional review. And furthermore, that the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures report back to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to again thank the Minister for his response. If he took the impression that I don’t believe the division's actually doing anything, I do understand that there is a lot of work that's underway, but we just had a $4.5 million special warrant that was necessary to deal with the closure and reclamation of the Cantung Mine, There's some unreconciled liabilities associated with the Prairie Creek property and other sites, so I just want to get some further assurances from the Minister of Lands that our financial security systems are working. I wonder whether there...

Mr. Chair, I do want to recognize the efforts of the new Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and I know that he has spoken in the House about how the new government is working more collaboratively with the francophone community in terms of the ministerial directive. I know that it's been raised in the House here about the importance of working with local education authorities collaboratively as well. This is an important motion, I know, for myself and my riding as Ecole Allain St-Cyr is in my riding, and I know that they are working with the new Minister to address francophone...

One of the purposes of the liabilities and financial assurance division within the Department of Lands was “lead and coordinate short and longer term policy development concerning the government's management of securities.” Can the Minister of Lands indicate whether any policies and/or guidelines have been completed since the division was created last year, and table such documents in this House?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To be fair to the Members on the other side, we wanted to give them a heads-up that there's a couple more items that we would like to bring back perhaps as early as tomorrow in Committee of the Whole for this section. They would deal with support for small business and looking at how to review the Heritage Fund Act. We'll bring those forward as motions tomorrow for the consideration of Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize Nancy Vail. She’s a constituent in Frame Lake. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What this change is all about is to I think just shift the focus a little bit, not just from developing a five-year action plan for the Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program, but supporting the program as a whole. It's part 6 of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. This was part of the integrated resource management system that was negotiated through constitutionally entrenched land claims agreements to make sure that we understand what the health of our ecosystems is, but also to look at how the different components of that integrated environmental management...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think I have anything further to add at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The important addition here is the words at the end to focus some attention on not just managing contaminated sites, but actually preventing them from happening in the first place. That’s really the purpose of financial security system. Earlier today in my Member’s statement and through questions, I raised a number of issues around the importance of this, and what happens if we don't manage our land and water carefully. We can incur huge liabilities that can cripple us financially. We don't have nearly the room of the federal government to absorb those sorts of costs, so...

Mr. Chair, I am going to be voting against this amendment. As a resident of Yellowknife, I have travelled a number of the highways in various seasons for work purposes, holidays, and so on, and certainly, our family has a much better piece of mind travelling along those roads and seeing emergency shelters, knowing that if we ever had to use them, they were actually there and available. It's not just folks from the small communities, but even for people from Yellowknife, it's created, I think, a better sense of safety and peace of mind knowing that those sort of facilities are there, so I am...