Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. And thanks for that from the Minister. I guess yeah, I get that there's money for this but what I think you need to do is to change the messaging a little bit. Probably more than a little bit. But you want to instill some confidence and rebuild some trust here that there is more money for day home operators, for child cares, and it's coming. And some of that needs to be coming out of this budget. And you need to make that the message now, because you're restricting their ability to raise money, you're also increasing their costs. You're not telling them that you're going...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Yesterday I spoke on attempts by this government to engage the public and mining industry on mining royalties. Other work on mining royalties came to my attention when there was a presentation at the November 2022 geoscience forum by a consultant apparently hired by ITI. This consultant is the same one who conducted a ninepage peer review of the Price Waterhouse Coopers benchmarking study that found that GNWT is doing just fine with royalties and taxes from mining. That peer review was in agreement with the benchmarking study and its conclusion that the NWT is...

Okay, thanks for that. So has the department actually done an analysis to say gee, you know, as a sector, they've reduced income with the capping of the fees as X amount and the increased expenditures is Y amount, because of the training requirements, certification, the pay grid that's going to come in, so we need to increase it by Z amount. Have we calculated X, Y, Z? Thanks and does X plus Y equal Z. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So over on page 44, the contributions, the last item supporting childhood inclusion child inclusion and participation, and it shows $1.7 million. I just want to verify what the uptake for that program is and whether it's actually oversubscribed in any way. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, that's helpful to understand. So I think I've asked this question before maybe but GNWT has quite an extensive inventory of artwork, you know, across, you know, in different buildings. There's some in this building. There's some really cool stuff actually in the Caucus room. But I don't think we actually have an inventory of all of this artwork and some of it is of tremendous value, dollar value, not to mention heritage value. Is there an inventory of this, and what's the role of ECE in preparing an inventory?

Yeah, no thanks. I guess I just kind of remember, I think it was within health and social services maybe even maybe it was actually this department that did a return on social investment evaluation for the integrated or no, integrated case management. It was actually a really good study, and I want to compliment the department for having done that. And I'm not talking about it in the context of this but that kind of approach, I think, should be applied to victim services and doing a bit more of a review at some point soon because you're going to need a case to take to the FMB to get more...

Thanks, Madam Chair. The rental office here oh sorry, next one.

No, thanks for that answer. Is there any money in this budget for further positions or, you know, I don't know, some regions may want to take a regional approach; I don't know. But is there any additional funding in this budget for further agreements/contributions, to allow for this service to be extended? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. So basically it sounds like it's negotiated on an annual basis and then shows up in the main estimates and would include things like collective agreement increases, if there's a desire of change in service levels, in individual communities and so on. Is that the case, and how much input or influence do we really have on this? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess one of the concerns I'm getting is these kind of batches of federal funding is what happens to the service when the funding ends? Because, you know, you create expectations, draws; you know, people begin to rely on that service and then all of a sudden the federal funding ends and then are we actually going to fund this stuff ourselves. That's, I guess, what I ask. Thanks, Madam Chair.