Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this money is for additional positions to -- I've got to get my glasses on here -- establish two new positions to address equity leases over the next three years. That is in addition to the three positions that were already there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have with me today Mr. David Stewart, who is the deputy minister of the Department of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am here to present Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2018-2019. This document provides for an increase of $1.1 million to the operations budget. These supplementary estimates include:

$200,000 for funding for the NWT Arts Council;

$300,000 to establish two new government service officer positions in Jean Marie River and Sambaa K'e; and

$578,000 to establish two new land specialist positions to address equity lease issues over the next three years.

That concludes my opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 10, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2017-2018, be read for the second time. Mr. Speaker, this bill makes supplementary appropriations for infrastructure expenditures for the Government of the Northwest Territories for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 10, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2017-2018, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 10, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2017-2018, be read for the third time. Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Absolutely. On the Department of Finance human resources website, we have a portal there for summer students to put in applications. I am not sure what the status of the number of applications is right now. I will gather that information and I will flip it to the Member. We are always looking. Summer students who are coming back from school know that there are opportunities. They know where they need to apply. Again, I will check on the status of the number of applications we may have received and share the information with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework with the Government of Canada is a 10-year. The framework is 10 years. The funding agreement is for three years.

On the resource royalty revenues, I mean, we started receiving those revenues at devolution before that were a number of years before that; I don't believe we got any revenue at all from the resources that were extracted from the Northwest Territories. It was a long time coming, and it's a start. I hope we will continue to see that pile of money increase in the future, which would mean that there would be more jobs in the Northwest Territories.

Again, the Member makes a good point, though. The territorial formula financing that we have with the federal government is quite complex. There are a...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the supplementary reserve for next year will be $30 million, but we don't anticipate our ask coming forward to be as high as they this year because, with a lot of the health-related items in this supplementary, we are building them into the base so we will have that discussion during the main estimates and business plans for next year, but we do not anticipate unless there is something unforeseen. We don't anticipate the amount being as high next year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.