Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened with interest last week as the Minister for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations informed us, in a Minister’s statement, about the signing of a number of agreements. I would like to congratulate the Premier and the government on the progress made and the accomplishment that these agreements represent. It has been a lot of hard work by all parties, not just the government.

The Premier’s statement highlighted the Intergovernmental Agreement on Lands and Resource Management and mentioned that government will be meeting with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report process.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to just speak to this motion as well. The public accounts include all of our arm’s-length entities. It includes our Crown corporations. It includes our health authorities. It includes our education authorities. There are many, many authorities which complete the consolidated public accounts. We have all the government departments and then we have all the other authorities. Some of those authorities have a fiscal year end which is June 30th, and that makes it rather difficult for the government to get the consolidated public accounts done by August 31st...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I’d like to just comment a bit on this and on the timing of the public accounts that this report references. The completed public accounts were tabled on the 23rd of October of 2013 and the deadline for tabling of the public accounts is the 31st of December of 2013. So this was only the second year, I think, in quite some time that the public accounts had been tabled in advance of their deadline. So we were really pleased that the government was able to do that. In addition, we were able to get an embargoed copy of the interim public accounts and that’s the government...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Committee would like to consider Committee Report 2-17(5).

I just have to say that the Premier mentions a whole host of things that are out there, but committee meetings are, I would say, probably 90 to 95 percent closed meetings and there’s no opportunity for public input there.

The Premier mentions consultation. What kind of consultation, and I’m talking about consultation specifically for residents who are not represented by another form of government.

Again to the Premier, is there a mechanism right now that exists so that residents can go to a body other than their MLA, that they can go to a body and they can provide input on a specific issue...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier today. I’d like to follow up on my statement and ask him a few questions with regard to the Intergovernmental Agreement on Lands and Resource Management. I recognize that that agreement is between our “public government GNWT and Aboriginal governments.” But, as I mentioned in my statement, there is a need for non-Aboriginal residents to have an opportunity to have some input into lands and resource management in our territory.

My first question to the Premier would be to ask him how does Bill 16, which is the NWT...

They were building houses. Sure. You still have to account for the houses. That’s the background on this motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a second motion. I move that, as part of the standard reporting process, the comptroller general include a list of agencies in the consolidated public accounts that did not meet the deadline for completion of their audits.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a bit of a preface, I guess. This was my second opportunity to review the public accounts and each year it adds to the learning, it makes it a little bit easier. I still struggle with some of the accounting language and some of the ins and outs. My colleague mentioned debt and net debt and that’s a difficult concept to get the head around, but I do want to thank the office of the Auditor General; their staff were extremely helpful to us. They’re still teaching us how to deal with the public accounts and we’re learning every time we do them.