Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike my colleagues, I will not be putting aside my statement today, and I want to talk about the Heritage Fund. I want to speak to the report that I tabled yesterday from the Action Canada Fellows, titled “A Question of Future Prosperity, Developing a Heritage Fund in the Northwest Territories.” That report had six recommendations and I’d like to comment briefly on each one of them.

The first one is to establish clear fund objectives and allocate more than 5 percent of annual resource royalties to the Heritage Fund. We’ve heard from the Finance Minister earlier today...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That confirms what I had believed, that yes, it’s not in there.

The Minister, in his budget address, talked about 5 percent. Today was the first day that I heard that he was talking about 5 percent in ‘15-16. In all our discussions previous to this, I have never been advised that this 5 percent was not intended for the ‘14-15 budget.

I don’t have a question here, but I am quite dismayed that we’ve been led down a garden path and the only amount that’s going into the Heritage Fund for this ‘14-15 year is $250,000. Thank you.

It gets more confusing every time the Minister answers a question, I think.

The Minister says that the money will not flow until ‘15, late ‘15 or early ‘16. I understand that, but if that’s the case, then the money is not flowing in until that same time, yet we are recording money flowing in in ‘14-15, so why are we not recording the money flowing out in ‘14-15? I’m not talking about the actual cash transaction; I am talking about the records on the books. We’re not going to get the cash until ‘15-16, so why are we recording it in ‘14-15? Thank you.

Currently, I don’t believe we have anything which states that there will be any kind of an annual reporting mechanism, and that also needs to be in legislation.

The last one is to continue citizen engagement to ensure the public support and the long-term viability and success of the Heritage Fund. It’s very important that the public understands and supports what we’re trying to do with the Heritage Fund, that we’re trying to save for the future, that we’re trying to ensure that we have revenues in the future when our resource revenues are gone. The fund belongs to the residents of the NWT, and...

I guess I need to say to the Minister that if I had asked for this information through his office, it probably wouldn’t have arrived in time for me to communicate that information to my constituents in advance of that meeting, so I have a real difficulty with everything having to go through his office.

I would like to ask the Minister, if he needs to track every request that comes from a Minister’s office, why cannot requests for public information asked of one of his staff of the department, why can that staff person, or a communications person, why can they not track that information or that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement and see if I can get some clarity as to the department’s policies.

I would like to first ask the Minister, what is the policy of Education, Culture and Employment, the department and/or the Minister around communicating public information to MLAs, either the MLA themselves or their staff? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to my colleagues for your indulgence in letting me finish off my list.

I wanted to just say that at the outset I think the Minister misunderstood what I was saying about the hydro. I know that the business case that we did before was for a different project. I think my concern is that we haven’t done preliminary analysis to determine that there’s a valid reason to go ahead with a detailed business case. The term throwing good money after bad kind of comes to my mind. I just wanted to get that out of the way.

My other point that I want to make on the hydro is that I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 22-17(5), opening comments or general comments on the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s desire to be on top of things, but if he really thinks that I’m going to be asking him questions about public information about a meeting that’s upcoming, I have a hard time understanding that.

I would like to know if there is any hope that the Minister might change this policy. I’m talking about public information, something that’s already in the public domain. It’s been released through a press release or a media advisory.

Is there any hope that he will change his policy and allow his staff to talk to my staff to confirm public information...

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister, I think. I really am struggling to understand why public information must be routed through the Minister’s office. Were I a general citizen and not an elected official, I could phone the name on the press release and ask for the confirmation of the information directly.

So, I need to ask the Minister why he feels that information that is publically available must be requested through his office and why my office cannot go directly to his department and ask for it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.