Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess if the Minister is going to establish a committee, then that’s going to happen, but I think we could canvas our employers once, agree to tie it to the cost of living and then we’re done.

My question to the Minister now is, if this committee is established in the spring, when are we going to see our next increase to the minimum wage? It’s been two years since we’ve had one. Thank you.

Thank you. We move on to page 11-33, Transportation, activity summary, road licensing and safety, operations expenditure summary, $5.490 million. Mr. Dolynny.

I guess I’m struggling to understand, and I would just ask the Minister to discuss with his other ministerial cohorts, why it could not be just one lump sum. It may be targeted for programs, it may be targeted for base funding, but it doesn’t make much sense to me that we’ve got three pots of money. As the Minister knows, I’ve said that before.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Ramsay.

Agreed?

Thank you. I hear the Minister saying that this is going to be a committee. I didn’t hear how many members. I’d like to know how many people are going to be sitting on this committee. I presume it’s going to be GNWT employees and I worry about the added workload that it’s going to mean for them. I gather this committee will be a permanent committee. So all these things I’d like the Minister to clarify. How many members on the committee, is it a permanent committee and how much time does he expect this will add to their already heavy workload? Thank you.

We will move on. Page 11-29, Transportation, activity summary, Community Access Program, operations expenditure summary, $1.008 million.

Thank to the Minister. I appreciate that commitment. From what I understand from the constituents in Yellowknife that talk to me, that’s the desire, I think of the Yellowknife hotel operators, is that a community can choose… We need to give the authority to the municipalities so they can choose to implement the levy or choose not to. I appreciate the difficulty with four pieces of legislation having to be amended. I mean, it takes a long time for us to get any legislation anywhere to be amended, so I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to try and bring it forward as soon as possible.

Thank you. Yes, I see that we went from… If I look at the revised mains to the main estimates, there is not very much of a difference there. Basically, from 2012-13 to 2013-14 we have a difference of $1.4 million minus $1.25 million, $0.15 million, so really the new money in 2013-14 for early childhood is minimal. Am I correct in that? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. It’s one thing to monitor the expenditures but I would hope that we’re also looking at providing cost of living increases in some of the amounts of dollars that we give out to our income support clients. Certainly, their expenses go up and everybody’s are always going up. Does this figure in the budget include an adjustment for cost of living increases? Thank you.