Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last June, June 6th to be exact, the 17th Assembly passed a motion asking the government to establish an ombudsman office. Several weeks ago the government responded to that motion and the response was tabled in the House. The response was neither a yes nor a no, which was both disappointing and hope inducing.

In the response following a summary of what the ombudsman does not do, the government stated: “The Government of the Northwest Territories is currently reviewing these legislated-based rights, as well as a number of policy and program-based rights of appeal, to...

Thanks to Mr. Kalgutkar for that. No, I don’t remember that. Too many numbers too often, I guess. If the Minister could make available to Regular Members what’s been expended, that would be great. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a question here, as well, with regard to the special warrants. They are both rather large sums. They are the bulk of what we are looking at in this supplementary appropriation. The special warrants are done while the firefighting season is still on, and it’s an estimate of what it’s going to cost to deal with all the fires and what it’s going to cost us to get to the end of the season. Now that we are at the end of the season, I wonder if the Minister could advise whether or not there is an expectation that we will fully expend the $7.2 million and the $6.951...

Just one last question here. To the Minister, I would hope that if we are adding money to the base funding that we give to the health and social services authority, is it correct that we should not see this kind of a request for a supp approval in ’13-14?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure again to welcome Jeff Corradetti to the House. Welcome, Jeff. You’re making a habit of this.

Thanks to the deputy minister for that clarification. I think we’ve spent almost $10 million to date on this project and we’re now being asked for another $2 million to finish what needs to be done, as the Minister of Transportation would say. I appreciate this is a large project. I appreciate it’s new for us to do an environmental assessment, but I am concerned that it’s almost like we’re, you know, Executive is coming back and kind of picking at us, you know, just a million here or $2 million there. This is the second time in this budget year that we’re being asked to put money into the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, November 2, 2012, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that this Legislative Assembly strongly urges the Government of Canada to establish a search and rescue base in a central location north of the 60th parallel.

Thank you to the Minister for the explanation. I have to say that I was fully expecting, and I wasn’t disappointed, that he brought up devolution and the money that we’re going to get from devolution. It’s unfortunate but, in my mind, it seems that’s the money that we’re getting from devolution is going to be the one item that is going to solve all of our problems.

The Minister mentioned that revenue was discussed at almost every one of the meetings, and I would like to say that there have been two roundtables on budget and finance that have been held over the last four or five years, I guess...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Finance. In the last month or six weeks or so, the Minister and his staff have been travelling throughout the NWT and doing budget consultations. I think they have been very well received in the centres where they were held. I agree that it was a good move for the department and the Minister to take the budget discussion show on the road, so to speak.

Over the number of presentations and discussions that have been held, there have been remarks by the media, there have been remarks by the Minister, they have talked about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure today to celebrate the launching of the Aboriginal Head Start child-centred curriculum. I visited the Aboriginal Head Start Centre in Ndilo last week and spent some time with Reanna Erasmus, chair of the Western Arctic Aboriginal Head Start Council. Reanna is very excited and proud of this Aboriginal Head Start curriculum, and rightly so. It is history in the making.

Aboriginal Head Start is an early intervention program for Aboriginal children and their families. It was introduced in 1995 to enhance child development for Aboriginal children...