Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a question with regards to the funding for start-up costs for implementation of Junior Kindergarten, $375,000. I know that JK was a little bit delayed in terms of getting going in some places, and I know that some of the necessary construction projects to get JK where it needed to be were a little bit behind. I would like to know from the Minister whether these construction projects – I think they were about $30,000 each maybe, give or take – have been completed. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, to our cash position, where does this borrowing cost of $12,000 to $15,000 put us in terms of our Borrowing Authorization Act and our limit there? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the explanation, but it doesn’t give me much comfort. I’m being asked to approve more money than what’s actually required in this budget year. We’re committing to do that, to ask for some money for a certain program or service and ask for more money than was required in a budget year. I think the Minister responsible or Cabinet would laugh us out of the room.

I appreciate this is a bit of a different situation, but it seems to go to a number of decisions that have been taken over the last six months to a year that pretty much tell me that I don’t have much of a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Even though I have 45 seconds, I’m done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few comments and then I’ll have some questions when we get to detail as well.

My concerns are very similar to those of my colleagues. We have two very large expenditures in this operations supp. Both of them were unexpected and were unplanned, and that happens, particularly with the forest fire expenditures, fire suppression expenditures, the special warrants that had to come through. Absolutely, that needed to be done and I’m glad that the government acted on those.

I do have very large concerns with advancing the payments on the Inuvik-Tuk highway, the $20...

Thanks Mr. Speaker. I didn’t really hear an answer there so I’ll just give up on that one as well.

This is a new process, as the Minister has said, and any time there’s a new process I am a firm believer in doing an evaluation of it. So, I’d like to know if the Minister has plans at this point, even though it’s early in the process, does he have plans to do an evaluation of how our role as regulator and our role as accepting input on issues is working, and when does he expect that that evaluation would occur? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that. So, the Minister has delegated his authority as regulator and yet he still references himself as regulator. So I’m struggling to understand, and I think the public is probably wanting to know, how does the Minister call himself a regulator and yet delegate the authority to someone within his department well within the oil and gas department section of his department.

So, how does he reconcile that he is the regulator but he has delegated that authority as well? Thank you.

Thanks. Just one last comment. I appreciate that the Minister says that the situation is understood, that it’s been dealt with, but it again goes to my feeling that it really doesn’t matter what we think because stuff is going to happen and we’ll hear about it after the fact. So I guess I do have a question.

I would like to ask the Finance Minister what he will do in the future to ensure that these sorts of things don’t happen again, or will he change the policies so they can’t. If this is the way we want to go, then let’s change the policy, but let’s not flout the policy and do the work that...

That is an excellent description of what an ombudsman can do, and I invite Members in this House and members of the public to provide their input on the need for an ombudsman. There will be a public town hall meeting this coming Monday, November 3rd, in the Great Hall here in the Legislative Assembly, 7:00 p.m. I invite all members of the public and these Members to come and provide their views and hear what the ombudsman from Ontario has to say. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister of Education for that information. So, these projects have been completed, yet we have not yet approved the expenditure. It’s my understanding that we have government policy that we’re not allowed to spend money that hasn’t yet been approved by the Legislative Assembly.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Education, either one, but why is it that we have contravened our policy in regard to this particular expense? Thank you.