Kate Reid

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if her staff is working with the MACA's Office of the Fire Marshal so that frequently used venues will have an expedited process for liquor license and special events when the Liquor Act regulations package is complete. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to recognize my page Sarah Gacula, and I'm sorry if I said your name wrong. I'm very happy to have you here, and I hope you have a future in politics if that's what you want. Have a good time at your Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yeah, no, fair enough. I suppose, too, that my understanding of the insurance act is not so much that we necessarily control what insurance companies do in the territory rather we allow them to provide their products in the territory. I do have more policy questions in that area, but for the interest of time and everyone's tiredness, I will stop there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, can finance provide more details on the $5.5 million increase in funding for employee medical travel assistance and the $2 million for employee dental services? Medical travel has continued to increase over time. Is there an expectation that it will continue to increase in future budgets? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. And I do appreciate the Minister might not have the extensive detail I'm asking for today. But I do have one more question, which is, is there an expectation, then, that each department and agency will start to build up their monitoring and evaluation capacity? If not with PYs, perhaps with training of staff internally? I recognize that there are some departments who are already well on their way to -- or have had a monitoring and evaluation unit for quite some time, ECE being the most shining star in that bunch, but other departments and agencies are not in the same shoes. So is...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Now the reason I bring it up is I do note that MBS is removed to two positions in this upcoming -- or this proposed budget and so when we talk about GRI, when we talk about red tape reduction, it does give me a little bit of pause. I do really appreciate their expert lens on these issues. And so I am very curious as the GRI evaluation -- whatever we're calling it moving forward -- moves forward, what sort of expectations, what sort of matrices that departments are going to make these decisions on what to evaluate, who holds them to account, will it still be MBS, is it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I get my 15 seconds back? Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

When it comes to the management secretariat, the Minister knows my absolute favourite topic is government renewal, and so I am curious if we could just start the conversation today about the progress on the government renewal initiative and on evaluation efforts generally across the GNWT. I realize that it's progressed so that departments are now proposing -- I'm not sure on a regular basis, a semi-annual basis -- lists of programs that they want to evaluate. But so far since, I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Minister. I guess just from a pragmatic point of view then, since this item is no longer existent in these main estimates is this, then, an area that would be covered by the larger cushion that the GNWT has projected into this year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to both the Minister and MACA for that. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister elaborate if any other simplification of licensing and permitting under the Liquor Act is contemplated with changes to the regulations and, if so, which ones will be a simplified process compared to what it is now? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today my questions are for the Minister of Finance on a different topic.

I have been advocating in the background for a more streamlined liquor licensing process for special events. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if a cohesive package that includes both liquor permitting and occupancy load permit processes for special events is going to be launched on the spring timeline that the Minister previously referenced last October? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.