R.J. Simpson

I appreciate that. It sounds like a lot of work has been done so far.

The Minister mentioned sharing resources between Stanton and Hay River. Could the Minister please elaborate on that, and would that entail, perhaps, bringing resources to Hay River physically so that these residents wouldn't have to fly back and forth?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Department of Health staff for taking steps to address an issue that I brought up in the last sitting. Even though dialysis treatment is offered in Hay River, it is always fully subscribed, and as a result, there were a number of residents who were living at Vital Abel House in Yellowknife so that they could access dialysis treatment.

What the department did was give these residents an option to fly to and from Yellowknife from Hay River three times a week so that they could receive treatment, and by all accounts, this has worked...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in February 2017, I stood up in this House and asked the Minister of Education to undertake a foundational review of Aurora College. I asked because I believed the college was both underperforming and underutilized. Education is the cornerstone of every prosperous society. With a presence in 24 communities, Aurora College is key to achieving true and lasting prosperity across the NWT.

However, as they say, be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. The foundational review has been completed, and, while the report echoed many of the concerns I...

Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor to report progress. The motion is in order and nondebatable. All those in favour? All those opposed?

Carried

I will rise and report progress. Thank you, committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Minister's Statement 19-18(3), Aurora College Foundational Review Process, and would like to report progress, and I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred about. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. There is a motion to report progress. The motion is in order and non-debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed?

---Carried

I will now rise and report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this motion is what some would call a compromise, what some would call better than nothing, and what some may call nothing more than a smokescreen.

Many Members of this House and many members of the public have expressed a desire for private sales of cannabis and the opportunity to sell cannabis in all communities in the NWT. However, as the bill is written, it gives the Minister of Finance broad discretion, seemingly the broadest discretion available under the law, as to who he designates as a cannabis vendor, and this government has made it clear that it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't like this motion. I find it too prescriptive, but I am in support of it because our alternative is subservience to what I believe is a wrong-headed policy position for all of the reasons mentioned by Mr. Beaulieu and Mr. Vanthuyne, and I have nothing further to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we all know, the committee was supposed to have a public briefing on the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway, and I was hoping that would happen before this motion so we would have a better sense of whether or not the timing is right to make this motion. I see in here it calls for the audit to be completed as soon as practicable, and I know that, the Auditor General's office, you are not going to meet a smarter group of people, and so I think that, if we make this recommendation, they will know the right timing.

Regardless, I think, if this motion fails, I have a feeling...