Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I appreciated the inquiries from the Member for Yellowknife Centre also. I just wanted to note that I, too, have a number of constituents who have had difficulties in this area. So not to repeat any questions, but I did just want a clarification.

I believe I heard the Finance Minister say that she's added staff to this area that deals with this area. I'm hoping that the idea with that is that they are going to help to alleviate some of the burden and help to ensure that we're meeting that 30-day timeline more consistently. Is that -- can the Minister just confirm...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So -- and just to be clear, I mean, I would have to go and do an ask or have a look for myself, but does it follow all of the guidance in the planning and accountability framework that I just laid out there, or is it effectively just a few numbers in the public account?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to ask a little bit about the heritage fund. In particular, I note that, you know, the Heritage Fund Act does require annual reporting, and we had a compelling presentation from a former Member of the Assembly yesterday on the heritage fund at SCOGO, and they were noting that we do not actually write or post annual reports as required. I'm just wondering why that hasn't been done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. I certainly was going to ask questions very similar to the Member for Great Slave on GRI. Maybe if I can try and build upon that.

I mean, I think that the concern that I have about -- well, first of all, I mean, I think GRI is a great initiative. I very much support it. And my real concern with it is simply that we're not reviewing programs quickly enough, that it's been taken -- you know, it's kind of extended into multiple terms of the Assembly. And I think, you know, I've spoken to the fact in my reply to the budget address that our inability to say...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged to hear about that information from the Minister. Some of those things are things that I wasn't aware of.

Mr. Speaker, is the Minister concerned, considering the news that came out about the Inuit Nunangat University recently, that the NWT is falling behind our neighbours, that is a competitive environment that the NWT wants to stay on top of; is the Minister concerned about the progress that we are not yet making on moving this project forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report on its consideration of Bill 12, the Business Day Statute Law Amendment Act.

Bill 12 received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on October 30th, 2024 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review. The standing committee completed its clause-by-clause review of the bill with the Minister of Justice on February 10th, 2025.

Mr. Speaker, the committee reports that Bill 12, the Business Day Statute Law Amendment Act, is ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding of anything related to Canol is those would have been federal contaminated sites. I'm just curious how the GNWT ended up with them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess, yeah, is the Minister able to provide us any detail, though, on like what exactly -- you know, it seems like the department has some information. They were able to give us kind of a high level idea Cameron Hills was $21.2 million, but can we know kind of what project are we talking about? How did the government end up with this liability? I'm just seeking to understand a bit better, you know, something that just appears as a line item in a budget and, you know, once the narrative starts to emerge, one wants to know more about it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is certainly good news, and it's something that I've been advocating for, mostly by email of course, outside of session, and so it is really nice to -- it is nice to hear that. I have some constituents that will be very pleased to hear about that so appreciate that information from the Minister and encourage the department to keep working with the department of health on coordination and certainly hope that those extra staff help to alleviate the burden a bit.

To turn back to the line of questioning that the Member for Great Slave brought up, that Cameron Hills...

Okay, thank you. That's a little bit tough to hear that we're trying to save money and ended up spending more. But -- okay.

The next one I was wondering about is just the funding for the two winter roads. How are we managing to under budget for these? I mean, these are roads that we've been running for decades. We should have a good idea of the operating costs of them. Even knowing that there might be, you know, changes in -- from season to season as to different demands but I would expect that, you know, these costs are pretty significant. So is there a reason why they went up so much this...