Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I reiterated my concerns about what we're missing out on by not moving forward quickly enough with the polytechnic transition and, as such, I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Mr. Speaker, why is our Minister not out championing the polytechnic transition and seeking funding to implement the facility's master plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly I'm looking forward to checking that dashboard out. If the Minister wants to shoot me a message on Teams or email, I'd love to have a link to that. And, yeah, I have a lot of curiosity around this item, but I'm out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we often hear the saying in sports, you miss 100 percent of the shots that you don't take. Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest that the same thing is true in terms of attracting funding for government projects, funding for projects such as the polytechnic university. And I want to speak a little bit today about what we're missing out on by not bringing the polytechnic to fruition as quickly as we need to.

Mr. Speaker, in November, Inuit Nunangat University initiative received $50 million donation from the Mastercard Foundation, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to ask the same question about the Norman Wells. What in Norman Wells is costing us $8 million?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I guess the next question for me -- I mean, I'll focus on the Cameron Hills one. Can the department explain for me kind of what exactly they're talking about there? Like, how did the department end up with a $21.2 million environmental liability in Cameron Hills, and can they maybe explain to us a little bit, you know, how do we end up with a liability and is this something that the government's now responsible for and actively working to clean up? What is being captured under this $21.2 million, the activity. Thank you.

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. Chair. Yeah, no, I'm not going to hound the department on it further or belabour the point, but we really do need to tighten things up. I mean, times are -- we're right at the debt ceiling. I actually -- I mean, it is -- as the previous Member spoke to, I mean, it seems like it's necessary to raise the debt ceiling at this time but you have to start asking the question how long are we going to keep doing this. We can -- like, the more deeper and deeper and deeper we go into debt, the more that we spend our money servicing debt and, you know, I don't need to lecture accountants...