Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So I would encourage members of the public to actually read the report from the commission, particularly on this area. You know, we budget $30,000 a year as an Assembly to provide child care expense reimbursement for those Members that have children. And we worked very hard in the last Assembly to try to make this place more family friendly and to encourage young people to run for office and to make sure that they had the ability to participate and, you know, get child care expenses covered given the duties and the time and travel that it takes sometimes to be an MLA and odd hours working and so on. So we set up this, you know, $30,000 allocation each year in our budget to help cover those expenses. But so far, only $1,358.50 has been claimed, after three years. So it's not working. And I think the commission actually made, what I consider to be a reasonable recommendation, to try to address this. And I don't know what the problem or the issue is. I don't have kids that are young enough to claim any expenses. But, you know, having been here seven years now, I know what this does to family life. So I think this was a reasonable recommendation from the commission, and I encourage those Members of the House that do have kids, and that do have expenses because of their duties, that they should be claiming those be back. That's just part of making sure that we all get the work done. And I'm not blaming anybody or anything, but clearly the current system is not working. And I think what the commission proposed is a reasonable approach, and I support it because the current system is not working. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Kevin O'Reilly on Committee Motion 274-19(2): Tabled Document 582-19(2): Report on the 2021 Review of Members' Compensation and Benefits - Northwest Territories - Members with Dependent Children, Defeated
In the Legislative Assembly on October 18th, 2022. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 274-19(2): Tabled Document 582-19(2): Report on the 2021 Review of Members' Compensation and Benefits - Northwest Territories - Members with Dependent Children, Defeated
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 18th, 2022
Page 4668
See context to find out what was said next.