Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clearly, we're here at this particular moment because some of the -- the round of questions I had for the Minister and the staff, and essentially what boils down to it is trying to get the essence of what the $12 million is, what it does. I mean, I know what money does, but what -- how it's targeted in the sense of what it does. I mean, there were a few other questions -- I'm trying to wrap it up as simply as possible for the Member of Frame Lake so he appreciates that. I also sought the advice or thought of the Minister in the sense of the impacts of the delay. I mean, it sounds like a lot of moving parts are -- a lot of moving things, parts, yes, are happening here. But in the sense of that, time is always of the essence, but there is plenty of time on the clock. We may have, I think, approximately 16 days of session. You don't leave these things for the last minute. That wasn't the intention in any form. So we have at least - at least - 14 days of session days, including a week-break in between. So we have a lot of days over a particular line item to get further clarity. With respect to clarity on -- for one Member or all Members, I would say, similarly as the Member for Range Lake had just pointed out, it's $12 million. It deserves a little extra scrutiny. We're not talking about $20, a discretionary thousand dollars or, you know, a hundred thousand. It's $12 million. Yeah, it's bigger than some community budgets, whole budgets for the year. So it's a lot of money. And, you know, I'm worried and think the specific targeted money needs some more transparency. And that's all I'm asking for, and that's all the intent of the motion is. In the end, I think the Member for Range Lake's right. If you don't like it, vote against it. You like it, vote for it. Yeah, but I think it's a little more than that. It's about coming to the clarity of decisions and the process of compromise. The process here of compromises, let's just wait on this one line item through this process, and we'll get the clarity, and then those still against it can vote against it, and those who can vote for it will. So, ultimately, Mr. Chairman, the issue is not to stop this, but it's rather to have good reflection as to why we're passing $12 million. Now, in -- as a side note, which is very relevant, Mr. Chairman, my experience with $12 million personally is obviously zero, but on paper, quite often, and what I found and when it comes to budgeting and budget talks is the smaller the dollar amount, the more energy we put into something. So in other words, we talk about it, tear it apart, demand better accountability, etcetera. But the larger the number is, the less transparency and discussion we get. We just go, Well, we need 12 million bucks. You can't argue with that. But if someone said we needed $10,000 for an outhouse repair job, we'd be talking about that all day. And it's funny, the mechanism of dialogue of democracy. I've seen that on roads. I've seen that on fence repairs, mobile vehicles, etcetera, etcetera. The smaller the dollar amount, the longer we weigh in on something. So that's all it's asking for, Mr. Chairman, is just a little transparency to help Members fully understand so when the public comes to us, we want to feel our public dollars are going in a robust but an efficient way. And by all means, may be right. Maybe the number is too small. Maybe the number is too high. I don't know. But, I mean, we want to help give cost of living breaks as much as we can to our constituents and all Northerners. I mean, it matters because this is the day-to-day stuff that upsets people. These are the phone calls we get from people because they have difficulties getting by. So just saying, oh, we just approved $12 million, and it's only done a little, they'd ask me why we didn't do a little more. So, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to use all the time on my clock for no necessary reason, but I felt it was important to elaborate a little further because I think the Member for Frame Lake had some questions. I wanted him to understand the cornerstones of the issues. And it's not against the 12. I just feel transparency on the detail needs to be there. And maybe the last thing is the Minister was correct. I want to say that she didn't come prepared with that level of detail. Yeah, most of the time this probably is not necessary. And perhaps the Member for Range Lake was right. We should have given them a better head's up as well so -- on this type of level. So sometimes that's how it works. You get emotional and stirred on the floor on an issue. So that will be all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Robert Hawkins on Committee Motion 71-20(1): Deferral Motion - Tabled Document 279-20(1): Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025 - Deferral of Directorate, Department of Finance
In the Legislative Assembly on February 7th, 2025. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 71-20(1): Deferral Motion - Tabled Document 279-20(1): Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025 - Deferral of Directorate, Department of Finance
First Reading Of Bills
February 7th, 2025
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