Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Testart, to the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My colleague, the honourable Member from Yellowknife Centre, put this very well, that this is a long-standing issue that many governments face in making their financial reports and statements legible to the public. It is an example of how we can do something that seems insignificant in the grand scheme of something compared to an open-government policy or other transparency initiatives. Simply creating a readable document for the public about how we budget, how we account, it goes a long way to opening up understanding of our processes and our books. I know that, even for MLAs or candidates who are running for office, you know, having a good sense of how our money is spent and how it is collected and how that information is collected, that helps our democratic process, as well. So this really cuts across many different areas of transparency, and I think it is high time we started doing this and also producing citizen's budgets and documents like that. So it is not just the public accounts that are getting this treatment, but it is all of our fiscal process, including the operations budget and capital budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. To the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends that the Department of Finance, after consultation with the Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Northwest Territories, reconsider amending the nonconsolidated schedule of bad debt write-offs, forgiveness, and student loan remissions to protect the privacy of individuals by removing the names of those who have received student loan remissions and reporting only the amounts of those remissions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is an issue that I have raised in the two public accounts reviews that I have participated in. There is a big difference between bad debt as listed in here and student loan remissions, and my reading of the Financial Administration Act, and I am not a lawyer, when I read it, there is no requirement for disclosure of individual names to be listed in this part of the public accounts, and I think it is an invasion of these individuals' privacy. We want to encourage our students to come back here and work here and live here, and one way we do this is through these student loan remissions. This kind of over-the-top disclosure I think is not required, is not needed, and is an invasion of these individuals' privacy, so I am very happy to see this in here. Look, this takes up pages and pages in the public accounts. There is no need for those names to be identified. A single aggregate amount is all that is really required, and I look forward to our government implementing this particular recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Sebert, to the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a government that is committed to openness and transparency, and, in my view, this goes exactly the opposite way. Why do these names have to be concealed from the public? These people are receiving benefits which they deserve -- which they deserve -- I have no problem with that, but this goes completely against the idea of openness and transparency. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sebert. To the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a response to this report within 120 days. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. There is a motion on the floor, and the motion is in order. To the motion.