Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is something we have often overlooked in previous governments. The people delivering the service in the communities are critical to the success or failure of the programs and services that are developed, whether it is developed through our own system or in partnership with other groups. We know through our experience in the 13^th Assembly that we have lost a lot of confidence, and our civil servants are quite worried. As the fiscal forecast has been painted, there is a lot of nervousness out there. What steps are we going to take as a government?

In order to rebuild some confidence, we are going to have to look at doing a little bit of investment. Right now, there is a concern that government programs and departments are doing all their own work, and missing out on working together as a whole government. I think this is where the role of a public service commission could be important to our civil servants, and that should be at arm's length from the government. They could raise their concerns directly with that group, and the results could come back to us. We would have to seriously look at these concerns and it would not be piece-meal.

I think we have to seriously look at that, and again, that falls in with priorities we set as a government. I would like to put that idea out there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The Chair will now recognize Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The people who work for the government in the departments across the North are the people we expect to carry out the direction we set out.

It is true in some quarters that morale is not as high as it should be. The government has gone through some traumatic changes. The previous government went through a conflict of interest inquiry where there were allegations of wrongdoing because of issues like the Lahm Ridge Tower. These affect the people who work for us.

Anything that brings an aura that something is not right, or not above board, that there is hesitancy, that there is no consistency and decisiveness, creates morale problems.

I think it is important to keep a very strong line of communication open with our workers through the union negotiations, but also, as Premier and Ministers, we need to make a commitment that we will respect the senior managers who work for us, the deputy ministers. I have always told my staff I do not want them to agree with me because it is the easy way out. Every one of them is expected to present their views and to disagree with me when they think I am wrong, or when they think I am making decisions based on incomplete information.

That has been part of the secret of my success, if I have had any. My staff are always told to be strong, clear and independent in their thinking. At the end, we will come to a decision we all support.

It is important to have staff that can stand up to you, and are not afraid to say, “I disagree with you and here is why”. It is important they have the confidence to do that without fear of losing their jobs. To have staff that can say, “Yes, I know this is your relative and you would like to do something for them, but it is wrong.” Staff that can say that without feeling there will be some retribution later down the road.

That is what we need. Once we get that type of message out to all employees, once we say we need this job done, how much can you realistically accomplish? We need to have their input on things like that. I think that would greatly improve morale. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Mr. Dent, any further questions? What is the pleasure of the committee? We are approaching 12 o'clock. As we had agreed, this would be a good time to take a break for lunch. We can reconvene at 1:30 p.m. When we reconvene, we will hear Mr. Ootes, Mr. Antoine, Mr. Steen, Mr. Delorey, and Mr. Krutko.

We will reconvene at 1:30 p.m.

--Break

Welcome back. The item on the agenda is the question period for the Premier candidates. When we took our break I had on my list Mr. Ootes, Mr. Antoine, Mr. Steen, Mr. Delorey and Mr. Krutko. Mr. Ootes is going to delay his question. Next on the list will be Mr. Antoine, the Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. The question is directed to both candidates. We will begin this round with Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are some immediate things that would need to be done. First of all, there is a transition to be made from the existing Cabinet to the newly elected Cabinet. A transition team would need to be put in place to establish a plan for transition.

It would require input from the Ministers. There will be staffing positions that need to be in place. There has been some thought given to those already. I am not at liberty to discuss them, because at this moment it is still a hypothetical situation.

I just want to assure Members that I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. In my mind there is a way to proceed from here on, if I am elected. I would be very happy to share that with the Ministers, and include as much of the Caucus as possible as we proceed.

Town hall meetings are a great idea. I think meeting with only certain individuals, certain leaders, is in many ways not fair. We need to give equal opportunity to everyone. Every community has people that no one listens to, people who never speak up, people who need to be heard. Sometimes it is the elders, sometimes it is the women, sometimes it is the youth. Town hall meetings will be one forum that will be required.

I think it is also important to have meetings on a regular basis with every MLA in this Legislature, so no one is favoured, no one is forgotten, and no one is ignored. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. The Chair recognizes Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The way I see it, we definitely need to continue working as a group to set priorities, as I have stated a number of times earlier. There is a need for Caucus to get back together, the need for the formation of committees, as well as Ministers being set up with new portfolios, or taking on different roles.

That area is short term. In the long term, one of the things we need to do as a Legislative Assembly is to go out to the different areas and regions and get a taste of what it is like in the smaller communities. What I found in the 13^th Assembly was the majority of meetings which took place took place in Yellowknife and the larger regional centres.

I think to get a proper picture and perspective of the impacts of our decision making we need to go to some of the smaller places and see how they get by day to day. That is an important issue that we need to look at. It might cost a little more but I think it will be valuable to our decision making process. Part of going to the smaller communities is the people

will actually get to see their government again. They would not just see it on the TV or hear it on the radio; they might be able to take part in the actual meetings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Next on my list I have the Member for Nunakput, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is directed to both candidates. Mr. Chair, we as a government in the past have been working towards devolution. This included devolution of all services and programs from the federal government that were actually administered by the federal government in the past.

One of the shortfalls seems to be that we do not receive sufficient funding to carry forth responsibilities. The total administrative cost is far more than what we receive through our funding program from the federal government, in particular, our formula funding agreement. This includes our agreement with Health Canada as well.

Therefore, I wonder if the two candidates would consider the following options that this government would return the responsibilities of health and social services that are applicable to aboriginal people back to the federal government, in other words, the uninsured health benefits.

Also, the federal government, to a large degree, is responsible for education of aboriginal people. They have been asking and putting this responsibility on this government without the appropriate funds. Would it be an option that this government would consider turning educational responsibilities as they apply to aboriginal people back to the federal government?

My last question concerns forest fire suppression. Again, we are taking on responsibilities that we cannot afford. They are not forecastable, and unforeseeable, yet we must bear these costs. However, we do not have the option of benefiting from these forest products. A lot of these forests are now on aboriginal lands, yet we are responsible for carrying out the cost of fighting these forest fires.

Considering that the federal government has not looked favourably at transferring to us the benefits of non-renewable resources, would the candidate consider returning these responsibilities back to the federal government?

Thank you Mr. Steen, for your three questions. The first speaker to respond will be Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are all very important issues, as those are core programs for the Northwest Territories. In previous governments when the government was flush with money, there were a lot of programs that were created.

We have to sit down and review those priorities. What areas do we want to see as continuing priorities, and what areas do we feel as an Assembly and as residents of the Northwest Territories we will have to forego?

We know, for example, that with non-insured health benefits we are going to hit the cap that the federal government has set in place. What will our approach be? I think, as I have said a number of times today, as we set priorities we are going to have to seriously consider the programs and services that we deliver on behalf of our residents, and ask ourselves what can we afford to deliver and still maintain the quality of life in the Northwest Territories?

Does it require turning back the education, culture and employment, or health and social services, or parts of the programs within that? If we are going to work in partnership with the aboriginal governments those are some of the issues we are going to have to deal with. We will have to come up with an arrangement. We know that aboriginal governments have been pushing for their own control of delivery of those programs in their communities, and the feds have started, for quite some time now, delivering programs in conjunction with the aboriginal governments in their communities. To a certain degree, it is already happening.

We know there were some groups after the health care dollars. The one thing we have to seriously look at is in communities where there is a large mixture of people, how does that impact the delivery of the system?

For example, I look at Inuvik where you have the Gwich'in, Inuvialuit, the non-aboriginal, as being, even sectors of the population. How do you make it work?

We know that by further developing things we also increase the area of administration costs. Fourteen percent of every dollar spent is spent on administration. How far can we go with that? Those are some of the issues we have to deal with. That is why a partnership is going to have to merge out of this. If we continue down the path we are currently on where one group does one thing, another does another thing; the ever-shrinking dollars will continue to shrink. We have to look at just about every community and look at the non-government organizations all trying to deal with certain issues in the community. How do we fix that? Those are some of the difficult decisions we are going to be faced with as a 14^th Assembly. All of us around here are going to take part in that discussion, in setting the priorities. What can we continue to do? What can we not do? It has been forced upon us, but we are going to have to deal with that issue.

We know that it is a forecast that 18 months out we are going to hit the ceiling. After that there are no more choices. It is just going to be very negative. So we have to take the opportunity to make some changes early on. That is going to require some partnership working with the aboriginal governments in communities because a lot of them are delivering some of the programs. Is it going to be the case where they actually take over delivery of health care in their community or region? That is a possibility. We are going to have to see the implication on the ability to maintain standards for all residents in the Northwest Territories. So that is not an easy one to deal with.

Maybe the aboriginal governments out there are ready to take over forest fire suppression on their own. How do we take that out of the base? That is something we have to work on because one year expenditures are less than $9 million and another year it is $29 million. There is no set transfer, so that is going to be a difficult process and it will involve the three governments. Again, that shows the importance of the intergovernmental process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. You answered all three questions. Now the Chair recognizes Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in my speech earlier today, I said to the people of the North and to Members of the Legislature, that I want to work for a better life for everyone. It means I have to be optimistic that people want us to continue as a government to provide service to them while we are developing options for aboriginal governments to step in where people mandate them to. To take over programs and services. I have to be optimistic that this government will find a way to overcome the difficulties that we face.

It is my view the Premier is not alone in facing the problem of a deficit, the lack of revenue sharing, or the lack of funding to this government. It is this Assembly's problem. It is a problem for Cabinet. I believe together we can meet and plan on how to overcome these obstacles. There is no solution at the moment. There is no agreement on what the priorities are. There is no agreement on what the direction should be to deal with these issues and these problems but the commitment is to work at it and provide some leadership, some experience, some conviction and commitment to resolve these issues. That is really all that can be said. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Next on my list I have the Member for Hay River North, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again I would like to congratulate you on your successful bid for Speaker of the House. As a candidate for the riding of Hay River North, I sometimes had a hard time defending the belief that if I was elected, I would be part of a government that would represent all the people of the Northwest Territories, especially when it comes to obtaining benefits from social programs.

For example, how do you tell someone working for Kingland Ford or Igloo Building Supplies making in the neighbourhood of $30,000 or less that they are not entitled to medical travel? Or someone that is aboriginal or that is working for a government department making $60,000 or more is entitled to full expenses for medical travel, including taxis, meals, accommodations and even car rentals?

Or how do you tell a 16 year old student that has lived in the Northwest Territories all their life they are not entitled to the same educational benefits as their next door neighbour simply because of who they are or their ethnic background, or that they are not just part of the system? I would like to hear from both candidates how they would justify questions like that? I would also like to know if they would be prepared to readdress or revisit the definition of who is and who is not a Northerner when it comes to obtaining government benefits? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The first response will come from Mr. Kakfwi.

Mr. Chair, I have never enjoyed the opportunity to serve as the Minister for Health and Social Services, but I am sure there are opportunities to make changes to the way in which we provide health and social services to our people, whether they are treaty, Metis or just citizens of Canada, citizens of the Northwest Territories.

As I said earlier, there is a report made to the Minister. There was a forum set up to look at health and social services. As new Members we have not had an opportunity to look at it. I think there was a lot of input from our communities, our front- line workers, to make suggestions on how we can make things better in health and social services. We have never had an opportunity to discuss that. I have had input from my constituency who organized the Sahtu communities to provide input into this forum. The report is there. We just need to take time as Members of the Legislature, new Cabinet and Premier to sit together to look at it and decide what can be done.

Historically, there has been a disparity about the way aboriginal people have been treated. Metis people are treated differently from treaty people. Inuit have been treated different. No one denies that. I do know the federal government has a policy on treaty people that they say was implemented not because of treaty or constitutional obligations but because they are benevolent because aboriginal people were dying from disease and poverty. So they, as a benevolent government, instituted health care coverage for treaty people in the south. That is the official federal position. The position of First Nations is we have given up lands and resources in this place that is now called Canada, for certain assurances and provisions. One of them is that our health will always be covered. That is the official position of First Nations people across this country.

People know that aboriginal people were not allowed to vote until very recently. Everybody else was allowed to. On the other hand, you have this health policy. We were not allowed to have jobs or to hold certain occupations until 1957. I raise this not to say whatever disparity there is, is justified, but to say we are trying to correct these things. People are not asking for handouts but people are saying we should be accorded recognition for our rights.

People are trying to correct that, but I do not think we are there yet. I agree, if it was possible we should provide the same health care to all treaty people as we do to everyone else. It is also true some companies and the government itself provides better health coverage than to ordinary citizens. If you are working you get better coverage. If you work for big companies you get really big coverage. So there are discrepancies. If there are ways to make sure that everybody is treated as equitably as possible, we have to look at it. I agree there should not be discrimination and the type of disparities that appear to exist. It is not right. It does not provide for good accord among citizens and it should be looked at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Mr. Roland. The Chair recognizes Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quality of programming is a difficult issue when we look at our makeup of the Northwest Territories. I can just look at my own family to see the impact. My children, growing up in the Northwest Territories, if they were to marry out of an aboriginal group, their children would probably not be covered based on the genealogy of ancestry. Yet they were born here and they have an aboriginal parent. So it is a tough question to deal with.

I think the question arises from the difference in the health care that is provided to Canadians. Here in the Northwest Territories we have the non-insured health benefits as well for Indian and Inuit according to the federal agreement. In that agreement, you see the extras that are available for dentures, eye glasses, medical travel and some of the drugs. As I said earlier, we are going to hit that ceiling here and we are going to run into some other problems overall. It is something we are going to have to wrestle with when it comes to how do we deal with the federal government on these issues. They are important. They have been created, part of past agreements between the federal government and aboriginal governments and when we took over the programming it was attached.

Now again, I know there are a lot of aboriginal governments that are working at trying to take over that end of the programming. It is something that is part of the intergovernmental process. They are intertwined in the Northwest Territories. There are going to be some differences remaining. I think there are ways where we can bring things together.

How do we bring together programming that was set up through this government in conjunction with the federal government and the aboriginal groups? For example, with student financial assistance, the Dene are treated tax free in that situation. The Metis and the Inuvialuit are not. As well, the non-aboriginal portion of our population fall outside another degree. There was some ongoing work that was being done with the groups in the Northwest Territories to try to bring this to a little more of a setting where we can all look each other a little closer in the eye. That is not going to be without negotiation.

Some areas are still a way out of our hands when it comes to the federal government and the belief and constitutional rights of those that have come before and are considered First Nations in our land. They have made agreements with the federal government and we have accepted the transfers and we are implementing them on their behalf. As I said earlier, some of those groups are wanting to take over their own delivery because they feel this government has not done it properly. On both sides of the coin we are going to get bit. I think if we form the right partnerships and look at this in a new way where everybody has a say at the table, at the end of the day we can come out with a compromise that will lead to a better system overall for the Northwest Territories.

I know my long term goal, I do not want to see a school in Inuvik for the Gwich'in, another one for the Metis, yet another one for the Inuvialuit, and one for non-aboriginal people. We could never afford that. So all parties have to work together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Delorey, do you have any other questions? Next on the list is Mr. Krutko, the Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question has to do with the whole area of accountability and the concept the public has of government and trust we put in ourselves when we come here to represent our constituents. I am seeing the controversy about patronage appointments, contracts being given to former Ministers and Members of our executive.

One of the areas that was considered during the different inquiries was the question about whistle blowing legislation that protects the bureaucrats and people within the government. It basically says they will not be axed if they came forth with something they felt was not right or was not being dealt with above board.

I would like to ask both candidates what will you do to build trust between the people and government, to ensure this government is more accountable to the people we are here to serve and to not go back to the way of the old boys club?