Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee is appreciative of the fact that these two documents are placed into committee of the whole for further consideration.

I would like to indicate a couple of concerns with respect to the process that we want to use. First of all, we would like to discuss some of the comments with respect to the Government Leader's statement and, with that, be able to go over the report entitled "Strength at Two Levels" for further consideration if the committee so agrees.

Mr. Chairman, there have been a few concerns on the Government Leader's statement, and I should indicate to committee Members and MLAs that now is the time to bring forth your concerns with respect to the Minister's statement.

Please proceed.

Very quickly, Mr. Chairman, I will advise the government of some of the concerns. The main concern was the fact that there have been priorities set for restructuring government, both moving the POL, to the NWT Power Corporation and consolidating the departments of Health and Social Services, as well as the remaining programs under the Department of Government Services being under the Department of Public Works.

We are not saying as a committee that we disagree with what the government is doing, and we do not want to get involved in the details of government decision-making, but we have concerns with respect to the process of implementation. What we want to know is, where are we allowed to express our views on the "Strength at Two Levels" report to indicate to the government what is acceptable and what is not acceptable with respect to the recommendations to be implemented?

Also, we would like to indicate to the government that with these implementations we would like to see some type of strategy formulated. We recognize the Government Leader's intention is to try to allow us to be involved in the process of recommending forms of action; however, it appears that the opportunity is not there and is not available for the Members. They are somewhat concerned about it.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to leave the opportunity for Members to be able to discuss their concerns with respect to the Minister's statement, "Living Within Our Means," and their concerns with respect to "Strength at Two Levels." Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any further general comments? Madam Government Leader, do you wish to respond?

No, Mr. Chairman. I am prepared to listen to what the concerns are and what the issues are. I just want to say that we have taken the report and certain structural actions to try to put together an implementation team. The implementation team will be structured in some way so that MLAs can be involved on an ongoing basis in what is happening in implementing the "Strength at Two Levels" report.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

I am not sure how committee of the whole works, but my overriding concern is to make sure there is a structure. I do not mean to make it cumbersome for you, but I just want to ensure that the benefits of the implementation of the report do trickle down to the appropriate places whether it is small communities, et cetera. For example, could there be provision in the implementation group for three MLAs to work this thing through or could you have regional representation?

It does not have to get cumbersome. It could be three or four of us on this side. You must be meeting on a regular basis and developing some types of strategies. It seems to me that we are not going to solve all the problems of this report today, and I am certainly not about to try to address it. It has to be addressed over a period of time. If it is going to be addressed over a period of time and have maximum benefit for northern people, then I think there has to be some provision for ongoing input by this side of the House.

Thank you. Mr. Arvaluk.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no really big objection to the statement made by the Leader of the government this morning, nor do I have any strong objections to the document, "Strength at Two Levels." I read it through and made a couple of thousand notes. The only general concern I have is that not too long ago the government had a project called "Devolution of the Government." When that happened, the regional groups such as Keewatin Regional Council or divisional boards of education became rather active and strong in the deliberation of that devolution program. We have been seeing in the last few years that the government is again taking back the power from the regional organizations to Yellowknife.

In "Strength at Two Levels," would the communities or community governments in this document, if they are active, become rather strong in the deliberation of their local programs such as housing, social services and health? When things like that become complicated, the leaders become more sophisticated and really work hard at that. I wonder if, in the near future when the government finds out that the communities are becoming too strong, would they not want to take that back again to Yellowknife like they did to the regional organizations? That is the only concern I have. If we implement this in any way, I do not want to turn around and say to my constituents that we have to take it back because they are getting too strong.

Mr. Todd.

Perhaps I can approach it in a different way. Today I am not about to suggest to you that we can solve all the problems and say this is good and this is bad within the Beatty report. But there are some obvious things that bounce out at us, that say, "Hey, there is something wrong with this report." How do we find the mechanism where we can contribute to what we feel are some weaknesses within the report?

Let me give you an obvious example, to me anyway, from a regional perspective, bearing in mind there is a need to cut costs, as Mr. Pollard said, and a need to bring departments together and we are all philosophically and very much in agreement. On page 142 of the Appendices it talks about a simple example of health services, and it talks about moving people from the Keewatin to Yellowknife. Maybe this is more cost effective, but I will tell you now, if you went into the Keewatin and tried to sell that, it simply would not sell. There needs to be a mechanism for debate or for input to determine if this is a wise or unwise move.

From a political perspective, if I supported this at this particular juncture, I would, in blunt terms, be -- well it would not be acceptable, let us put it that way. I am just using it as an example because it is just one that jumps out at me. The concern would be, in the Keewatin, that they just want to fill the Yellowknife hospital because it is not full enough. However, I thought we were moving toward the division of the Territories. We have historically dealt with Winnipeg. Have they done a cost analysis of this? Is this the right thing to do? We have linkages; maybe we require our own; maybe we should go to Iqaluit.

I know all these questions are going to be asked on this particular subject, and Mr. Chairman, I am only using it to illustrate a point. There are a number of situations in this report, besides this health issue, that I need to know what mechanism we are going to use, if we are allowed, to negotiate and to ensure that the recommendations and the changes that come about will be, in the eyes of me as an ordinary MLA or this side of the House, in the best interests of the constituents of the North.

Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, the discussion on how we move ahead on community transfers can be brought up in this Legislative Assembly at any time; and as we are moving along, some areas in the report that evidently cannot be implemented will be falling off very quickly. We are setting up a community transfer committee which will be under the direction of Minister Kakfwi, and a process is going to be set up so that everyone knows here the general principles of how we are going to get these discussions going. So we can try to work in a mechanism where the MLAs would be involved.

This has not been written down, but what I had thought was that, particularly when a community came forward and wanted to take over a program or a menu of responsibilities, the MLA that is representing that community should be involved on a continuing basis on that takeover. That falls out right away, and we have not put out our communication package so we do not really know how many people are interested, but we know that some communities will not be interested at all, and some might have more interest than the other.

But certainly in terms of the MLAs, I did anticipate that if there was something happening within their constituency that they would be involved as well as, for example, the mayor. We can try to build up a more immediate input from MLAs on the issues of community transfers. So I will try to work that. We have not finished the mechanism of how we are going to do it. We have just announced it, and we have done some work on it. There is a committee to deal with that, and we certainly can work in more involvement if that is desired. We are open to suggestions on how you feel you want to track that on a day-to-day basis. I realize maybe some of the concerns might be that during the time that we are not meeting as a Legislative Assembly, where questions can be brought forward, that there will be things happening that may not allow you to be involved. So we can set up a mechanism to do that with more involvement, and we are certainly open to suggestions on that.

Thank you. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you. Government Leader.

Responsibility Given Only If Community Wants It

In terms of the aboriginal self-government, when the report was done it was not asked to look at political issues or new political structures such as those that might be contemplated in division or aboriginal self-government. The report was simply asked to look at how great a responsibility for government programs might be placed in the hands of people at the community level, and the community transfer is a means of achieving that.

Now if people do not wish to move ahead, if your group does not wish to move ahead, that is a decision of your communities. We are not here to place before you or shove some responsibilities at a community level if you do not wish to take it. If the communities are offered and they wish not to take part, that is entirely up to them. They may be exploring other things that are far more important or far-reaching and do not wish to participate at this time; that is up to the communities that you represent. I want to make that very clear, that every region may not be the same or that every community may not be the same. We are trying to address the simple issue of the complaints and the concerns that we get from community people in terms of their desires to run their own lives at the community level.

I just want to make sure that you know, if you are placed in the position here before the Legislative Assembly of taking the stand that the people you represent do not wish to take part in this community transfer and wish to wait until some other negotiations go on at a higher level or with the federal government, that is entirely up to the communities you represent. We do not wish to impose upon communities or groups who want to take a political stand in terms of determining a longer-term objective that they do have; however, in many communities, people are saying that they want to take as much of a responsibility as possible. We realize as a government that not everybody, not every community or area, is ready to proceed, and we are willing and quite open to accommodate whether people wish to move faster or slower or not at all.

Thank you. Further general comments? Member for Kitikmeot.

Progress Must Be Slower In The Kitikmeot

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To this report, "Strength at Two Levels". The region that I represent, the Kitikmeot, is new to this sort of ball game. We are what you would call different from the Dene people because just recently we moved from isolation to a community called Coppermine, and Bernard Harbour went dead; Reid Island went dead; so everyone moved to Coppermine. I would like to see this document go at a slower pace for us people who are new to the idea of self-government, because if we rush with this program, half the people will not understand what self-government is. How can we tackle issues -- with a birthrate higher than the rest of Canada -- if we are unable to sustain a livelihood for our younger people, our children who are growing up? And most important, if we are unable to deliver good services such as education at the post secondary level, matriculated students who will be well-schooled in the field of professionalism such as doctors, lawyers, town planners -- for me, this is the only solution, to realize self-government will become a reality sooner or later. I would like to see it come when I am still alive. I would like this government to take its time on it and not rush through it because we are looking at all kinds of situations, all kinds of dilemmas.

Canada is confused about the killing of Meech Lake, division, the Polar Commission and who knows what other commissions there will be. It is going to be very complicated to understand which way we are going. But I realize we have to work on this sort of government. I think it is a very good, positive way of bringing our people to govern their own concerns, to make their own decisions at the local level and not be too far removed nor to be dependent on bureaucrat positions to make our decisions which will affect us in the end. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Madam Government Leader.

What we are doing now is setting up a process so that people know how they can work toward more control and take over more of the programs and responsibility. It is a process that is going to be set up. Whether people take advantage of that process can take as long as they want. So if a community is not ready or feels that they are not ready, it may be that some communities will want to take over, for example, the drug and alcohol program or some programs that are more relevant. Every community will be different.

Right now, there are many communities asking for more involvement, for example, in the correction of juveniles. These things are very important to people. We are just setting up a mechanism so that when a community comes forward and says they wish to take over these programs, then we know and are able to accommodate the negotiations for the takeover.

Again, I want to say we are not suggesting to move any quicker than the communities are willing to move.

Thank you. Member for Keewatin.

Involvement Of MLAs

While I acknowledge the concerns expressed by my colleague, Mr. Bernhardt, and I am sympathetic about it, I am not as much of a philosopher. I am more of a practitioner. My concern is regarding the process of who makes the decision regarding the phasing in of these responsibilities. To me, there is a contradiction going on in the sense of this report at the regional level. On the one hand, we are saying we need more involvement by MLAs. It says so right here in the report. On the other hand, this report clearly says we need to change the role of regional directors. God help us. They want to give the regional directors more responsibility and, believe it or not, have them report to cabinet.

That reinforces with me that too many decisions are going to be made at the centre, and not enough are going to be made where the problems occur. Surely, on the one hand we want MLAs to be more involved in the decision-making -- and it has been said on a number of occasions by the people in this House -- but on the other hand they say this option is strongly recommended. Are we not, in fact, going back to the way it was 20 years ago by saying the regional directors are going to be the instrument in the region and are going to report directly to cabinet? Where do we fit in?

Government Leader.

Presently, the regional directors report to cabinet. I do not know that every little item in this report has to be taken as the word of the Bible. As we move along, there are items in there that may not be applicable because, at the time, we did not design or tell the study group to deal with all of the departmental responsibilities under this government. There are things that we may flesh out. Some things may not be appropriate. We are not saying at this time that 100 per cent of this report is going to be acceptable or workable. We are setting up the instruments to move toward making sure that the programs and responsibilities in the stages of turnover are met in a process. Thank you.

Further comments. Member for Keewatin.

However, Mr. Chairman, it does say -- and I think this has a significant impact on the changes that come out of it -- that the regional directors should perform a strong role in relation to the new priorities attached to community transfers. It says they should be key members of the GNWT's implementation group for community transfers. We are not suggesting we approve it en masse, but this does have a significant impact in terms of the concerns that my friend here has, and the concerns that I have with respect to the phasing and priorities at the regional level. That is all I am trying to say. You know the old saying, "to be forewarned is to be forearmed." I am really saying that I do not see this as a small matter. I see this as a fundamental instrument of delivery of the recommendations and priorities that you as a cabinet are going to establish. Again, this particular individual reports directly to cabinet with no line responsibilities to the departments, as I understand it. You may want to change that. I do think it is important, and I will address the issue later on in the coming weeks. Thank you.

Thank you. Government Leader.

Role Of Regional Director

In terms of the regional director, I would like to make one comment. I would expect that when we set the process in gear, and when the process is set up, the regional director will have to be on the team as well. Otherwise, if there are a number of community transfers in any given region, I would expect the regional director to be supportive of that because the communities are indicating that they want to move ahead with these community transfers. How this will work out, I do not know. In addition to that, if they are reporting through the structure of a committee to make sure the community transfers happen -- because this is what happened before. We did not have a process where you can accommodate the community transfers. As a result, there were many different directions, and the people who wanted to move for more takeover felt that what the region was saying was something different from the priorities set by this government.

Thank you. Supplementary, Member for Keewatin.

I do not wish to plug it to death today, but all I am asking is, where within the transfer process do the MLA and municipal leader fit in?

Thank you. Madam Government Leader.

I have not sat down and looked at the total process and structure, but we know and recognize that MLAs and municipal leaders have to be involved, so we will come back as soon as we have completed the process structure and have it presented. If we are not in session, it will be sent out to all the Members as soon as it is completed.

Member for Deh Cho.

Report Does Not Address Communities' Aspirations

Mr. Chairman, I have not had an opportunity to read the report itself and I do not know whether this is the Beatty report, and I have not read that either. I have just been skimming through the document itself and Members here, as well as the Executive, have been responding basically, I would presume, to the report itself.

Again I am saying that the aspirations of the communities have not really been addressed. I see this report as another report generally geared toward the prime body concept, and we are still the administrative arms of this government.

I had an opportunity to listen to the Western Constitutional Commission in some of the communities and some of the presentations, and what I keep hearing is perhaps at odds with what this report is all about. I believe some of the communities are saying that if we have the creation of Nunavut and a new territory, then this is what the Western Arctic could be facing with regard to the delivery of government in the Western Arctic. Never mind the national agenda. I am afraid that if we only accept this as a document to offer to the communities, I would think that most of the communities will not consider it.

You might also have a different view from the communities where they have signed an agreement in principle for land claims. Those are the communities that do have a different agenda based on extinguishment of rights. So again we have a situation where perhaps this document would be acceptable to them. But if you look at the Deh Cho region, which I am not referring to with regard to the Deh Cho constituency -- the region itself is composed of 10 communities -- they have gone through a lot of pressures since this government came to be. They also had pressures before government started moving up here. In fact, 1992 would be 500 years since we have been exercising and responding to pressures that still exist. Another pressure is a whole new document, again to create an existing government, or perhaps just giving it the self-government definition. It certainly sounds good, but I do not think it reflects the aspirations of the communities.

In the communities now, I think what we are hearing is that communities are saying, "We do have an inherent right. We did have rights before, 500 years ago; and we have been taking care of ourselves, perhaps not in the ways that the western culture wants us to, but we survived for over 30,000 years. I think if you give us the opportunity, we could prove to you that we probably could survive for another 30,000 years without having that kind of an institution again being imposed on the communities."

I realize what Nellie is saying, that this is only an offer to the communities and the communities do not have to accept it, or they can accept it at the pace they want to; but Nellie has not said anything else other than that. This is the only offer that she is giving the communities, no other opportunities that may exist.

Member for Deh Cho, we would prefer if you would use the last name instead of the first name. Thank you. Proceed.

My apologies to the Government Leader, Mr. Chairman, but my feeling is that we do have a document here that the communities will be responding to, and I would presume that the response would not be as good if these documents were the government's position on self-government, and we have two other documents here on the aboriginal definition of self-government. Perhaps then we might be able to put the two documents together to come up with one common goal, but I do not see it happening yet. I just wanted to mention that.

I recognize that there is an urgent need to start giving more responsibility to the communities, but also at the same time we should be able to suggest to the communities what they see as a more effective or efficient delivery of core programs to the communities.

Reducing Number Of Civil Servants

I also wanted to mention, and I do not know whether it is mentioned in the Government Leader's statement, but I have not seen too much mention about what happens to the people that are civil servants in the Northwest Territories right now, and whether or not there are any plans to reduce the civil service and divert more responsibilities through attrition where the positions are freed up and transferred to the regions or to the communities. I would say that even if, Mr. Chairman, we cut the civil servants today or tomorrow, life will still go on in the communities. The local education authorities will still operate under the existing moneys that they have, and social services will still operate. It is not as if because we cut the civil service the communities are going to be helpless. In fact, I think it would motivate the communities more to start taking on more responsibilities.

The point, Mr. Chairman, is that because we have a large civil service population -- I think it is 163 per thousand in the Northwest Territories -- and the Yukon is the second highest where I think it is 112 per thousand, but that is still high. I would think that if we were to seriously look at decentralizing to the communities or to the regions the sooner it has to be there in the reduction of the people that in the communities are called "caretakers" -- I guess in Yellowknife you call them civil servants. I think it is time that we look seriously at what we are trying to implement, not only developing positions on it but actually doing something to reduce the dependency on the institutions that have been thrived on by western culture for a very long time.

Excuse me, Member for Deh Cho, you have had your 10 minutes. Do Members agree to let him continue?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Mr. Gargan

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know where my community is coming from, I know where the regions are coming from. I also recognize where the government is coming from too. I would hope that somewhere in the next four years we will be able to say that we must reduce the public service and give all the responsibilities to the communities. I believe that is the only way we could see more production on the way you spend your money, as opposed to the way it is now. We do have a lot of program moneys, a lot of capital moneys that go in supporting the public service. The more positions or money you free up, the more programs you will be able to offer the communities. I believe as it devolves you just have a more healthy environment.

The North is the only place in Canada that that opportunity exists. Most of the southern institutions do not have that opportunity. The aboriginal people still deal directly with Ottawa. Over here we do have a large native population that has to depend a lot on the public service for their programs. But that does not mean that if tomorrow the public service dissolved that the aboriginal people are going to be left out in the cold. The federal government is still there to take those responsibilities back if they need to be addressed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, it just appears that the honourable Member in his last part was really supporting the report on "Strength at Two Levels," and really that is what we are trying to address. Until such time as we start dealing with the community in a respectable format, where they are not going to get into a process and find out half way there that it falls apart -- now the area is defined to put a process where, when communities come forward as they negotiate the programs and responsibilities they want, they get the resources to deal with that. It could be put in a block form or it could be in a manner that allows them to set some of their priorities and change things around.

Federal Guidelines Must Be Observed

Certainly we cannot offer that in all things because we are somewhat tied with some other federal guidelines that we have to deal with. But when you are talking with the community, as you go along, all those things will be fleshed out. In the end they might say they want all these things, but there is a bigger question we want asked politically and constitutionally. But at least at that point in time they are able to address and look at the programs and services they feel they can deliver to their own people in that community.

I believe that if we do not start, we will never answer that question. We will never be in a position to do anything. It will all be just a discussion, and you will still have the communities complaining saying, "We do not want the regional level. What do you have there at a regional board? What are they doing? They go to a meeting and they come home and do not even tell us what is going on at the meetings."

If you want to build a strong Nunavut government, Denendeh government, you have to start dealing with people at the community level so they become familiar. They are going to make mistakes. We all know that. But the more familiar they are with dealing with their own affairs in a practical sense, not in a theoretical sense, in a practical day-to-day sense -- because in order to live for another 30,000 years, these programs will still be around and somebody is still going to have to work at them -- the more we put at the community level, the more people will have an opportunity to reflect themselves in how those programs are delivered.

That is the opportunity we are offering. If people want to wait until a more theoretical constitutional issue is settled, that is up to them. But in the meantime, these are just practical, everyday programs that people have right now, that are generally managed at a board level or at a central headquarters level. I believe as we go along, the resources that are needed and required at a community level have to be negotiated into their responsibility. We are not asking people to take over responsibilities without the resources to do the job. Yes, there is going to be an effect on the overall government delivery system. But at the same time, if you do not start building at the community level, you are going to still be sitting around here 10 years later trying to explain to our communities what these programs are all about that we are sitting around here talking about. So that is an invitation to take part at the community level and to build that strength at that community base.

Thank you. Member for Deh Cho.

Mr. Chairman, this is only one option that the government has offered and the only option. All I am suggesting is that we should be open to other options besides this because we do have the national agenda in which aboriginal organizations are working toward self-government. We cannot lose sight of that.

We have to devolve a lot more issues to the regional level. I agree with the Government Leader on that. I am suggesting that to free up more resources you have to free up more person years. Even if you cut the civil servants in half now, this government saves at least $300,000. You could complete the highway to Yellowknife: you could have a better airport. You need $30 million to complete all the housing inventories of the people of the North.

I am suggesting that there are ways of making that work now if the government is serious about devolving resources and responsibilities to the communities. But it also might mean a reduction in the civil servants. Thank you.

Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, all we can give is what the territorial government has. We cannot deliver a broader constitutional answer to a question. All we are doing is dealing with the programs and services and the jurisdiction that is here now and giving an offer to the communities.

Thank you. Member for Kivallivik.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have read a large portion of this document. I have not completed reading it but I do like what I have read. I do hope that we will be able to work at implementing at least portions of this document. I believe that a good majority of the people here, the MLAs here, like what they read in this document and when people of the Northwest Territories see this, or have gone through this document, they will also like the idea.

My immediate concern is that the communities which would like to enjoy the abilities they will be given under this document, will be given the time to go through the document to see whether they even approve of the document. At this point, the cabinet has been formed in a very similar structure as recommended by this document and that has been done on the assumption that the majority of the MLAs here will agree with the report. The other concern that I have is the pace at which these programs will be implemented has to be considered, and have to believe that the Government Leader has indicated that it will be at a pace which will be acceptable to a good majority.

Mr. Chairman, the Government Leader has also indicated that portions will be implemented and others will not be implemented. I understand there will be a committee formed on the implementation of these programs. I would like to know, and maybe it does not have to be answered now, but I would like to know how our involvement in this implementation will impact -- how our participation in the implementation of this will be addressed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. General comments. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

"Strength At Two Levels" Represents Government Platform

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This report, "Strength at Two Levels," is really the platform of the government. If you recall four years ago when the last government was formed and Mr. Patterson took everybody off into the bush somewhere, and they came up with the "Direction for the 1990s," nine or 10 principles, if you like, that would guide the government for the next four years. I will not bore people with going through that list of that particular platform. What we have here is something similar, in a sense, that was set up for the last government and inherited by this government, and it represents the platform, if you like, of where this government really wants to go. This is the priority of the government because it is the first bit of business that we are dealing with here. It represents the government plan during the term of this Assembly.

Having said that, what makes this a little bit different is in keeping with our commitment to consensus government, the Government Leader has said this really is where the government wants to go and before we even talk about it and discuss it, we have had a statement from the Minister indicating the strength of the commitment of our government to the report by indicating what things are going to happen.

I am going to be very brief today, Mr. Chairman. One of the strengths of consensus, of course, is that you are obviously involved with an awful lot of people and people have a feeling that they have a sense of ownership of whatever it is they are involved in, because when you make something and there are all kinds of hands on the tools that create it, then you think, "Boy I made that. I helped to polish that up and it looks good and I am proud of it." The problem when you do that, and that is the weakness of it, is that it can take forever. I remember years ago there was -- I am talking about my own field now in education, many years ago, everybody was committed to the idea of discovery learning. Kids were going to really have a sense of owning their knowledge because some boring person was not going to tell them anything. They were going to find out for themselves. All these young people were going to discover everything, every mechanical principle, every principle of mathematics. They would discover it, but we found out after awhile if you go about things in that fashion, you are going to still be there when you are 90. You still do not know your multiplication tables because you have not found it; you have not discovered it yet. That is one of the weaknesses, if you like, of taking that approach that you are going to discover everything for yourself.

It is similar with consensus. The weakness of it is that you have to look at all the ways in people in which people want to contribute to making something work so they have this feeling that they own this particular program or this particular process. The Minister has realized this, obviously, by setting a fast pace, saying, "Look, we have to get on with it and if we allow consensus to drag this down. it is not going to go anywhere." It is the same with everything we have ever tried to do. Suddenly, with everybody being involved and everybody having his two bits worth in, slowly the momentum gets dragged down and gets dragged down.

I have seen Mr. Kakfwi, for example, demonstrate his impatience about trying to get things done and he has mentioned it in this House. I will not quote him today, but he has mentioned several times the frustration, because he is a person who wants to get things done.

If you are going to involve everybody in trying to get things done, then I will guarantee that although you want to start off at this fast pace to get an agenda accomplished within a certain time frame, then it will only be done if things are absolutely clear, how far we can go, what the deadlines are, what is reasonable. I can tell you now, Mr. Chairman, that it is not simply just a matter of saying, "This is what communities want; let us just do it." Just one simple thing and I will leave it at this. I know that in developing legislation, some of those bits of legislation have taken years and years and years just to get a simple piece of legislation done, because of the process that you have to go through so that everybody feels comfortable about that legislation, that really does what we want that legislation to do. We have committed ourselves in this chamber to an even greater and more open process of involvement in the creation of legislation. We have said that we are not going to just simply get a piece of legislation and say that is it; we are going to just sit down here and pass it. What we have said, is that there is going to be a process in which the public is going to be involved in legislation. If all you are going to do in this follow up to this report, is say, "Well we will have a contribution agreement and we will just make a deal if you like and you have it for this week or for next week. We will not worry about legislation; we will just ignore all that. We will just make a few deals here and there to get things going." Then that really does not give you the degree of stability and certainty and a sense of development that we have always felt ourselves committed to in this chamber.

So Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to tell the government, I suppose, is that in order to do all these things -- because this is a massive undertaking, a complete restructuring of things really -- we cannot really make it work unless it is hand in glove with some kind of legislative program. You simply cannot just sit down and make deals and agreements; that is just not good enough.

Everything we have done over the past 20 years, I suppose, has been on the basis of recognizing that this is a Legislative Assembly. What we do basically is to work as legislators; we make laws for the people that we represent. So everything that goes on in the Territories is done on the basis of law, not on deals, and if we are going to make this work we have to be sure that we have some kind of legislative framework so that we can, in fact, make this happen. It has been my experience to date that laws, if they are going to be workable and successful, cannot just be made at the snap of a finger or at the drop of a hat. It involves an awful lot of painstaking hard work, very, very time consuming, and from what I have been able to gather so far, the things that we have heard in just a few days indicate that we would like things to be done with speed so that momentum will not be lost; but at the same time we are told that we are going to operate even more by consensus by involving more and more people, and when you do that you are automatically going to slow things down at a pace that people can manage and feel comfortable with.

I could go on at length, but I appreciate the Ministers' long experience in government, their understanding of it, the nature of the problem that has to be overcome, but it is the weakness of consensus that things we really want to do, very often will take a long, long time, and you cannot do it overnight; it is not in the nature of our system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, it has been a number of years that the whole discussion on who makes decisions, who controls or how can programs better apply and reflect people, has been going on. This has been an ongoing discussion. The consultative process has been going on from as far back as when I first came here in 1979, and before that. The concern of us being with a government system that is very difficult to manoeuvre through to reach a goal, has been discussed. That is one of the reasons that we commissioned this report, to consolidate the thinking of people at the community level, in this Legislative Assembly, of some of the cabinet Ministers, deputy ministers who were involved, people at all regions who were involved. We made sure that the teams that were on here reflected the various regions and communities and people involved in the process.

This document is a consolidation of the thinking of a great number of people who were consulted and talked to, and all I am trying to say is that it appears to me, from my reflection, that it is a very clear document. It may not cover everything that we wished it to cover, but it gives us a very clear direction on which is the best way to go in dealing with peoples' concerns and issues that were brought up over the many, many years.

Community self-government was one that a number of communities were involved with, but it was so difficult to make the decisions that will allow them to take over the programs they wanted to take over, they just gave up because they said that the government was too complex -- who is making the decision; why cannot we take this over; how can we do it this way? There was no framework for them to achieve their goals. Certainly there has been a great deal of discussion while these people went and discussed at various levels what it is that people feel the most concern about regarding this government; why we are not doing what they want us to do; why they feel that we are a bad government; why they feel that we are not being able to deliver the types of things they want at a pace they want.

I see this as us keeping up with the communities. It is not for us to sit here and say, "Holy crow, we are giving something to the communities." The communities are fed up with waiting; they are very tired of being told, "Go to this department, go to that department; it is over here where the decision should be made; it is that office you should go to." They are saying, "Why can we not run the programs at the community level the way we want them? This is our idea; this is what we want to do." That is really just addressing that.

I am trying to put together a program of implementation where people, when they want to do something, can get it done. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cournoyea. Mr. Lewis, you want to answer that response.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to ask the Government Leader, does she recognize that this report, in fact, takes us all the way back to the very beginning when this government was set up, and the very first department that was set up by this government, which was given a priority when it was set up, was the Department of Local Government. The decision was made that that would be a priority in setting up this government, right from the floor up, and since then we have lost control completely because consensus government has taken us all over the place. At the beginning we had this focus. Did she realize that we are back to where we started more than 20 years ago?

Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Chairman, that was a fundamental concern right from the beginning. We did form community governments and we went so far. We gave them water, sewage, garbage and roads. We gave them that responsibility. For some reason, I do not know why, we stopped. We should have continued and maybe we would be where the communities want to be now. The intent was good, it was there; what they have now is up and running. The community has an ownership to those programs on how they are conducted. They handle the funding and within certain

means they are setting a priority. What they want now is to extend those responsibilities. I do not know why it quit, I do not know why it came to a stop when it did, because I remember back at one time when people wanted to go on and it looked like the central agency or someone said, "No, that is too much, you cannot have a relationship with the aboriginal people in terms of community self-government."

I am sure some Members here were involved in developing community government a long time ago, but we did stop. The same question is there by the communities, "We want to take over more of those responsibilities."

Mr. Todd.

I would caution you and say, "But let us remind ourselves of the pace at which the communities want to take over these responsibilities." It is important to remind ourselves of that. One of the concerns I have of a more practical discussion would be that given that we are looking at this Beatty report, and some shrinking of dollars as Mr. Pollard has said, there is a requirement to look at ways of cutting and at some ways of saving money, it may be -- and I do not want to complicate the issue even more -- that we have to take a hard look as we phase in and implement this report of the kinds of policies on the ways and means in which we spend money.

If there is less money out there, then maybe we have to find ways and means to make sure there is more money of the less money spent in the North. Are you with me? It may be that, in my opinion, when we take a look at the phasing in and the implementation of this, parallel with that we should be taking a hard look at the kind of spending policies, if you want, and by that I mean things like Buy North only, things like negotiated contracts with DPW as has been done by the Minister of Public Works to my understanding, those kinds of things, I think, have to go hand in hand, if you like, with the phasing in of some of this stuff. Do you understand what I am trying to say? If we have less money, then we had better make sure the less money we have the more of it sticks in the North because we will only have compounded an already difficult situation. I hope that makes sense.

Thank you. Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, in setting up the implementation of this type of discussion, or the implementation of these consolidations or of community government, it is expected that at that time, these very points will come up.

Any further comments? Member for Thebacha.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask the Government Leader with respect to some of the comments in her statement. She indicated, on the second page, consolidating the Department of Health and the Department of Social Services into one department in order to improve co-ordination and efficiency in responding to the health and social services needs of northern residents. Since they are organizing themselves to set priorities for the restructuring of those departments, how is this going to be done? What is going to be eliminated through the restructuring process?

Thank you. Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, this will be determined through the implementation committee on how that is going regarding the people who are involved with the two departments. I think there are some very obvious things that are very clear such as duplication, overlapping in certain programs, the decision-making in moving back and forth between different levels of support for individuals. But this will be done through the implementation process.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Mr. Chairman, is that the same with respect to all the programs dealing with education, employment and culture into one department, in addition for POL to be under the NWT Power Corporation, and Government Services taking the Department of Public Works? Will all this proposed restructuring go to the implementation committee for further review?

Thank you. Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, the whole program of consolidation does go through an implementation process or an implementation committee to implement.

Thank you. Are there any further general comments? Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Government Leader advise us as to who is on the implementation committee? Do they have a time frame as to when they can give this House the strategy they want to look at implementing in respect of some of the recommendations?

Thank you. Government Leader.

To the degree that we formalized the committees and to the degree that we have identified people, yes, I will have to bring it back. In terms of the strategy, I know that the strategy is being worked out. But I can let the honourable Member know exactly where those are. I cannot tell right today.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if the Government Leader is able to advise us who is on the implementation committee? What is the implementation consisting of?

Thank you. Government Leader.

I will give her what I have. I do not have it here because we presently do not have everything ironed out. It is being worked on a day-to-day basis. I will deliver to the Member what I have up to today at 5:00 o'clock because I am not quite sure what has been set and what has yet to be worked on.

Thank you. The Minister will provide you with that information later on. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make comments with respect to the "Strength at Two Levels" report. In reviewing the document, Mr. Chairman, I found, I believe, some errors in the document. I will point out some of those areas as we go through the document in more detail. However, I do want to let the government know that the document basically phased the idea of strengthening the two levels at the community level in respect of a more co-operative effort toward dealing with government on program deliveries and allowing the community, if they so choose, to take over control of many of the responsibilities that can be delivered in a community.

The concept is good in theory as I indicated in one of our committee meetings. However, I am somewhat concerned about the fact that many of the communities in the North may not want it and they may not be ready for it. They may not be ready for the responsibility and the task at hand. I stated and eluded to the fact that government has just come into the North some 30 years ago. Prior to our generation, the aboriginal people in the North were totally self-sufficient. I believe government has invaded many of the responsibilities of an individual over the time frame. People have taken away a lot of the responsibilities thus resulting in less self-sufficiency by individuals.

I am somewhat concerned that even when you think of the small responsibility of child care there is concern or an expectation by the public that government should provide child care. I recognize that, as well as the need for assistance by single parents, by all means. But at the same time, I fully respect individuals and I know that I, as a mother, would like to feel that it is my total responsibility to determine what type of child care I want for my children, or if I want any assistance from government with respect to child care. I do not like to feel that child care is there and we should use it. It should be used by people who need it. The opportunity should be made available for people in need of it.

When you look at how government has dealt with individuals, aboriginal people in particular, they have come in over the years giving everything to the communities. They have given them an enhanced lifestyle. They have given them many things in life that make it easier for them to live. As they keep giving, the expectations become greater. Now they find themselves in a financial position where they have a difficult time recognizing that they are going to keep on being able to give the community the level of service that they are currently able to deliver. I know the "Strength at Two Levels" report says that they are giving more responsibility to the communities. I find that if you give more responsibility to the communities, you are no doubt going to put a lot more pressure on the community itself. I am somewhat concerned that communities may not be ready, but I would like to know if the government does decide that -- I know it is not going to be in the term of this government to be able to devolve as much responsibility as they want or as much as the report states. I take this report as somewhat like a blueprint or a plan of action that government can look at maybe over the next 10 years, not something that can be done right away. I feel that it is very critical to let the public know that this report and the recommendations in this report, even though some of them can be implemented, the time frame for the recommendations to be implemented is critical, to be able to formulate it into a strategy and phase it throughout the North at an appropriate timetable that is acceptable, not only to this House and to the government, but to the North in itself and particularly, to some of the communities that may not want to take over many of these responsibilities.

The other concern that I have in respect to this report is the fact that it goes from the community level of government to the level of -- to the level of central government and it leaves out, basically, the regional government concept. I would like to know from the Government Leader, what the intention of the government is with respect to how they are going to deal with regional councils and regional governments even though they are in our municipal acts, and what their intention of support is for regional councils even though it has not been addressed in this report. Some regional councils have been very strong in giving some type of direction towards government and looking after the communities that they represent. Although I do not believe all regional councils are as strong as others because of the fact that there have been wrong signals sent out to many regional councils.

I would like to basically know from the Government Leader, if they are going to continue to support regional councils or are they just going to allow regional councils to be a forum that gives opportunity for different communities at one point in time to gather together to discuss their concerns of commonalities? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, we were over at the Baffin Regional Council where there were some 35 people gathered together from the very different agencies that were around and they asked me about whether we were going to give more funding, and also asked the question whether we would transfer the programs for that region to the regional council, and I said no. I believe that if the communities have a desire once they are running their programs to give more strength to a common body, they will, but that should come from within those communities to endorse that body or that group or it could be just a meeting area so they can determine that level. At this point in time, I think they will continue as they are but I believe the communities should have a greater say and probably have the resources if they want to put toward a regional council of some sort, but right at this point in time, I believe that this process should allow the communities to say what they want in a regional body. I do not think we should impose another body on them or strengthen it until we decide where the communities are going.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you. I just basically wanted to know what type of support this government intends to give regional councils in light of the report that we have received, "Strength at Two Levels?"

Thank you. Government Leader.

We do not intend to give them any more support than we presently are giving them, and I believe as we go along in the report, dealing with boards and agencies and the multitude of committees, that we will be co-operatively working with the committee on agencies, boards and commissions.

Thank you. Any further general comments or questions? Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess further comments in respect to the report itself. When I looked over the report -- I do not know if it is appropriate now or if we are just on general comments, that we will get into the actual document of the report to question some of the recommendations. I know we are on general comments overall, but I do not know when the committee decides to actually go into the report. I did want to ensure from the Government Leader on the report itself, like I had stated, where committees or communities are not basically ready, will they be considered giving a certain time frame, but also in conjunction with the government, be able to agree on a phase-in period of taking over these responsibilities in accordance to the recommendations of the report? Thank you.

Yes, we are on general comments and some questions have been asked. I think this committee will allow us to go through the recommendations later on. I think that will be more appropriate. Government Leader.

I guess, in answer to the

Member's question, yes.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I will reserve my further comments or questions until we actually get into the document. I cannot stress the importance of how the expectations of the public level are, and how unready some communities may be in wanting to take over these responsibilities and also stress the fact that this report may just want to be used as a blueprint for government, and also stress to the government that they should not expect to implement the recommendations in their term of government, because I think some of these recommendations will take longer than four years to actually implement. Thank you.

Thank you. General comments. Member for Baffin Central.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question. It says on page 182 that the community agrees to provide services that comply with the eligibility criteria, standards, and other requirements as set out in territorial and federal legislation and regulations. If one of my communities were to be ready to take over social services, does this mean that they negotiate with the territorial government and if the negotiations go through that the community would have to adhere to the legislation and regulations from federal and territorial governments?

Thank you. Government Leader.

Necessity Of Adhering To Federal Guidelines

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, basically they would have to adhere to about the same regulations we do because it is a relationship between the federal and territorial government. There are some aspects in a federal legislated program and we receive funding for that program. We have to adhere to the guidelines. As much as possible we want to give the communities flexibility to move around their priorities, but at this point in time, we cannot move outside of some of the federal guidelines that are set.

Basically, within the territorial legislation, what we have done is incorporated some of that legislation because we have to, because we would not get the money unless we do, until such time as the territorial, Northwest Territories or Nunavut or Denendeh have the resources to raise their own revenues. It is difficult when you are receiving money from any other agency, as we do as a territorial government, not to abide totally by those guidelines because that is the basis that they put those certain programs out.

As much as we would like to say we are totally independent as the Northwest Territories government, we are not. We have to adhere to many of the guidelines that are set to receive the funding.

Thank you. General comments. The honourable Member for Baffin Central.

The reason why I asked that, for example, is that one of my communities wanted to negotiate the delivery of social services programs. For a number of years there have been questions put forward to the Legislative Assembly to find out if some of the social service funding could be reallocated to make-shift employment in the community before a recipient can be eligible to receive assistance. That kind of cost could not be negotiated.

Thank you. Madam Government Leader.

I think that even the previous Minister responsible for Social Services, as well as the present one, was trying to grapple with being more flexible, to see whether the territorial government or local government uses the money in the best way possible. We would like to see some of those changes as well. We have a standing invitation to meet with Mr. Mulroney in terms of our formula funding and some of the other issues. I would like to say at that time that we would like more flexibility, because I know the communities would want that as much as we do.

I think it gives us no end of concern when we would like to operate programs that reflect the requirements or the needs and aspirations of the people. We are tied to a framework that is determined by the federal funding policy.

I believe this is a good opportunity to address those issues and see what flexibility there can be. If there is no flexibility, the concern would be the same sitting around here as it would be for a community. So I cannot say positively, "Yes, we will get around all the hurdles we have in delivering all the social programs." We are suffering from it right here at the territorial level as much as the communities would. Hopefully, we can work and identify some of those key issues as we go along.

Thank you. Further general comments? The honourable Member for Nahendeh.

Community Government Structure A Matter Of Concern

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a few comments on the document, "Strength at Two Levels." As you all know, my name is in the report. I was involved from February until June in putting together the operation, organization and management portion of this report. I would just like to say that I did not see the final report until everybody else received it. I was not familiar with the final version to clear up our situation.

My understanding of this report was to make recommendations to the government as a blueprint for this new government on how to approach government programs and services into the communities. The intent of this document was to take it to the doorstep of the communities. The community government structure had a lot of concern about it during my involvement with the report because as a Dene coming from a community in the western part of the Northwest Territories -- we have difficulty in some communities where there are different structures. For example, in Fort Simpson there is a village council, a band council and a Metis local, so it is very difficult to figure out what programs and services go with which structure. The Constitutional Commission that is going around is there to address and try to clear up this problem. It coincides with this report. The intent of this document was not to describe what community self-government should look like, but rather to make recommendations on what should go into the communities rather than describing what the community should look like. I would like to leave it at this. Mahsi.

Thank you. Any further general comments? The honourable Member for Inuvik.

Lack Of Trained Northerners To Assume Responsible Positions

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Generally, I support the report, "Strength at Two Levels." Many aspects, recommendations and research that went into it provide a very stern review of how things are done. There are a couple of things I want to make note of, and I will be addressing these as we get into detail.

One is regarding the public service and the recommendation for developing a home-grown public service as well as the need to refocus or revitalize the affirmative action program. The report goes into some detail about the lack of Northerners and the lack of availability of trained northern people to assume responsible positions in this government. Yet, in another section, the report talks about the education of northern people. There is a recommendation to reduce some of the services, grants and benefits to northern people. This does not make sense to me. On one hand you are suggesting increasing the training of our people, and on the other hand you are recommending reducing what there is in terms of how this training is done. This is one area we have to look at. Maybe there is a middle ground.

Another area I have a concern about, and will be raising at the appropriate time, is health benefits, especially to non-status and Metis people. There are some recommendations in the report that they be seriously considered. I assume it means the requests that have been made to the previous government, and I believe it is on the agenda of this government. I read that to mean that those requests not be approved. I hope that they be considered and that we try not to establish different classes of aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories.

These are a couple of comments I wanted to make at this stage. Thank you.

Thank you. (Translation) The honourable Member for Baffin South.

(Translation) I have not yet read this report. Today is the first time I was able to read the report. These are just my general comments, and later on, as I read it more deeply, I will have further comments.

I also have concerns about what the government is going to be able to do in the communities. Regarding "Strength at Two Levels," as MLAs we represent the communities. If we are not clear on how our government is going and how the programs are going, I also have this concern. We will have to be very careful how we are going to represent our communities and their concerns. I would also like to read "Strength at Two Levels," and there is no doubt that I will be involved as we progress though this report.

I just wanted to make general comments at this time, and I will pay attention and read the report further. I understand what has been discussed today, as we discussed the report, but I have not read it thoroughly. Therefore, I just have general comments at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife Frame Lake.

Thank you. Madam Government Leader.

Mr. Chairman, I think that in trying to reach the objectives and the general thrust of the "Strength at Two Levels" report, we have been very much concerned in terms of the problems that would come around with having some people feeling that their jobs will just not be here. We have had several meetings with deputy ministers in terms of putting forth our framework so that they could pass down to their various responsibilities what we are going to do. I think it has to be said that people get treated fairly and with respect, and we have tried to make sure that we send that message down the lines.

I believe that we have quite a vacancy rate as well, so the impact may not be as drastic as some people fear out there. Certainly the turnover rate in a lot of our government institutions is very high, and it has always concerned me that even at a community or regional level sometimes when the community is dealing with, "Where are we going to put our many educated young people; where are they going to go; how are they going to be involved; how are they going to get those jobs?" the impediment is sometimes when people say that it is impossible because these jobs are filled. To a great extent the turnover in those jobs is immense, and what we should be doing instead, while we are going to the community transfer, we should be dealing in the schools as well, telling the schools at a very early stage, "You have four nurses here. You need about 10 financial people in this community. You have so many RCMP officers. You have all this, and the turnover is there."

I do not think that the people who are moving toward taking over those job functions should have a fear that there is going to be somebody in the way and somebody is going to be there forever, because they are not. I think that in the foreseeable future, because of the rollover, there is room for a lot of people; and we are not threatening people about their jobs. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Keewatin Central.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is correct that we must ensure that the civil service feels it is being treated fairly, but the balancing argument to that is to ensure that the people out there in the communities are equally being treated fairly, and in my opinion at this juncture they simply are not.

Thank you. Are there any further general comments? If not, what does the committee wish to

do now? Ministers' Statement 2-12(1) and Tabled Document 3-12(1), is this matter concluded now? Agreed?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Thank you. What does the committee wish to do now? Give me some direction. Member for Inuvik.

By reporting progress on this today, does that mean that we are not going into the details of the report itself? I am not clear here.

Does this committee agree that this discussion has concluded? This item will still be on the discussion paper if we do not conclude discussion today. The honourable Member for Inuvik.

If I heard Members correctly, they want to conclude this. I am not in agreement because it is my understanding that we will be getting into more detail on some of the substance of the report.