The Minister of Finance will speak a little on that, but I just want to assure the Member that I have been trying to say that all week. I have repeated and repeated that intention. This is why we tried to set up a process so that everyone knows what the process is going to be so that when we begin doing the work on it, they know who is doing what and what we are going to do about it.

Mr. Pollard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that we step back and look at where this document came from. Mr. Lewis can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe -- and you yourself, sir -- were on

the standing committee on finance when the recommendation was made to the government that they do a base review. During the fourth year of the government's term, the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Ballantyne, came to us and said we are going to have to review government. He asked us to participate in the process. I think we refused by saying it is the government's job to get the document done. We told him how we feel about it, and I think Mr. Lewis is on record as reserving the right to criticize the document. I see that he is exercising that right during this session, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, when the document arrived, it arrived from one government to another government. It arrived in my office one day. There was agreement in cabinet to release it immediately, without reading it. There was agreement in cabinet that we should be open and up front. We delivered it to the House the next day. When we delivered it to this House at the last session, Mr. Chairman, we did not know any more about what was in there than the Members who eventually got the document. But it soon became apparent to us as we read through the document and went over it with our staff, that not all the things in the document suited what we as a government or this Legislative Assembly would want to do. I think the number of usable items in here may be as low as 70 per cent. We admit that as much as 30 per cent -- maybe more -- is chaff.

We could have reviewed the document and pulled out the good parts, and written our own story about what we wanted to do. We could have then delivered it to the House and said this is what the government wants to do. But we did not do that. We released the entire thing and said it is the information we have before us. We said this is a document we would like to put into the House and that some of the things are attractive to us. We have said it before, and we will say it again.

I want to make some specific references to Mr. Todd's comments with regard to the transfer of responsibilities and the financial aspect of that. This government has experienced for some time, Mr. Chairman -- and you are well aware of it --the fact that Ottawa transfers responsibilities to us and does not ultimately give us enough money to operate the program. I do not see where we as a government would be doing that to our own communities. I think that when Mr. Todd refers to the capital budget as being locked into this quest for efficiency that we have in government when he says we should be building parks or houses, it is always the government's responsibility to look after the people it has responsibility for. But Mr. Todd also said he wants people to get jobs and he wants an economy. Governments have to balance the spending that they do with an area of requirement by people of the Northwest Territories. At the same time, we have to be asking ourselves how the economy can be stimulated to create some jobs. We are constantly wrestling with how we should spend money, where we should spend money, and trying to balance that between the social needs of the people of the Northwest Territories and a future which we hope will have a stronger economy. We worked it back and forth and said we should do certain things because, ultimately, they will create some wealth and it is an investment for jobs down the road. It is difficult. This House has to decide when those budgets pass through the House, whether or not we have placed priorities in the right areas.

Duplication In Government Departments

There is a lot of duplication in government. That occurs for a number of reasons, Mr. Chairman. The fact that responsibilities have come from Ottawa at different times over the last 20 years or more, and when they come you lump them into another department or you just create a new department. I think there is a recognition, not only in the Northwest Territories but across Canada, that there are enough reasons to suspect duplication in departments that it makes sense to examine putting the departments together. I do not think any of us on this side have any idea of the kinds of things we would have to go through to put the Departments of Health and Social Services together. These are some of the things that we would like to explore. We may get into it and find that it might not work. But, I think there is a gut feeling that it would make sense because it deals with many of the same things people in the Northwest Territories are complaining about or have need of.

Certainly, Mr. Todd is complaining about the finances. Certainly, we are being driven like we have never been driven before by the fact that we do not have enough money. We are looking at ways of doing things that, as Mr. Lewis says, cost us less and yet we can deliver an effective program.

Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate to this committee that the ultimate decision on whether we go ahead with these things rests on the floor of this House. The ultimate decision for proceeding -- if there are legislative changes, it will have to go to the standing committee on legislation; if there are changes to boards and agencies, it has to go to Mr. Koe's committee; if there are financial ramifications to the legislation or to the boards and agencies, it has to go to the standing committee on finance. We have said from day one that any changes we are going to make structurally to this government, where it affects any one of these three committees, will be delivered to that committee for either ratification or consultation from the committee to the floor of this House. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. Mr. Todd.

First of all, I would like to thank the Minister of Finance for clarifying where I get my right to voice my opinion in a yes or no. I would, however, like to add that while we say the transfer from the federal government to the Government of the Northwest Territories has, in some cases, not been adequate and that we would do exactly the same, we have done the same in the past. We have transferred responsibility to municipalities. In some cases, municipalities have not had the level of financing or increase in financing that has been necessary over the last eight or nine years. We have transferred drug and alcohol responsibility to some communities, and the level of financing has not been in place. No matter how well intentioned we all are -- and I believe we are all well intentioned in this exercise -- we must ensure that we are not passing along the problems. We must pass along the solutions. Thank you.

Mr. Pollard.

Legislative Assembly Responsible For NWT People

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate Mr. Todd's comments, and I may be getting into Mr. Kakfwi's area, and if I am, I apologize. When we get into community transfer, I think we said at the very beginning: 1) What are we prepared to transfer? 2) How are we prepared to transfer it? 3) Will those communities be ready to receive that transfer? 4) If they are not, how will we bring them up to speed? 5) What is the point of transferring responsibility to a community if they do not have the funds to operate the program?

I realize that Mr. Todd is saying that it has been done in the past, but I think when we started out with this exercise in this book, those five principles are what we first looked at. There is no point in spinning our wheels and giving something to somebody if they cannot operate it, or they cannot afford it and we eventually get it back. Ultimately, the people of the Northwest Territories, no matter who is delivering the program to them, are the responsibility of this Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. We are on page 13. Do you want to comment on that, Mr. Lewis?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to refer to page 13 again, but in light of the comments that have been made by other Members on the whole intention of this report --because on page 13 we are still talking about the report, the terms of reference, the organization, question of efficiency and so on -- I would like to point out, not to correct Mr. Pollard but, in fact, to confirm what he said, that when the standing committee on finance recommended to the Minister of Finance that we undertake a base review, then it was my understanding at that time that it would be a base review; that we would look at levels of service and whether we are, in fact, funding things properly.

Years ago, before we had a formula funding agreement with the federal government, there used to be an annual visit. We used to go down to Ottawa with our caps in our hands, and we were always using the words "base review" because the kinds of resources that we have in order to handle the problems are really not adequate. It is not a good base, it needs to be adjusted, and so on. When we went into the formula funding agreement, there were all kinds of different formulas put in there to really help you to adjust your base as you go along.

The purpose I understood, as Mr. Pollard's deputy on that standing committee on finance, was that we ourselves, at least the government, was, going to look at its base. In other words, what is the base of our operation? What is the level of service that we are providing? Do we have the proper resources to provide it? That is what we were doing.

When we looked at the terms of reference that the government gave the project team, it was somewhat different from a base review. That would be just one element of the total project. I have not gone in detail through the appendices, but this document is really not a base review in the way that we normally use the term "base review."

Criticism Regarding Timing Of Transfer

The concern that I have in looking at this issue of efficiency on page 13 is this, Mr. Chairman: I have heard the criticism many, many times, and it has already been reiterated by Mr. Todd here, that there is always going to be a sense of uncertainty and a sense that the government is choosing the wrong time to be doing these things. Why did this proposal not come forward years ago when there was all kinds of money around, things were great, and people seemed to have all kinds of money to do interesting projects? But now times are tough, really tough. They are so tough, in fact, that we want you to handle it. We give it to you now because we do not have the kind of money that we need to run government. I have heard that criticism already. We have a wonderful example. When things get tough, then suddenly we say, "Well, you guys run it." Or we screw something -- I should not use the word screw, I suppose, Mr. Chairman, but we mess something up or we have not done a very good job of it, so we say, "Okay, we will get somebody else to do it; they can look after it."

You are going to find that this argument here about efficiency, about doing more with less -- we are going to ask somebody else to do that now. We have not been able to do it, and we have been in existence for 20-odd years, but now we are telling people in communities, who have enough struggles, "You guys do more with less. We have done more with more but you guys are going to have to do more with less." That is going to be the challenge that this government is going to have to face if it is going to have any credibility in this transfer process. That is the first point I want to make.

Redesign Of Programs By Communities

The second point, which follows from this, Mr. Chairperson, is that we are assuming that when we are looking at effectiveness and efficiency we are talking about programs that we may have a statutory responsibility for, or we may be running programs which we want to delegate or pass on to another order of government, but it could very well be that the communities will say, "Those are your programs; they never worked for you; how do you think they are going to work for us? We never designed them. You did." In this transfer agreement or the proposal to do things in a different way, to reshape things, you may find that communities are going to say, "Those are your programs; there are all kinds of rules and regulations and everything else, because you set them up to do them the way you want to do them. Is there going to be any place in here, not just to have us measure against your system or your effectiveness or your ideas of efficiency -- can we have our own programs? Is there any way at all, any flexibility, so we can design the things that matter most to us? Not just give us a menu. 'You can have fish or beef, but you cannot have anything else; that is all we are going to offer you.'"

Would it be possible not to just be caught in this whole business of delegating something to somebody else because that is what we would like people to do, but to look at the whole business of having people look at government and say, "This is the way we see things. What you do is not exactly what we ever had in mind, but we would like to do something a bit different." Instead of taking over this and taking over that, could we not -- let me think of an example. Suppose people in some small place said, "Look, this system of sending people away to corrections is not working; that is hopeless for us. We want to handle all that stuff ourselves. We will set up a bush camp, and people can go there, and that is the way we want to handle that problem. You may not have that in your system on any kind of a developed basis, but we would like to do something like that." If we are going to reshape government, if you like, at the local level, how are we going to be simply caught in the web of talking about effectiveness or efficiency, with the way we do things, the way you are going to have to do things according to the same criteria that we do, but with fewer funds? Is that kind of option going to be open to people? I have heard some of my colleagues say that that is likely what communities are going to want to have. They are going to want to have not just simply delegated programs but some room, if you like, to develop some initiatives of their own, which currently they cannot.

Mr. Pollard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lewis is correct. This is not a base review, but it was what the government of the day chose to do. I understand Mr. Lewis when he says it should have been done when governments had a lot of money. I would just draw your attention to page five, which says, "Our government is facing lower revenue growth, and increasing expenditure pressures. We must be prepared to make some hard decisions in the near future - decisions about what we expect from government...," and it goes on, and I will let you read it yourself. That was the budget address, February 1991, when Mr. Ballantyne was experiencing the pressure of running out of money. Maybe that is what triggered this review.

We accept that some communities may not want to take on responsibilities, Mr. Chairman. We also accept the fact that communities may want to say to Mr. Kakfwi, "Well, I am sorry, but I do not want it under your rules." I think Mr. Kakfwi is prepared to be flexible and look at that with the communities.

I would point out, Mr. Chairman, when we are talking about the new capital process where we are going to be consulting more with MLAs and people in communities, there will be some discretion in that capital process for communities to say, "Well, we are going to prioritize items that we want you to do," which I think puts a little more of the decision-making process on the communities. There may even be some instances in these transfers where there may be block funding transfers and communities do what they want. Maybe in housing -- I do not know what Mr. Morin has planned, but I think we would be open to that. And again, I am moving into Mr. Patterson's area but I also know that Mr. Patterson, on the community justice system, is prepared to sit down with communities and talk about the very thing that Mr. Lewis has just raised, which is not sending people off to a corrections facility, which costs us a whole lot of money, and I am not sure how much good it does. So I think in that one, communities would be able to participate in the justice system at their level, take care of people who have run afoul of the system, and it might save Mr. Whitford, who is the present Minister, a lot of money in the corrections system.

So those things and all of those things are open for negotiation and discussion. I think I would have to let you ask Mr. Kakfwi for more specifics in how he intends to go about the negotiations for the transfer, but just in general terms, Mr. Chairman, I would say that all of those things are on the table.

Thank you. Before we go any further on this, I would like to take a 15 minute break.

---SHORT RECESS

The meeting will come to order. Thank you for your promptness in arriving in the House so that we may proceed quickly. On the list, Mr. Pudlat, and for page 13 of the Beatty report.

(Translation) On page 13 in the centre, in the English translation it is not properly exact; the wording is not the exact same. For instance, it says that social services recipients, the people that are receiving social services, have to have a grade nine level of education, and since the report has been given to us, we now know that. As elders we used to know quite a bit about receiving social assistance. I have not heard in the Northwest Territories an announcement about the guidelines for social assistance to be received by individuals. One thing that we should be getting assistance for is because they have taken our dog-teams away that we used to use quite some time ago.

I think we will have to teach our younger people how to live off the land as well as living off their full-time employment. For this reason, perhaps I could ask the Government Leader, on page 13 there is a paragraph in there that states that if you have never asked for social assistance before the government came, but since the government is here now, we see social assistance and we are used to receiving social assistance now, and I just wondered whether only the people that have reached grade nine can receive social assistance. As I said before, I think you realize now that the reason why we do not know very much about the report is because we were not involved at the beginning.

In regard to the second paragraph, it says that about 80 per cent of NWT residents receive social assistance. The reason why I ask this question is that, because the GNWT is in fiscal restraint, it seems as though they want to do away with social assistance more than ever. I am not teaching my children to provide for themselves off the land. Perhaps you understand my question. If you are not clear on the question I am asking, perhaps I could clarify it further. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Pudlat. We will keep your comments in mind, but we will go over further the concerns you have later on when we get to the appendix. Mr. Pudluk.

Concerns About Transfer Problems

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments. I am not against the report we are talking about, Strength at Two Levels. However, the concerns that we have, especially for the smaller communities regarding the transfer of responsibilities -- I have some doubts if we were to make this report a reality. First, I would like to say what the MLA for Yellowknife Centre stated very clearly. How come the report is here now? How come this was not done previously? When the government was first being formed in the communities, it was under DIAND, and there were a number of programs introduced. For that reason our tradition has changed.

After those programs were introduced, the Government of the Northwest Territories was introduced. The GNWT found that a number of federal programs were not completed. It costs a lot of money to use those programs and those programs that were not completed -- they lost a great deal of money because of that. After that, most of the communities became hamlets, and the people of the communities were happy when the communities became hamlets because they would have more responsibilities in their communities. It was obvious that the money that was given by the government was not enough, and the people who were working in the communities are now working for the hamlet. When they started working for the community, the hamlet, one of the concerns and hardship they had was that there was no housing available. Also, before, they were allowed holidays twice a year, and when they moved to the hamlet office they were only allowed holidays once a year. The government did not have sufficient money. These are my concerns.

When the responsibilities are transferred, I am afraid that the funding will not be sufficient for the responsibilities and the capital dollars will not be there according to the responsibilities today. I am afraid the government will not give enough money so that they can run the programs. It will be harder for the communities. These are my concerns. I do not want to see the communities not be given enough money to run their programs.

On page 13 it will be run smoothly, but we know that there will be difficulties. The Strength at Two Levels report is lengthy and we would have to read it several times to understand the content. For this reason I wanted to voice my concerns while we are here.

Thank you. Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier on this afternoon, we share the same concerns about transferring responsibility and not transferring enough money for those programs to be run efficiently and properly and to be delivered in a good fashion to people. We share the same concerns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Any other comments on page 13? Mr. Nerysoo.

Problem Of Enforcing Agreements

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I listened with interest to the comments that have been made by Members and some of the replies that were given, and I believe that one of the problems that we have, even in terms of reorganization or restructuring, is that we tried that before, and that we tried that in the last government. The fact is that we created more departments. We moved certain responsibilities from one department into others. On the medical side, let me remind the Members here, we moved medical transportation in the new board of management areas under the responsibility of Government Services. We are still in a debt situation of $31 million in medical transportation for status Indians. It has nothing to do, really, with whether or not it is organized -- organized to a point where you are trying to save money by restructuring -- but whether or not our financial agreements are such that the Government of Canada is going to live up to its obligations to us.

The other point I wanted to make to you is that in the Inuvik hospital, for instance, and maybe I can give you an example of this. There is a suggestion that Public Works is responsible for the maintenance of that hospital, yet we have reconstructed the lobby of that hospital four times in the last two years. Now, I do not know what it is that we are supposed to do in terms of those kinds of expenditures. Those are points that, when you talk about saving money or cost savings, you have to reconsider. I want, also, to say to you that when you talk about cost savings -- and right now I can probably say that the Inuvik General Hospital, or the Sahtu Delta/Beaufort board, may have a surplus of money, but the question I have is, well, how many nurses have not been hired to fill positions in that hospital, or even in the nursing stations? The question in reorganizing is, how do you talk about reorganizing if the services are not being provided?

I am not opposed to the ideas and the concerns that have been raised, or the proposals that have been made by our government to reorganize to deliver the service better, in a more co-ordinated manner, but I can tell you from past experiences that that just did not seem to happen. If the intention is to correct those irregularities and those problem areas, then I agree with you; but if those problems are going to continue to remain, then the whole purpose of considering reorganization is not going to work.

Insecurity About Employment And Government Policies

The other point I want to make to you is, there has been a great deal of discussion over the past few months about how people are all of a sudden going to be losing jobs, and I can tell you that is not very helpful to the morale of the public servants. They themselves understand the matter of cost reduction. They know that at some time some significant decisions are going to be made, but we came into this process in terms of reassessing the organization of our government almost with the view that there will be these massive layoffs in our public service, and I do not think that is very helpful, whether or not it is in McPherson, or whether or not it is in Aklavik, or whether or not it is in Inuvik, or for that matter the Keewatin or the Kitikmeot. The fact is that people are not secure about whether or not they can continue to work for our government.

The other aspect I wanted to point out in reorganizing is that I listened to the comments that were made by Mr. Todd about the points of people in the communities and in the regions wanting to be secure about the policies of our government. I have the same feeling, because if the intention is to downsize government, then how is that downsizing going to affect the whole idea of more northern people, and more aboriginal people specifically, being employed and being given the opportunity to train for positions in government? I think those policies, while they may have been good, have to coincide; otherwise you lose sight of the intention and the good direction that was laid out previously.

I wanted to make one other point, and that was this: I agree in some instances with the Government Leader on dealing with the question of the whole matter of tank farms, and the government requirements and the public or the Power Corporation requirements almost contradicting one another, or at least not having any streamlining, but the fact is that the oil lubricants or petroleum lubricants responsibility is far more than that. It is the purchasing and the selling of those products in communities, and so the question I have is, what does that mean in terms of other businesses, or the co-ops, or individuals, or communities, and their participation and their ability to sell, purchase, or to establish a business that is going to take on that responsibility? Yesterday when I mentioned that, that is the point that I was getting at. I can understand all of the matters of the duplication of purchasing and the duplication of establishing tank farms. That was the crux of the issue that I was most concerned about. It is that other aspect: not the tank farms but the aspect of purchasing and selling petroleum products.

Thank you, Mr. Nerysoo. Ms. Cournoyea.

Implementation Will Answer Questions

Mr. Chairman, first of all I believe that a lot of these questions get answered when you go into an implementation of how we are going to achieve these goals. I believe, to my understanding, there is a very strong desire in communities where it does not take place right now, where the community selling is very well received by co-ops and individuals. I do not see that changing at all. Mainly our concern is the facility for storage. I think the idea is to set up storage facilities in such a way that anyone can draw from them, including the Power Corporation. The actual community gas pumps or petroleum delivery stay the same. The intention is not to take away from the privatization that is there already; it was to make better use of the tank farms because they are, as you know, an expensive commodity.

When we went into this -- certainly from my point of view we always seem to ad hoc it. We would do a little bit here and do a little bit there. We do not grab a hold of the whole problem. This government has never advocated massive layoff but these are generally the fears that have been created because of what we are trying to do; but we have never advocated that.

In looking at the turnover rate, particularly in health professionals and teachers, the turnover rate, particularly in the communities, is very large. I do not think that is going to stop. What is the question there? Why are teachers not aboriginal people? I believe that if we bring this decision closer to home, maybe the people in the community could see where the education system fits into a requirement for people to be involved, in directing how we are going to move people from a grade level to a professional level.

I really understand what is being said. I think any time we try to do something different or try to attack a problem, there are always fears. I think whether we manifest those fears or whether we try to go into it in a positive light and say, "Look, all the concerns and issues about civil servants -- what they are, how many there are, where they are, bringing our own people into the professional stream -- those things are not going to go away until we address the fundamental issue of how we are going to do it." It is true, we have not been terribly successful in meeting the stated feeling at a community level for people to feel that they want to be a teacher, they want to be a nurse, they want to be a doctor, they want to be a financial wizard within their community, because all those are positions which are available. The difficulty we are going to have is to have the proper climate and environment so that people want to take those responsibilities on and feel that they are just as good as anyone else and they can do it. I think it is an attitude that we have to create.

Why have we not been successful in the past? A lot of it comes down to community support. How does a community find meaning? I guess the more communities that are involved, I think, we will get a better result at the end, I agree. Certainly those comments about whether we are going to take something away from privatization, that is not the intent at all.

Thank you, Ms. Cournoyea. Mr. Gargan.

Cost Reduction By Simplifying

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the last paragraph with regard to the report itself, it indicates, "Many people will argue that cost and quality of service to the public is an inevitable trade-off. It is the conclusion of the project group that this is not the case. Productivity and organization experts around the world agree that quality improvement which results from simplification and streamlining often leads to large cost reductions. In the GNWT, as restraint/consolidation/ simplification become the required beacons of management, it is important to emphasize improvement in quality of service to the public as you promote cost-containment. Some people will have trouble accepting this..." I would like to ask the Government Leader if she could explain what is meant by that.

My interpretation is that simplifying would mean there would be a reduction in the amount of red tape a person may have to go through. And it would also lead to a cost reduction. So the intention here is that you deliver a program to the communities and you allow the dollars to go with that program; that means there is going to be someone that is going to be out of a job, maybe in the Finance Department and also the Social Services office, for example. And then the communities would use the Social Assistance Act to administer social assistance. Am I on the right track?

Ms. Cournoyea.