Thank you. Oral Questions. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in reference to my member's statement regarding Footprints 2 and the proposed decentralized government, we realize that negotiating an adequate level of funding to the gross expenditure base is critical. Mr. Speaker, there are also other major concerns. My question, to the Minister of Finance, is how will the present and future lay-offs of our Government of the Northwest Territories employees affect what positions will be available for transfer to Nunavut, upon division?

The Minister of Finance, Mr. Todd.

I am not quite sure what the question is but I will try to answer it. This government has got a deficit elimination strategy in place in which all members were part and parcel of. Unfortunately, part of that deficit elimination strategy is the amalgamation of departments, is the shrinking of government, and unfortunately there is going to be less employees. That strategy, as I said, is within to the first 12 months, we have 12 more months to conclude a balanced budget.

I am confident we are going to meet it. In doing that it may be that further cuts will be required in the civil service, but at this time I am unable to determine what is going to be cut and how they are going to move to Nunavut, given that we have only got the Footprints in the Snow report last week. Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions supplementary, Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to further clarify my question, can the Minister advise if there will be any impact on the transfer of jobs to Nunavut once division occurs, due to the fact of the present and future, or pending, layoffs to our GNWT employees?

Mr. Todd.

I do not like to give short answers, but I guess the short answer is no.

Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is unfortunate that we have to accept these short curt answers of no. I will save my questions for another time. Thank you.

Oral questions. Mr. Roland.

The Minister of Finance, Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad the honourable colleague gave me the opportunity to try to clarify our position on this one because I know it is a difficult one for our employees.

It was proposed at the collective bargaining that employees be granted leave in compensation for wage and benefit reductions when we were doing the collective agreement. We informed the union on July 9, 1996, that the most common view held by managers was to consider the shut down of the operation over Christmas and New Year.

On July 15, 1996, a proposal was made to the UNW in writing, though it addresses its' concerns, as well as concerns raised by managers, to look for ways to minimize the impact of the mandatory leave without pay recovery on the employees pay over the Christmas and New Year shut down.

The union, unfortunately, as far as my records seem to indicate, did not respond. It was necessary for us to communicate with employees in the public concerns shutdown, and advise, particularly the organized labour employees what it meant to them, and we did so in a inserts we put in the pay cheques, I believe, 2 weeks ago.

Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Mr. Todd.

Thank you. On the management side it was concurred in discussions and negotiations that we should proceed to deduct the percentage of pay off of each employee over a period of time to ensure that in these mandatory five Donny Days or Morin Days that the pay cheques would continue. We did correspond, my staff corresponded to Miss Jackie Simpson, President of the UNW, on July 15th and I am prepared to table that letter in the House today, indicating that as similar we indicated, what we were prepared to consider a similar approach with the Union employees. We indicated we would need to know very quickly if you are interested in this method for administration of mandatory leave as we require leave time to program the payroll system. Unfortunately, the Union disagreed with our position, therefore, the unionized employees will have five days less pay during the Christmas and New Year period. Thank you.

Oral questions supplementary. Mr. Roland.

Mr. Todd.

I was not at the negotiating table but all I can advise my honourable colleague is that I do have a letter here clearly stating out, in the third paragraph, of July 15th that we should talk about spreading the mandatory leave without pay more evenly over two pay periods and recommending that we administer a recovery portion over a period of time and asking them for their position on this. I can only assume that their position was to say no. Thank you.

Oral questions supplementary. Mr. Roland.