Thank you, Mr. Steen. I would like to remind the Members of the time limit. I would also remind the Ministers in this case to try to be concise and direct when responding to Members' questions. Mr. Steen indicated he would like a response from the Honourable Minister Todd.

Can I suggest that there may be some other general comments and once that is done I can conclude. Then we can get on with Executive and go line by line.

Thank you. Mr. Steen.

Mr. Todd.

Mr. Chairman, no. If anybody is worth responding to it is Mr. Steen. I would suggest that I do what I did yesterday, that if there are any other general comments. If there are no more general comments, I will then respond to Mr. Steen. Then I will suggest to as the Chairman that we move on to opening comments from the Executive and get on to line by line.

Thank you. I am now seeking direction from the Committee Members. Mr. Todd wants to respond after Members who have not spoken in the general comments have spoken first. Agreed? That is noted. Mr. Steen, Mr. Todd will respond to you after some other Members who have not spoken have spoken. Any other general comments? Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to throw the roses first of all and congratulate the government in at least bringing a balanced budget and second accolade should go to the fact that there are no tax increases. I think there were probably many other initiatives that are very worthwhile. I think there are also some negatives with this budget.

Initial comments I have heard on the government producing a surplus of $9 million, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest that $9 million on 1.2 is more like a balanced budget than it is to a surplus. I agree with the comments that were made that a couple of mishaps during the year and you could be $9 million the other way. Something I would suggest to the government is to take a look at and prioritize projects. If they find when they are nine months into the program and we will be finishing up with at $9 million at that time the government could use that list of priorities to create some economic activity or contribute to other areas of the economy that will indeed promote job creation.

I think it acceptable to say that there have been large employee cutbacks, both in the present financial year that we are in and projections for the next financial year. I am disappointed at the method that has been used by the government in reducing the bureaucracy. I believe that dollar amounts are identified and then numbers of employees to equal that amount are produced. I think that until does take a look at programs and services that it provides, until it does that and prioritizes what programs or services that they will choose not to supply in the future, I think that is the only constructive way to handle the job lay-offs in the bureaucracy. What I would like to see and have been promoting is prioritize the program that the government should not supply further and the bureaucracy that is employed to administer those programs, they would terminate. I think that is a much better way of doing it.

I am concerned also with the cuts to the capital spending. As was noted, it is going from approximately 200 million a few years to 110 million. Some of this money is going to social programs and as I look at the social envelope we have gone from 58 percent a couple of years to 61 percent in this next fiscal year. I think it is evident that we do not have a handle on that spending.

I have concerns about the process of how the budget is dealt with. Ordinary Members, up until last Monday when the budget was introduced, have really been gagged as to receiving public input. They have been aware of many of the items that are in the budget and have had input, as has been noted, but we have not had the opportunity to receive input from our constituents on this. At the same time there has been Members of the government who have been discussing initiatives that are in the budget with some public. The Ordinary MLAs have not had the same opportunity to receive input from the public.

The Minister, in his document, has talked about this government not being able to absorb any further revenue reductions. Mr. Chairman, I believe the federal government has to be made aware that we appreciate the support over the years but without some form of a safety net, and it has been referred to as a floor, we are going to be in state of turmoil and at the whim of reduction to spendings by southern provinces.

I refer to the social spending going from 58 percent to 61.5 in this budget. I guess that begs a question, are we being better educated or healthier with this additional money. It has been noted a couple of time, I believe that this government has to put more resources into educating people and in some cases children about this government's inability to care of the number and the birthrates that we have in many of the communities. I think it is a topic that is not dealt with as straight forward as it could and should be. The Minister of Finance noted that it can get to a state where we will not have the funds to help people at all.

I listened with interest to comments from Mr. Krutko about the small amounts of capital funding that is contributed to his community. I certainly can identify with that. As I look at the 4.1 million that is received by Yellowknife in capital funding and I divide that by a population of 17,000, I get something like $241 per person. I would agree with Mr. Krutko, we certainly are in the same boat as he finds himself in.

Hear, hear!

I was glad in the document, and it has been announced by the government through Mr. Arlooktoo, that the amalgamation has been put on hold. I would also suggest that the privatization of petroleum products would also get the same amount of debate and consideration before anything is finalized in that particular item.

The question of division, I would also look forward to the Minister's concurrence for a timeline that he agreed to produce which would outline the priorities for division and the groups or individuals or organizations that are responsible for making decisions in a timely fashion so that division can proceed in an organized fashion and that we are not backlogged in making decisions on division for a new western territory and Nunavut without proper time to debate all the issues and concerns. I have stated before that I believe that Nunavut should have a vast majority of the decisions as regards how they wish their government set up.

There are a couple of points that I have been consistent on and I am glad to see the government is consistent on and I would certainly like some response from the Minister in this regard. I note where the budget document under labour relations, there is three points where the government talks about the present staff. The first point talks about all GNWT staff located in Nunavut must become employees of Nunavut government. The second point is existing GNWT headquarters staff should have a hiring priority. The third the principles must be applied to the staffing of Nunavut. I would like the Minister to revisit that particular part. I notice two of the items talk about what the Nunavut must do and as regards existing GNWT headquarters staff...

Mr. Henry, your time has run out. Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would seek unanimous consent to conclude these comments.

We do not need unanimous consent, but we do need consent to continue the statement. Do we have agreement? Proceed, Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like some comment from the Minister, if it was a typing error or maybe the government could clarify their position on that. As I said, two of the points there are must and one is should. I think probably must in all three cases would be more appropriate. Mr. Chairman, that would conclude my remarks at this time as we are proceeding in the budget under different departments I will also raise individual points. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Henry. There was some implication that Mr. Henry wanted some response from the Minister. As we all agreed, we will allow each and every Member to speak then once there are no other Members who wish to speak to the item on the table, will allow the Minister to respond. Are there any more general comments from the membership? Mr. Erasmus.

Mr. Chairman, did you wish to get everybody that has not spoken first?

Mr. Erasmus, I have indicated at the beginning of this forum that I would allow Members who have not spoken the opportunity to speak. You were the first one to signify you wanted to speak so I recognized you. Thank you. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was quite pleased to see in the budget address that there has been a slight increase to the social envelope area. I say that because I know that there are some misconceptions out there. The social envelope does not only include the area of income support or what used to be called social assistance. It includes training and education, health and housing, as well as justice. Mr. Chairman, in fact, the income support area has not increased. It has levelled off. The two or three percent increase that is taking place is not because of income support.

That income support is a very, very small part of the overall budget. I understand that the income support is approximately 15 percent of the overall Education, Culture and Employment budget and four percent of the total budget.

Mr. Chairman, the education levels in the Northwest Territories are at a third world level. Studies in the south have indicated that poor education is related to poverty and related to early deaths and poor health and also to high birthrates. It seems to me that if we want to try to improve the death rates, health and to decrease our forced growth which is largely caused by births to young people, then we have to spend more money or be consistent with our funding at least in the education area.

Also I have heard that we should be putting our efforts into job creation. Mr. Chairman, it does not make too much sense to create a bunch of jobs if we do not have people that are trained well enough to take advantage of those jobs. It seem to me that we have to concentrate on training those people who are unable to take advantage of the jobs and unable to take advantage of the Impact Benefit Agreements that we have negotiated with BHP and that will be negotiated with mines and other areas that come on board in the future.

If we train people, they will be able to get jobs. If we educate people, they will be more able to get jobs. That, in turn, will be able to get them off income support. Mr. Chairman, putting money into education and training is an investment in the future. An investment that the Northwest Territories drastically needs. If it was up to me, I would pour a lot more money into those areas. Mr. Chairman, Education, Culture and Employment is currently working on an NWT labour force development plan. We hope that this will start to address some of the problems that I have spoken about in the areas of training and poor education.

One of the reasons why there has been an increase in the social envelope is because of new initiatives. Some of those new initiatives include early childhood intervention and for families. Mr. Chairman, I have been involved on early intervention projects and I know that there have been studies done which indicate that a child that has gone through early intervention basically if you have kindergarten and maybe pre-school that type of thing you are more likely to finish school. You are more likely to get a job once you get out of school and more likely to go on to post-secondary, which is college, a trade, university, that type of thing. You are also less likely to go on social assistance once you are an adult. You are less likely to be incarcerated, which also places a huge strain on our resources when we have to have hundreds of our people in our institutions. Once you do get a job, if you are laid off you are less likely to remain unemployed for a great length of time.

One American study that I am aware of indicates that every dollar spent on early intervention saves you $5 or $6 in the future. Mr. Chairman, I must indicate that these types of initiatives are very good initiatives and we should support them. Some of that money is also going into training people in the communities, so that once community empowerment does happen the people in the communities will be trained in order to do a good job. There are Members who have commented that the social area is going too high, but they have also commented that to do community empowerment we have to train the people in the communities. We have to be consistent in what we are saying. You want people trained, it is going to cost dollars.

Thank you. I was not timing you but I believe that your time has run out, Mr. Erasmus. You need consent to carry on. Mr. Erasmus.

No, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to speak and say these brief comments in this area. Thank you.

I wanted to remind Members again, we are at the very beginning of the budget review. When we go line by line, page by page, activity by activity, department by department there will be time to allow the Members to come up with general comments and questions. At this time, I would like to indicate to you those Members who have not spoken yet wish to speak. Mr. Picco.

Point of procedure, Mr. Chairman.

I will recognize Mr. Picco, then Mr. Steen. Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just a point of procedure that we have asked different things in the committee of whole at this present time and the people in the Northwest Territories like to see us get on with the main estimates and the review of the budget, so that information can come out. Mr. Erasmus, yesterday, had his point on the budget address through pages 416, 417 and 418 of the Hansard. I think we should be moving on with the committee of the whole and stop this type of verbiage from continuing. If he wants to continue with his budget address, he can do a reply to the budget address, he has opening statement, he can do in the Members' statement, and he can also do it as a reply to the Commissioner's address. Not in this forum, he already did it once.