Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our task over the next two days is to articulate our views, support and concern for actions taken in the past two years, by this government. It has often been said in this House that we are a consensus government and that all the Members, through the committee structure work, have input into and ability to influence the government's agenda.
While this is true, I believe the public should have a better understanding of how this input works. The vast majority of legislation and action of this government is direction generated by Cabinet. When the Cabinet takes a position on a topic or item, it is very seldom that they are given the freedom to oppose that position or topic. So, when the government introduces legislation or direction on a new initiative, it already has eight votes of support. More importantly, it also has a complete bureaucracy along with funds to hire consultants, to analyze and provide support to their initiative. These resource greatly influence the manner in which a position is presented and sold to the public and MLAs of this Legislature. In turn, this greatly reduces the ability of ordinary MLAs to muster any opposition to challenge and effectively question the government on its position.
As for the 14 Ordinary Members, we have a staff of three to research, explore different options, support or object to the government's legislation. When one Member opposes a piece of legislation or government direction, they start off from a position of one, compared to the Cabinet's solid eight. It is almost an insurmountable task when one looks at the chances of being able, through votes, to man a successful campaign of opposition against the government that starts off with eight votes. In my two years in this Legislature, only once has there been a unanimous stand taken by Ordinary Members, which succeeded in having the government drop a direction or piece of legislation.
I will continue with the evaluation of how this government has performed over the past two years. I, for one, do not see much reason or justification for severely criticizing this government's course of action since the Assembly came in. Individual Members and individual action certainly deserve constructive criticism, but the overall work of the government, at least in the eyes of my constituency that I represent, are in most cases, applauded.
When I ran for election, one of my planks on my platform was fiscal responsibility. I wanted to ensure and I vowed to work to ensure a government who is fiscally responsible and not continuing on a drunken sailor spending way, as previous governments had. This government has come through in flying colours from what my constituents have indicated. Although the government did receive much criticism regarding the method which they chose to arrive at that point.
The government's bureaucracy and related agencies paid the price for this method. I would like to have seen the same end accomplished by the elimination of some of the programs and services. I have much concern that now that the bureaucracy has, for the most part been decimated, we will not have the staff to provide all the services we have committed to providing to the people of the Northwest Territories.
Another area which this government deserves compliment is when I look at a very good mark in this area of professional leadership from a moral and common decency point of view. This government has not, in the past two years, had one case of scandal, which is, I believe, a record in the recent past of this territory. We have not elected a Minister to Cabinet, in the last two years who has resigned or been forced to resign because of any alleged improprieties or inability to perform at a level demanded by the Cabinet position. Congratulations.
As for where the government has not been successful would be as follows: the diamond opportunity. Immediate attention should be given to writing of a policy, which should be generated by Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development for a viewing by Members of this House, clearly stating this government's position on diamond valuation and sorting. It should include a list of other activities that can be performed by and for the benefits of the residents of the Northwest Territories.
If we cannot provide to Minister Stewart, a clear, written, concise document, laying out these requirements for the Northwest Territories' people, then this government is sadly missing the boat. We can, we hope, influence Minister Stewart. How can we hope to influence Minister Stewart on the political merits of ensuring the residents of the Northwest Territories should be taken into account first, and supersede the interests of the industry regarding our nonrenewable resource? This opportunity can and should not be allowed to escape us.
Med-Emerg Report: This report consisted of a compilation of information and statistics that has been prepared in previous reports and is available through the Department of Health, along with statistical information that any resident of the Northwest Territories can obtain from this government.
Mr. Ng has taken a large amount of criticism, both in the House and outside, on this waste of three quarters of a million dollars of taxpayers' money. The general public, the NWT Health Care Association, the Department of Health staff, consultants in the Northwest Territories and MLAs have all denounced this report. Mr. Ng's department has been criticized for wastage of taxpayers money on this Med-Emerg report. The Minister of Finance, while being lavishly credited with the financial health the government finds itself in, has also spent many dollars investigating the feasibility of setting up a mortgage investment fund. The implementing of this fund was not pursued by the Minister because we were told the banks were now lending money in communities where they traditionally had not. Mr. Arlooktoo, on behalf of the government, introduced Plan 2000, which was designed to get as many public housing tenants as possible out of public housing units and into their own homes. This has no semblance of reality in the real world, and this is another example of how this government has not helped educate the people of the Northwest Territories to deal with the process and trials of all other Canadians. The department of Municipal and Community Affairs continues to pour money into community empowerment initiative, which by the governments' own admission, has not worked as well as it should have for the amounts of dollars spent.
The Infrastructure Committee, on a number of occasions, had requested this initiative, although commendable, should have not occurred at the speed the government set. We suggest it would have been more appropriate to identify three or four taxed-based communities who had a desire to become more empowered. Work with them and perfect a method which could be cloned and used in other communities. The Community Empowerment Initiatives should be stopped until the government finds itself in a better financial situation or until there is a strong desire for the communities to take on the initiative. The government, through the Department of Education, in last year's budget process, played with the feelings of our seniors and holding out as long as possible against Members of this House who wanted to ensure that our seniors were able to obtain a small amount of money to enable them to receive support for heating fuel. I feel comfortable, as the department tallied up the cost of recruitment, salary and separation pay of the previous six months deputy minister, the department went a long way to paying the cost for the senios'r fuel subsidy.
The Department of Transportation privatized some components of motor vehicles. The last time I heard the merits of privatization stunk, it was on the benefits that private business could provide the service cheaper than the government. This very clearly was not the intent of that privatization, as now the service costs much more than when the government provided it. So why it costing more? The government is obtaining the same fee for the service that it provided in the past which is now being provided by the contractor. The public is being provided a good service while the government is skimming $400,000 annually off on salary and related office cost savings.
It is obvious that the Government of the Northwest Territories has lived up to and delivered on their responsibilities in the division process. The federal government, who initiated this process by passing their own Act, clearly has demonstrated they have not lived up to their commitment to the people of Nunavut and the Western Territory. The reality will soon become apparent to those people that the federal government has not honoured their commitments.
In closing, as was stated earlier in my remarks, I believe this government has done a good overall job in some of the most trying times in the evolution of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.