Thank you, Madam Chair. It would be a bit simplistic, but I would suggest, had we not amalgamated the three departments, the department of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources would have had to do a severe cut in its programs and staff and the Department of Renewable Resources would have also had to cut severely into its programs and services. The Department of Economic Development and Tourism, as well would have had to do the same. The total cuts to the three departments, may very well have totalled up to about $5 million. When I was asked to do the amalgamation, that was the target that was given to me. In the amalgamation I had to save the government about $5 million.
We did the amalgamation. Many of the positions were senior management positions; deputy Ministers, assistant deputy Ministers, and regional staff positions. In the end, very little money was taken out of programs, very few staff at the community level, not necessarily the regional level, but at the community level, were affected.
One of the dangers and fears that were raised by people that were concerned about the amalgamation was whether or not the business side, the economic development aspect of the mandate, would overwhelm and override the environment. The concern for the water, the land, the wildlife. As well, from the Chamber of Commerce in the business area, they were equally concerned that the environmental, the wildlife part of our mandate would completely overshadow the need to promote economic development initiatives to support good economic initiatives that come our way in the Northwest Territories.
There was also the fear between the two camps, that it would be such a diametrically opposed mandate, that it would compromise the integrity of both elements of that mandate and that surely the environmental part would be compromised, or the business side.
We went from there and straight into the negotiations with BHP and the federal government on the socio-economic agreement. I think the facts are there. We went at it in a way that balanced the two. I think any fear that was there has been dispelled, at least, through that rather momentous occasion.
My own personal view of the amalgamation is that we could have taken a year to do it, which was the time given to us by Cabinet. We did it in five months. Most of the staff of the department have, I know in the first year, there were almost virtually no weekends. They were full weekends not spent at home. For the first eight months, virtually every weekend and most evenings during the week were taken up taking care of making sure the day-to-day business was dealt with, and dealt with the attention it deserved, as well as making sure that we did as meticulous a planning initiative as we could, to make sure that the amalgamation happened with minimal disruption to the government and staff in the communities.
So between the sessions we worked. During the session we worked as well. As a Minister I have not seen in my 10 years here, such a prolonged, concentrated effort by a department for such a long period of time. The fact is, they are still working in the evenings; they are still working on the weekends. It has lessened a little because we are no longer trying to run three departments and set one up on a parallel track. We are now just taking the one department we set up and making it run well and getting everybody to play their respective roles and getting organized, to do the best job possible.
As you know, we have such a diverse mandate. We take care of forestry, wildlife; we get into fisheries; we get into economic development. We are setting up operations on a regional basis. We are staffing and dealing with community initiatives. We are revamping the operations of the NWT Development Corporation. So it has been one huge workload. Where previously there was a whole department set aside just to deal with mandates of renewable resources; a separate deputy Minister and a whole headquarters staff to deal with economic development and again, another department just for Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. We now have one senior management team to deal with all of that, and one Minister.
It is quite a huge job. We knew that when we started, and I say to Mr. Rabesca, I think that is probably all the more reason why we worked as hard as we did in the first part. We built this new organization as well as we could, knowing the better planning we did, the more meticulous we were about implementing the organization, the easier it would be a year down the road when we were going to get into the phase where we would be able to go into the communities and regions and actually offer to work, more in partnership, to do things at the community and regional level.
It is a good approach I think all of us are relieved with that, and I think Members will see this department has multiple programs. I do not have the total recall of your friend, Mr. Todd. I only have partial recall. So it is true, sometimes I cannot give you, button answers to button questions. Precise to the point, concise because it is simply a huge job to make sure it all fits together. But as I say, there is just a multitude of things to memorize, and that is not really the most important thing in here. It is the organizational approach that we take to our work that is absolutely key, and we have that. There is no doubt about it.