Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The numbers still point to a problem. There has been constant and ongoing erosion since 1997, even though we all paid the price as communities to help balance this budget of services and government positions out of the regions. Somehow, in spite of division, headquarters has managed to be buffered.
Half of the departments have had an increase to headquarters since 1997, according to the official document put out by the Financial Management Board Secretariat. Departments like the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal Affairs, Municipal and Community Affairs, Justice, Transportation, Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the Workers' Compensation Board.
Mr. Speaker, the work at the regional level has not changed. There was no political direction that I can recollect in this House to further cut positions in the regions and the communities. I can see no reason why there has been a continued decrease to the level there has been to jobs and government positions outside of headquarters.
Mr. Speaker, since there is such a significant discrepancy in the numbers, I will be asking the government, for my community, specifically to try to identify for me where these jobs are, where they were, and what positions are there.
Mr. Speaker, I think that as a Legislative Assembly, we have to look at a way to address this trend. It was never the intent of this government to talk on one hand of decentralization and moving things to the communities, but have the hard numbers show in fact that the trend is the other way. Mr. Speaker, later today, I will table the documents I used to make these assessments. They are all government numbers but I will table them in this House. Thank you.