No, not right now, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to move that $108,000 be deleted from the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, School of Community Government, activity in the Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2005-2006.

The motion is in order and is being distributed. I'll give the Members time to review the motion. Thank you. The motion is on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I think it's important that the government get the message. We didn't have some success with the last motion, but this motion I think for sure...I mean, this is community money that we're going to be spending because it's interest that's going to build up on the money that's in the bank. So this money should be earmarked for communities, not to this position. I think the government should really take a look at transferring somebody into this position to conduct this piece of work for the government over the next year. This $108,000 should go to the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To the motion.

To the motion. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to provide a little more detail on the information that was in front of us here regarding the $108,000. We should be clear that when we're voting on this, this is an initiative that was not part of our business planning, and over the last while we've made some significant cuts to our department. In the last reduction process, we cut nine positions out of MACA, and we also agreed to reduce our travel budget by 25 percent. This $108,000 is not a position. There is one part-time casual position that we're looking at of $40,000. This money is so we can go into the communities, at least a good portion of the communities that are out there, that are having problems understanding how this funding is going to flow. They have requested us to come in. If we're going to go into the Sahtu or Nunakput or Nahendeh, we have to fly. We don't have those monies in our budget to travel into those communities. We didn't have this as part of our initiative at the beginning of the year. It really makes it difficult, and that's why we've budgeted $58,000 of this $108,000 towards travel and for hotel rooms. That's so we

can explain the program and talk to the communities and help them get ready for applying for this fund.

There's another $10,000 for communications; we need to be able to package some of this stuff up. We need to be able to work with the communities on providing the detail. There's a lot of work in also dealing with the contribution agreements, developing the contribution agreements, providing the materials, and having that submission brought forward in an appropriate manner, and also to be able to retain the information and manage the information, so we can report on it at the end of the day. There is a significant workload that comes with this distribution of the fund. That's why we've looked at providing a one-time part-time position to be able to distribute this money. Without this money, it's going to make it very difficult. All our staff already have a lot of responsibilities, and this would have to be accommodated from within. I'm sure we probably would be able to manage it somehow, but we're not going to be able to travel into the communities; we're not going to be able to provide that information, as the communities are requiring and requesting, without this $108,000. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick comment, I guess. Since the Minister put some information out for us to fester over, I know a lot of the communities do have a large Municipal and Community Affairs staff who are available and totally capable of communicating what little information they do receive, anyway, from this community capacity building initiative and the administration of it. I don't see anything being cumbersome, as far as additional duties of the regional staff. I'm not sure about the numbers of these nine positions that MACA eliminated last year, but I know a lot of those positions were out in the regions. The regional staff has been cut down and the headquarters staff here seems to be growing all the time. It's kind of like a double standard, as far as I'm concerned. Cutting a bunch of staff positions in the regions and then saying we have to hire somebody in headquarters to go to the regions to do some work that should have been delegated out there anyway. I know $108,000 is not a lot of money, and that's why I feel that I'm supporting this motion. It's not a lot of money, and I don't think there's a whole additional workload that's going to bring down the regional staff to say that they're just overworked and underpaid and all this stuff. I just can't see any rationale in supporting extra money for a position for somebody to cut cheques and deliver pamphlets. That's my take on it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll defer until the end. I'll let my colleagues speak to the motion. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding, from the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs on his explanation for this funding, is the comment on our communities and our regions that it's desperately needed to get help here. We're not on a highway system. We don't have easy access. We're slowly trying to work on getting a stand-alone region. We don't have the resources and the costs are high. The help is needed in our region. It's a huge amount of money you're asking us in our communities to administer and manage. You have accountability procedures in place that need to really be adhered to and be monitored on how we're going to do this program. The communication is not very much; it's only $10,000. There should be more than that there. But that's your side, Mr. Minister, and your government's.

You have to remember that in our region, we're dealing with a first language being aboriginal, primarily. This is only a part-time position because it's a huge roll-up for communities to understand the amount of money coming in and how it's going to be set up. Somehow we're looking at some kind of exercise in terms of devolution; devolving some of these expenditures into our communities. In our region, the prices are going up. It costs a lot of money to fly around Nunakput also. Mr. Pokiak mentioned one time what it costs to fly around in his region in one tour. For myself, I see that this type of support that we need for our regions and communities is desperately needed. So I'll be voting against the motion here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Can I just remind Members to speak to the motion? Thank you. I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I know where my colleague is coming from in terms of a huge growth of expenditures in government, but quite often people can forget that if they want to do any consulting or ask people or deliver any programs in Yellowknife, they can just run down the block. When it comes to the regions and communities, you have to travel to do that, and it's very important to the people in the communities. Any deletions to programming I've always fought against and I'll continue to do that, especially in MACA when it comes to the School of Community Government and running the affairs of any community. To go to the communities and talk about it, often they want smooth-running communities. So anyway, back to the motion there, Mr. Chairman, it's something I will support. Sorry, I will not support. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I respect the thoughts of my colleagues on this, and I know that it's important money, but the point I'm trying to make is that I believe that government has the resources in-house to carry this work out and not come back in a supp looking for more. The Minister said that this was a part-time position, but the information I was provided says it's a full-time position. The $40,000 that's going toward program administration, Mr. Chairman, is good until the end of March and this position is supposed to be funded...I don't know how the work can get done between now and the end of March. That's just not going to happen. I don't see how all that work could get done in that short of a time frame.

I'd be interested to know if indeed this is a full-time position or a part-time position. I can agree with the Minister that the $58,000 and the $10,000 communication money is something that I might be able to agree with, Mr. Chairman, but it's the position that I take issue with. When we have 4,400 employees, I find it hard to believe that we can't find one that we could slide in here and get them

some training and get them up to speed on community issues. That's my take on it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

To the motion. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is defeated.

---Defeated

Department of Executive, continued operations expenditures...Sorry, I'm on the wrong page here. Page 12, Municipal and Community Affairs, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $28.480 million.

Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a question on page 14 under lease associated...

Okay. Okay. My apologies, Mr. Chairman.