Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add a few comments. Every once in a while we catch this wave of trying to slash or trying to make a point about our public service, somehow sort of creating an image of it being out of control, it is too fat, it should be cut, and look for value for money and such. I guess in a certain context we have to try to be efficient and such, but I don't know where that really comes from, because I think maybe the suggestion might be we should all get out of this glass building here and go to communities and offices and see what the government workers are doing. For example, when I went to home care service in the bottom floor of the Jan Stirling Building, I had no idea what was going on. They were in a basement in a closet and they were delivering home care services all over Yellowknife. They are packed in a room. We don't know, my point is, what our workers are doing. It is easy for us to look at a paper and say, well, look at the title. It looks pretty fancy. What are they doing? They don't need their job and just cut it. For example, when we were in Tuk, we had a little bit of time there and some of us went to visit a child protection worker office there and environmental wildlife office. That is one man and one woman. That is the entire operation for the whole region. It is important to know that there are a lot of duties and work behind the positions that we are creating here.
Going back more specifically to MACA, I don't condone going to conferences down south unless Members have absolutely everything relevant to do, but I do think it is very useful to go to conferences being organized by MACA. I think, over the last couple of years, especially with the New Deal and many other initiatives being implemented by MACA, MACA has taken on training and capacity building of our communities single-handedly; honestly. If you go to those conferences and sit with the mayors and SAOs and everybody, they will tell you non-stop how much they need to build their community capacity. They have had these meetings every three months or so. Still, that is not enough. NWT Association of Communities is sort of taking on the role of having to train all of the community governments to get ready and to understand what the government is doing and maximizing the opportunities and such. I think we should just be very careful about lumping up the whole notion that the government is too big, fat and inefficient. Of course, there might be some examples of government workers that are not being used to their maximum, but I would point to the leadership in each division and each directorship to make government employees as efficient as possible. I think we have to be careful before we paint with a wide brush and just eliminate positions because somehow we don't think there is enough work there to do now.
The positions are not allocated. I want to know why there is not one in Yellowknife, because right now you have four positions, in Fort Simpson, Hay River, Inuvik and Norman Wells, and we don't know where they are going to be located because our briefing information is telling us that MACA is having difficulties finding employees. It is not like this is a sort of make work project and having to dole out jobs because there are more people than jobs to go around. The government has to stay competitive. We have to be a choice employer. We are not the choice employer anymore. There is certainly a lot of work to get the communities ready and community governments ready. That is the same thing for the family violence conference that I was talking about. If you just take time to listen to the community people, they will tell you that they need more community capacity.
I don't have any other information that would give me evidence to suggest that this is redundant or is repetitive. On that note, I am going to not support this motion. Thank you.