Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask the Minister if he would come back to committee for input, but he’s beat me to the punch, so good for you.

I would urge the Minister to get a policy in place as soon as possible. These kinds of projects are somewhat unusual, and we need to have as much governance, as much of an umbrella for overseeing these projects as possible.

If the Minister could respond to my question in terms of timing — I realize that “as soon as possible” could mean tomorrow; it could also mean three years from now — if he could give me a narrower time frame, I’d appreciate that.

The infrastructure

committee has been meeting since this government was formed and cabinet was selected. We have a lot of work in front of us. There is some desire to have some recommendations brought forward. We need to review a lot of the policies. We’d have to upgrade some of the policies. We’d have to also develop new ones. I’m trying to be very careful not to make a commitment we may not live by, but I would suspect that we could start presenting some of the initial findings very soon, hopefully by the next sitting.

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier, and it gets back to my Member’s statement from earlier today, where I talked about the boards and agencies review that was conducted by the 15th Legislative Assembly and the

government of the 15th Assembly. It looked into the

112 boards and agencies here in the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned, some of the best work I’ve seen here as a Member was done by that review. It was shelved in 2005.

I’d like to ask the Premier: where exactly is this review, and who’s in charge of carrying out the rest of the necessary work contained in that review?

Mr. Speaker, the work that was done previously, in fact, was chaired by Minister Miltenberger. It just so happens that in this government, the 16th Assembly, he is the lead on

the refocusing-government portion of our initiatives. This area would be falling under that activity.

Mr. Speaker, we would have to look at all the boards and agencies, not just health authorities but

education authorities, the relationship we have with them, and the LHOs as well, looking at where there may be potential overlaps. That work is to be done, and the lead Minister, again, is Minister Miltenberger. They’ve started collecting that information and dusting things off.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Premier for that, and I’m just wondering if…. It sounds like the government may be starting over, and I’m wondering if they are going to use the work that was done in 2004-2005 as the basis for advancing the review of boards and agencies. I’d also like to ask him whether that review would take in such things as governance, residency and competency of board members.

Mr. Speaker, we’re not about reinventing the wheel. If work’s been done by previous governments, that would be a good starting point for us. It is part of the work that’s included. This refocusing-government piece will incorporate a whole number of initiatives, this being one of those.

I’m just wondering if the Premier could provide the House with a time frame on the work that’s going to be going into the review of boards and agencies across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, as the Members are aware, we’ve been trying to finalize a schedule of getting the upcoming budget in place and how much of the change we can incorporate in our first year. So the time line’s in front of us.

Much of that work would flow into the ’09-’10 business plan process, so we’re going to see what work may be able to be carried forward. But the refocusing piece, and the amount of work that’s required, would take us more time than the typical approach we take to business planning. I would say much of this type of work would flow through into the ’09-’10 business plan process.

Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Speaker, in wrapping up, I’d just like to ask the Premier why it is necessary that the review of boards and agencies that was done three years ago is going to have to wait that long again to see any real progress being made.

I’m wondering, and maybe the Premier could explain it to me, why are we including the review of boards and agencies with the other work the government’s doing through this reduction exercise in budgeting? Why is this included in that, and why can’t we move forward with the work on boards and agencies today?

Mr. Speaker, one thing we’ve learned — and we must learn from past history —

is if we are going to make decisions, we have to make sure they don’t come back and reinvent themselves because we haven’t quite closed all the loopholes that may be established or end up coming out as we make changes. There’s a substantial amount of work involved in the refocusing-government piece. The boards and agencies are a big piece of that. As I’ve worked with Members, our time frames…. There’s a lot of work being done now. The time frames we have are tight, and that is one of the reasons why it would fall into that area.

Work will be done so that it can be presented, and Members can be reviewing that through the business plan process as early as the fall.

Mr. Speaker, going back to my

Member’s statement, I mentioned I was told that the bids on the highway maintenance contract were reasonable based on the scope of work. I received a letter with some numbers on it, and this letter, actually, Mr. Speaker, is an insult to my intelligence. I’m no engineer, but I know these numbers are not reasonable. I don’t know how the numbers were reached. I don’t know if it was the summer or winter that they used these numbers on.

I would like to direct my questions today to the Minister of Transportation. I’d like to ask him: the decision to cancel the highway maintenance contract — was that made in the regional office?

Mr. Speaker,

the Member’s correct that the decision to cancel the contract was done on the advice of, recommendations and discussions with the regional office.

Mr. Speaker, the final decision to cancel the contract was made with the deputy minister.

Why, then, was the contract cancelled by the deputy minister? Does the region not have the authority to cancel the contract? Why did the deputy minister cancel the tender?

The prices were too high, and with the processing system inside the department, the contract was cancelled by the headquarters.

Final supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

I say again, the letter I received was an insult to my intelligence. I can add these numbers up just as well as anybody else.

I’d like to ask the Minister if the department felt they were obligated to cancel the tender because of public comments made by the Minister to give an additional 20 per cent guaranteed on top of the 50 per cent already guaranteed.

This, Mr. Speaker, doesn’t create a level playing field. I guarantee you any money that if these tenders were opened today, one company will be low-balled because there’s not a fair playing field.

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure Members of this House and members of the public that when this department decides to cancel any government tenders, it’s based on strong merits, it’s based on a financial decision, and this decision was based on a financial position that the tender came in way too high – 2 per cent way too high. This had nothing to do with any other issues. It’s just that the prices were way too high.

My questions are to the Minister Responsible for Human Resources and are a follow-up to questions I asked on Tuesday with respect to Arctic Winter Games and the volunteers.

Recently, in an effort to secure enough qualified volunteers for the 2010 Olympic Games, B.C. civil servants have been offered half their salary if they sign up to help out. The government felt that these are the kinds of programs large employers should be doing to create a positive work environment and good employee morale.

When morale is already challenged in the G.N.W.T., requiring employees to take lieu or annual seems a little shortsighted. The games are valuable. They’re going to add a significant amount of value to Yellowknife, a significant amount of value to the Northwest Territories as a whole.

Given the approach of other jurisdictions and our previous direction in 1998 in the last games, I would like the Minister to commit to reviewing their decision once again and modifying it so these employees don’t have to liquidate annual or lieu for volunteer periods of up to two hours a day.

We’re talking about the Arctic Winter Games. We’re not talking about the Olympic Games or the Canada Winter Games, as have been previously referred to. The government of the Northwest Territories is following a policy that has been in place for 40-some years. We think we’ve been more than generous with our leave policy for participants in the Arctic Winter Games.

Clearly the Arctic Winter Games aren’t as large as the Olympic Games, but for a

Territory of 44,000-ish people, this is a very significant event. Yellowknife is going to have thousands of people in the community participating in the games. For a population of 19,000, having thousands of additional people is a pretty big deal, and they need volunteers.

You talk about our position. Our position has changed. As I said before, in 1998 we gave the employees the time off. We allowed them to take up to two hours a day, where operational requirements permitted, without penalty to annual or lieu. We are now rigidly applying policies and procedures that do affect staff and do make them question whether they’ll volunteer or not, or when they will be scheduled.

Once again, will the Minister look at reviewing their direction on this and being fair and equitable with employees?

If the Member wants us to go back to take the same position as we did in 1996, that would mean we’d have to look at the funding. We provided considerably less funding in 1996.

I just want to advise the Member that we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. I think we have to take a fair approach. Other communities in the Northwest Territories won’t benefit from reviewing this. We’ve followed leave policy, and we’ve expanded it to include head coaches and first responders. I think the government has been very fair in this regard.