Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of comments to the motion. I’ve been listening to the Minister’s last two comments he’s made to the motion previous and this one here. What I’ve heard in both is that we’re being offset by federal funding and that one position is vacant.
This is another example of miscommunication. When the department was before Social Programs, I did not hear that. I did not hear that this was being offset by federal money. I heard “reductions to community.” That’s the magic word: community. That’s a word I use a lot in here. We look at it as money being taken from the community and being put into ten new positions in Yellowknife. I don’t know where it’s going, but I continue to have a concern with that.
This is a prime example again of information that should have been shared with the committee at the time we had our discussions on the Justice budget. Had that happened, you would not see some of the motions that are coming before us here.
The more information that we have as a committee, the better judgment we can make and the more informed we are. It’s just miscommunication.
I admit that it’s some of the Members’ first time as Ministers going through the budget process, but still, the department has been there for a long time. They should share that information with the Minister so he could share it with committee, and we’ll avoid a lot of this stuff that we’ve had to go through the last couple of days.
It’s just another good example, Mr.
Chair, of
miscommunication. Telling us the information as we’re bringing the motions forward is too little too late, in my opinion.
Mr. Chair, I’m in favour of this recommendation, and I hope the government does seriously have a look at the recommendations that we’ve made, as 11 Regular Members, because it’s something that we all feel quite strongly about.
Again I’ll say that proper communication would have helped solve a lot of the problems that we have over on this side. We’ve seen it from the beginning of this whole budget process, where there wasn’t proper communication. When you get calls from employees that are saying they’re getting affected letters and we didn’t even know about it, is that communication? I don’t think so.
We made a commitment to work as all 19 Members of this Assembly, to try to bring some of our issues forward. I’m encouraging Cabinet not to forget that. It makes your job a lot easier, having us on board. It makes our job a lot easier, having the information that we can then pass on to our constituents and not have to answer after the fact.
I’ve heard the term “proactive” a few times. We talked about being proactive, proactive, but that’s not happening. That’s just a nice word that we decided to use, and I’m just as guilty as the next guy. We’re reacting to a lot of the information that we’re hearing, and it’s just misinformation, miscommunication.
I think today’s a good lesson in seeing that we’re going to have to change that. Otherwise, we’re going to be going in circles for the next four years.