Mr. Speaker, this scenario started as a result of when we first talked about the fact that we were going to have to reduce our budgets, the fact that we had to live within our means, and it would be over two years. We were going to try to find enough money for reinvestment scenarios as well. We haven’t met our target, and we’ve had to lower our reinvestment target as well.
The fact of how we did it was laid over a two-year process. The list we’ve shared with Members — the decisions and direction we’ve set…. Members have been notified of that. We will get the information to the Members to clearly establish the fact that the list we’ve given Members is the same. No other discussions have been made on any further reductions in future years, because we’re going to go into a business planning exercise coming up.
In fact, we’ve sat down now, as a result of some of the back and forth in Committee of the Whole, to clearly set out the guidelines as to what the process is, and we’ll share that with Members as well.
For the record, when we talked about reductions we had to make as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we were urged by Members and the UNW that if employees were to be affected, we give them as much time to do their planning and to know they were potentially affected. We’ve done that. We’ve been following that practice. It is different from what we’ve done before. With the confusion it’s caused, for future practice in this area we may have to go back to the traditional way of doing business.