Mr. Speaker, even after hearing Minister Miltenberger’s Minister’s statement today on the Board Reform Initiative -- I’ve been around here a long time -- I still am at a loss to understand what the government is trying to get at by taking such a wholesale and wide-sweeping approach to board reform.

Why can’t we take some small steps? Why can’t we look at the Health and Social Services department,

for example, and look at the governance structures that fall within that department and think of ways of creating efficiencies? Health is a good one because it is fairly integrated across the Territory. Mr. Speaker, to take all the education councils and local authorities; to take all of those local housing boards that get elected every year and mostly just volunteer to do their work; to take all of those...Let’s see, what am I missing here? Education, housing, health and social services...Like I said, health and social services is a different creature unto itself. Mr. Speaker, this is not a game we’re playing here. This isn’t some one person, you know, sitting up in some control tower trying to figure out how to move governance around on the map. These are people’s lives we’re talking about. This isn’t a game of I’m the king of the castle and this is how it’s going to be. I get the impression that this is some kind of a play on some kind of an organizational chart.

I still cannot hear coming through in the communication what the real reason is for the push behind this. Of course, we all want efficiencies. Of course, we want to make sure we have maximum resources at the front-line to deliver programs and services to our people. But how can we show such disrespect for the people at the community and regional levels that are bringing their good thought and their good expertise and experience to serve on these boards? How can we disrespect it? I would dare say that many of them have more knowledge and experience and more dedication -- because many of them do it on a voluntary basis -- than what we see sitting around this table here. Yet we think we’re in a position to dictate top-down to these people and criticize what they are doing by taking this absolutely sweeping approach to changing the way we do government.

There are so many other important things we should be focusing on right now and this is a misplacement of our energy and our resources. After hearing the Minister’s statement today, I would like to ask him to cease and desist. Let’s get on with the important stuff. Thank you.