Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion as well. In regard to addressing the motion, it is very difficult to know where to start. Like the supplementary health benefits proposal, this particular board reform proposal is wrong in so many places that I really
don’t know where I should start to speak against it, so I will just start and carry on.
I have said before, and I think I said earlier today, that some board reform is necessary. I believe that we have too many boards and that there ought to be some consolidation of boards and we ought to try and find some efficiencies amongst the particular board system that we have. But I never imagined that any board reform would be like this, and I feel that the Minister and the Cabinet are naive to think that this is going to work.
I would like to acknowledge the work that was done by previous Assemblies and from previous studies, apparently there is a lot of work out there. The Minister of refocusing government didn’t actually give us an opportunity to see some of that work. We were given one model to look at and to try to respond to, and it is unfortunate that we didn’t get several different models to look at and to try and analyze. Several people have mentioned, what are we trying to fix? I haven’t yet heard an answer to that question and I pose it again to the Minister, and I would love to hear an answer.
This particular model, in my view, is not going to work in all areas of the Territories. We are very diverse in general. In some areas we are quite homogeneous and in other areas we are not homogeneous at all. We are quite diverse, even within various regions. The Tlicho model works quite well there, but even that model has its difficulties. It is my understanding that the health and the education aspects of that particular service board, even though they are under one same board, have two separate year end dates for their financials. So it is not quite as easy as has been proposed, never mind that in some areas of our lovely Territory, we have perhaps two different, very opposing views of how either self-government should go or how certain things ought to be done. We are definitely not homogeneous everywhere.
It has been mentioned before and I want to mention it again, currently, particularly education boards have elected board members. I feel very strongly, as a former education board member, that if all board members on these boards are appointed, it could almost be seen as an infringement of rights, of rights of the individual, rights of the people within the region who are presumably represented by this huge board and the rights, basically, of the general public. It could even be extended down to the rights of children that we are trying to educate or look after their health or house. I feel that if we are going to go with appointed board members that it is going to remove some of the responsibility from the local people, who currently feel passionate, in particular about education, because we have a lot of elected board members for education. I think it removes a lot of opportunity for local input. Appointed
members don’t have the same feeling of attachment to a board as those who are elected. Some do, but not all.
The last thing that probably I think is going to make it most difficult to accept appointed members is that I think they are going to end up turning into bureaucrats. We have an awful lot of good bureaucrats in our government and I don’t want to speak badly of anyone in particular, but bureaucrats have a far different outlook than elected board members. I think that we are going to see these boards become boards of bureaucrats. They are going to think like bureaucrats and we won’t get that representation from the ground up that we need. I think that, as a result, we are going to get an impact on the various health and housing issues that arise, because bureaucrats certainly look at things differently than, say, a parent does. So if we have an education issue and you look at it from a bureaucratic point of view versus from a parental point of view, they are very, very different. So I think what is going to happen is we are going to get an impact on what actually happens in our schools, in our health centres and in our housing offices and that is not a good thing.
By extension, that sort of impact in the schools and health centres is going to trickle down on to the clients of those; that is our kids, our patients, that is the people we are putting into our houses. So I am really concerned that we have to be extremely careful on how the boards are made up.
It has been mentioned -- I can’t avoid mentioning -- that the combining of these three disciplines is going to be fraught with difficulties. There are legal issues. Education boards in Yellowknife, for instance, own property. Education boards in Yellowknife have the ability to tax. What is going to happen in that situation? It is going to take an awfully long time to work through some of those. The legislative issues have been mentioned. Those are going to take a long time, as well, and they are also going to be difficult to try and fix. There are staffing issues. We have different unions, even within the silo of education. Within those unions we have different contracts. We have different pensions. And presumably all these people who work for all these boards, these three disciplines, are going to be brought into the public service and all their contracts and all the elements of their contracts are going to be made homogenous. They’re all going to be the same. Pretty big issue. There’s going to be a huge cost associated with that. Staff working conditions differ. So those are probably going to change somewhat as well.
Most important for me is the focus is different. An education board has a different focus than a health board; a health board has a different focus from a housing office or local housing authority. To find
board members who are going to be able to take each of those focuses and be true to that focus when they’re discussing a particular issue I think is going to be extremely difficult.
As well, we’re going to find within these large boards that there’s a grand temptation to move money from one section of the board to another. Particularly health is known as an entity that will just about drain anybody’s pocketbook. It’s been mentioned earlier by some of my colleagues, but I feel really strongly that there’s going to be a huge pressure on these board members to transfer money from one segment of their board to another. And they’ll be doing that presumably without any local input.
I mentioned in my Member’s statement, I asked where the analysis, the research, the background information is. It may be there, but there’s been no opportunity for certainly me as a Member and I think also members of the public to look at that research and for me to make my own decisions that, yes, this is the best model to go forward with. We have no proof that this is the best model. The background info that we were given basically is to me an op-ed piece. It’s somebody’s opinion. They’ve looked at a number of things and said, hmm, yes, here, and hmm, no, not there; yeah, okay, we’ll go with number two. I don’t call that research and analysis. I’m sorry.
There are huge costs associated with this amalgamation and board reform. Pay and benefits for staff, computers and IT systems -- that’s been mentioned -- office renovations and relocation, and there’s a cost of transition from the current system to a new system. I don’t know that that’s been considered, but that’s going to be huge. As has been mentioned, there’s a possible loss of jobs.
I have a particular concern about the North Slave regional board, which is going to be the area of Yellowknife and a little bit beyond. I have said before and I will say again, I think that a North Slave regional board is going to be a humongous entity. It’s going to be the size of a government department and it’s probably going to be run by a board of seven to 10 people, I’m guessing. That’s an awesome responsibility on people who are appointed. They’re not representing anybody in particular because they’re not elected. And they’re also not going to be there from day to day. I have a lot of concerns about how these board members are going to be able to deal with these three disciplines. What qualifications are we going to require of these board members? Are we going to take anybody off the street? Will they be able to do the job? Not that they...They probably will have the skills, but will they have the time and energy to deal with the problems that are going to arise?
I have seen briefly the presumed layout of the bureaucracy for this new board system. We’re going to have a super board, it’s been called, of chairs of the regional boards and we’re going to create a new Minister. A Minister of Boards, I think is what it’s going to be. So we’re going to have another Minister who is responsible for the regional boards. But we’re also going to have education Ministers and health Ministers and housing Ministers. I’m having a really difficult time figuring out how these four Ministers are going to deal with these three disciplines.
So to conclude, I’m very disappointed in how this particular proposed model has been brought forward. The consultation that has occurred, in my mind, is not consultation. Minister Miltenberger mentioned that this proposal was brought to Members at standing committee and, yes, it was. Most Members expressed grave concerns with the model as it was presented to us. We suggested what about looking at this particular way of doing it? What about looking at that particular way of doing it? Away they went and the next thing we heard from Cabinet was the same thing we heard the first time with no changes. So three times now I think we’ve probably been consulted. Well, twice we’ve been consulted, but three times we’ve heard the same message. I hardly call that consultation. The fact that we were presented with no options is a real concern for me. Again, we should have had a list of options that Members could consider and that the general public could consider, or we should have been presented with a blank page and said, here, fill it up for me, tell me what you think will work. We’ve had neither of those. Again, my disappointment is obviously showing.
In conclusion, I don’t have much to add except to say that I am certainly not in support of this board reform proposal and I will be supporting the motion.
---Applause