I’d like to note that I also deal with stress through a sense of humour from time to time. So I appreciate the Minister’s answer.

I believe what I will do is send the Minister a copy of my statement because he clearly missed the point.

That is, the reasons these situations arrived is because the communication is not happening. To claim that there are just a few oddballs out there is missing the point. Again, I appreciate the Minister’s response. I think he did offer to try to deal with it a little more in-depth. I’d like to move on to my next question, which is, in the change from worker’s advocate to worker’s advisor, obviously a change in title there. What were the changes in the mandate of those positions with that change in title?

I live in one of the greatest places in the country. I have no stress. I can assure the Member of that. It’s just something I always do. I don’t think that I referred to anyone that we deal with as an oddball. I just want to make those points clear. Okay. The skin is just getting no thicker here so I’ll go on to answer.

The worker’s advisor is not in a position to give legal advice, but they are there to help the workers try to navigate their way through the workers’ compensation application and appeals process.

So that infers that the worker’s advocate was in a position to give legal advice as opposed to the current situation. Is that correct? And if so, I would ask why this government is taking away from the rights of an injured worker. Obviously with an injury there is reduced capacity for income and a reduced ability to go out and seek and pay for legal advice on their own. This is the situation of many of my constituents, or those that come to me with these issues. I’d like clarification on that.

The worker’s advisor is a position that helps them to navigate through the whole process. I would assume that would include seeking legal advice. As to providing actual legal advice itself, I’m not sure that would have been the job of the worker’s advisor. I hope that answers the Member’s question.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the comments from the Minister. I think at the basis here is that legal assistance is required for an appeal. The Minister has said we’re doing great because there are no appeals. Well, there’s no wonder there are no appeals. So what will the Minister do to help address the situation so it’s not a David and Goliath situation here if the worker is indeed wanting to make an appeal and if there is a real basis for appeal, which there could be. I know in situations, for example, where there’s a new injury that hasn’t been classified before, there is a precedent being set for all subsequent people who have that type of injury. Here’s where an appeal might serve both the client and the government, but

there’s no assistance to the client. How can the Minister commit to providing that legal expertise where it really should be there?

In the story of David and Goliath I think Goliath the giant got slain. This is something we would have to go back and have a look at. The worker’s advisor would help the worker navigate through the whole process, which can be a complicated process as we all well know from the many cases that were out there. There are appeals that are happening and I don’t think I meant to say there were absolutely no appeals, but there are some appeals that are happening. The worker’s advisor would help the workers try to navigate their way through the whole system. I can go back and speak to WSCC and get some clarification on this and pass that on to the Members so we’re both on the same page as far as this whole appeals and worker’s advisors process goes.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance. Our government is supported and funded through various sources of revenue. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance if he feels that in view of the global recession are any of those major sources of revenue at risk of decreasing at this time.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my budget address, we anticipate there is going to be significant downward pressure on our revenues. We’ve all heard the news about the diamond mine layoffs, Laurelton Diamonds, the credit issues, the drying up of the exploration, the commodity market going down, the fact that we have sunsetted programs on health, that funding we have yet to negotiate an extension to, the CMHC funding is going to take another $3 million hit next year. We already have some diminished population statistics in the works that are going to affect our formula funding. So, yes, we do anticipate our revenues are going to be squeezed significantly.

I’d like to ask the Finance Minister what specific actions he is undertaking in anticipation of these lower revenues going forward. Are we just carrying on business as usual or are we burning the midnight oil trying to

make sure that we do not find ourselves in an untenable financial situation?

We’re doing a number of things, recognizing pressures from a number of quarters. The issue of reducing services, protecting the service levels, trying to minimize in this time of turmoil and layoffs in other sectors, the amount of layoffs we have here, looking at the program pressures, not wanting to raise taxes, at the same time trying to offset the decreased revenues, it’s going to take all our ingenuity and collective efforts to deal with that issue. I’ve been saying publicly and I’ve been saying to Members opposite already that by this fall we’re going to be gathering around the table to reassess where we sit fiscally.

Yes, we are currently looking at options to control our costs. We did have the good sense collectively to unanimously agree to a budget in 2008 that helped us bring our costs somewhat under control, but those pressures have not relented and they have in fact been exacerbated by the economic downturn.

So, yes, we are looking at various other scenarios and by fall, collectively we will be gathering around the table and intend to share our quarterly variance reports with committee going forward here so we can all track the expenses of government and we’re going to have to put our heads together.

I’d like to ask the Minister if it’s possible for our government to expend our resources in a way that continues to be a significant economic stimulus in our northern economies, but at the same time is prudent enough to keep ourselves out of financial peril, really.

I think we have to look at what we see as the role of government in this time of economic turmoil when we’re in a flat out, big, ugly recession that’s getting worse. The role of government to provide stability, to be an anchor during the storm here, as the economic, the private sector struggles with all the things that are going on with commodity prices and layoffs. We, like every other government, are going to be forced to look at how do we maintain programs, how do we control our costs recognizing that we may have to go into deficit as we are going to do in this budget, but not in a very controlled short-term way as we work our way through what we hope will be a two to three-year process before the private sector once again rebounds.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been my experience that I always find good

advice from people who are perhaps in the public or the public service who are seemingly very good at pointing out things that maybe we don’t recognize or things that we spend money on that we don’t really need to. Can the Minister think of any way to engage perhaps the public service or the public-at-large in a process that could help us to identify areas where we could reduce spending and not have a negative impact further on our economy?

There are a number of ways we are engaging with the people of the Northwest Territories and the business sector. The Minister of ITI just had his advisory panel gather around the table. We’ve committed through Finance to our own roundtable in the fall to look at the budget, to look at the state of the economy and where do we go from here. We’ve had discussions in this House about the need for fundamental things on the ground for smaller things like the Green Teams that are forming in government to look at our own government costs. There are, I would suggest, probably tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings just on the simple things that have been talked about in this House, like timers on coffee pots and having computers shut off at night instead of having thousands of computers and monitors and printers running quietly all night long. Very simple things. We are going to have to look at the whole range going forward. This budget before this House gets us through 2009-2010, but by halfway we’re going to be looking at how to readjust.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have for the Minister going back to my Member’s statement on air transportation. How does the Minister ensure there are adequate and affordable air services in the NWT communities?

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The airlines in Canada are not regulated, so we let the market decide.

What kind of support does the government provide to northern carriers which fly into small communities?

The aircraft carriers that are recognized as northern carriers and are BIPed as such are supported by this government by

requiring most of our travel to be conducted with these airlines and not the others.