Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the key goals established as Members of the 16th Assembly was to work to

ensure that we have effective and efficient government. I fully support this because any way we can make sure government is more relevant to the needs of the people, I believe we demonstrate effectively that we are providing value to the work we do here for the people of the North.

One of the priorities that was established is to meet these goals through what we define as effective government, efficient government and value for government through our program reviews. Mr. Speaker, the Program Review Initiative for government was committed to be undertaken to do analyses on our programs that we do. As everyone knows, the program review office has been established within the Department of the Executive and staff were assigned to carry on this work through the established mandates and target areas. Mr. Speaker, that still leaves some questioning what official areas they are talking about.

Although I support the principle of this work very strongly because it needs to be done to make sure that we are working hard and efficient, if truth be known, one-third of our term has gone by and I fear that this initiative may be lost to wishful thinking and we may never have time to fully implement the values of the work that’s being done. Members still hear that progress is being made, but we want to make sure that we’re an equal partner in this process.

More importantly, on top of the issue, the gathering of this information is critical for us to program our wishes, our goals, and our dreams going forward for the needs of the North and to make sure that our economy is running properly. Is our government running efficiently and effectively? I sometimes wonder, but the information still hasn’t come across my desk. That alone points to the fact, is it? I don’t know.

The work of the program office is a critical component to the value of work that we do here. I ask the Premier and the rest of the government, and of course the overview committee for refocusing government, to make sure they get on this work while we leave here in the next while; sorry, before we return here in May, because this will be critical with the upcoming business planning process that will begin tomorrow.

The business plan process creates a new life on its own because the bureaucrats within the system are already starting to prepare the draft business plans that will come up in the summertime that will be moved forward to committee members in the fall. That’s why it’s so important not to miss the next opportunity, because we will have to wait a full business year before we get to deal with this again.

The message I really want to get across here is MLAs need to be informed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.