Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to provide a few comments on the budget. I think in balance it is fairly good. There are a lot of good things that are coming forward. I will get a chance as we go through the various departments to talk a little bit more in detail about some of the concerns that I have.

One of the issues that I have with the budget is if I was a consultant or a former bureaucrat sitting out there listening to the budget address yesterday, I would be going like this with my hands saying there is a lot of work out there for consultants. There is a lot of work out there for former bureaucrats. I think we have a propensity as a government -- and I mentioned this many times in the past -- to rush out as soon as there is a strategy or plan or a study, rush out and hire a consultant to do the work. Mr.

Chairman, we do that far too often. The issue that I have -- and my colleagues will hear me speak more about this next week -- is the fact that we sole source far too often. We sole source to former bureaucrats. We sole source to former employees. I will get into that a little bit more in detail next week. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but there is a lot of stuff in this Government of the Northwest Territories Contracts Over $5,000 report from last year that somebody could spend a lifetime looking into. I plan on getting into that next week.

As far as the budget goes, I think the government has to be applauded, especially in the area of the environment and the money we are spending in that area. I think that is good. The Minister responsible for ENR has had a lot to do with that. I would like to thank him. I know he is also the Finance Minister, so I guess that helps in that regard.

Also, I think the other thing I would like to see the government looking at a little bit more closely is efficiencies. I know in the budget address we talked about moving the social housing back to the Housing Corporation, that responsibility back to the Housing Corporation from ECE. I know we need to have some sensitivity when it comes to the employees that are involved in that. That has to happen, but if we are spending over a million dollars more to deliver on that program than we were prior to it being transferred over to ECE, that is something the government has to take a serious look at. We have been spending a million dollars over the past four years that we didn’t really need to be spending. The sensitivity has to be there for our employees, but we have to be serious about efficiencies.

In the budget address also, we talked about merging administrative support functions. We talked about consolidating responsibilities for building maintenance and utility costs. We talked about this but I don’t see a plan on the human resource side of things, how that is going to equate into savings for government. We keep doing these mergers and consolidations, but really, at the end of the day, we are not freeing up any money to be spending on other areas of our operations. If we don’t do that in a comprehensive way, I think we are making a mistake. That is the way I see that.

I listened quite closely to Ms. Bisaro’s Member’s statement from earlier today. I share all of the concerns that she has with the program review office. It has been up and running for far too long to have not delivered some more information so Members and those of us who are interested in making decisions have some information to base their decisions on. I would like to see some more work come out of that office. I know they are working on a few other things, but get it in front of committee so that we can start making some

decisions. I was very happy, by the way, with the comprehensive review on the general purpose office, the work that the program review office did in looking at Yellowknife in particular and government-owned versus lease-based in Yellowknife. That was some good work. I think we need to see more of that work so that we can make better decisions as we go forward.

The other thing, too, is we are starting this national marketing campaign. I am fully supportive of the initiative that the government is taking with Minister Bob McLeod and ITI and trying to attract people to move to the Northwest Territories. We have to get some kind of a grip on this $250 million that we are losing annually to migrant workers. That is a step in the right direction that the initiative to government is taking there. I think what is lost in all of this is the government’s inability to address the high cost of living here in the Northwest Territories.

The Strategic Initiatives Cabinet committee on the cost of living has been eerily quiet. We haven’t heard anything from that committee, nothing in two years. Given the fact that we are looking at this electricity rate review, the fact that the Deh Cho Bridge is under construction and in my mind the government has never proven to me that the cost of the living in the North Slave region is not going to increase as a result of that bridge being there, not just in the North Slave region but in every community that is serviced by air out of Yellowknife. The cost of living is going to go up because everything that goes across that bridge is going to be charged a toll. The trucking companies are going to pass that on to the retailers who are going to pass it on to the consumer. That is basic economics. That is going to happen. The government has yet to prove it. They couldn’t prove it. The last government couldn’t prove it. I know the Minister is saying one of the benefits of the project is going to be it is going to lower the cost of living. Well, if you are going to say that, prove it to us. Show us how that is going to happen, because I firmly do not believe that is the case. I would like to be proven wrong on that front.

Also, I really would like to see the Stanton master plan get into a budget sometime in the near future. It is not in this one. I think it is very unfortunate. I guess that is the nicest way I can say it. It has to be there. I think that building is aging. This base heated utilization in there needs to be addressed. The services need to be addressed. I think the Minister has her hands full on that front.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I think those are some of the highlights that I saw. I think in general I can be supportive of the budget this year. There are some things, like I said, that I take issue with, but I have issues with every budget since I have been here, in one way or another. So there are little battles to fight but I think, like I said at the onset, in balance,

the budget is a good piece of work. I appreciate the work the Minister has put into getting it before the House. I look forward to the debate that is going to play itself out over the next five weeks. Mahsi.