When we were going through that housing initiative and putting 500 new units on the ground in communities around the Northwest Territories, land tenure was a big issue at the Housing Corporation and additional positions were needed to allow the construction of those new units in communities and a number of employees were added. I’m just wondering, maybe we need to see an HR plan now for the Housing Corporation as well, because those positions were there. I know some of them were term positions but… How is the Housing Corporation going to utilize the people that are there already with these new positions? Are they going to migrate people into these positions or are these going to be brand new positions, Mr. Chairman? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the intent is to contain our costs, and the questions and suggestions that the Member has, or recommendations, would relate to the business planning process. The Member’s suggestions for an HR plan that will clearly delineate the resources that are now going to be in place to take over the public housing rental scale are all very legitimate comments and suggestions that would be best debated as we look at the main estimates and the business planning process. Thank you.

To my knowledge, I sat through the business planning process that we just had, and I know the main estimates will come before the House in February, but to my recollection, we didn’t have a discussion on establishing these five new positions, but I might be mistaken. Maybe if I could get that clarified by the Minister. Was that part of the discussions during our deliberations of the Housing Corporation’s business plans? Because I don’t recall seeing the five new positions for the administration of the PHRS in those plans. I might be mistaken. My memory might be failing me, but I don’t recall that. Thank you.

We’ll confirm the particulars as it accounts for the 11 positions,

the five new ones. I think there is some ongoing discussion here as to whether we were, in fact, transferring some positions and Education is keeping some as opposed to adding new ones. I’ll commit to the Member and to the Chair that we’ll have that information before the committee by Monday.

I thank the Minister for that. I think that would be very useful information and it would clear things up a little bit, because it does run across both the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure as well as the Social Programs committee. So if that information was to go to P and P, that would be great. Thank you.

Next, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have similar issues with this item. First of all, I’m concerned that it’s only five positions. As the Minister knows, the Members have called for a SWAT team, or certainly a comprehensive and focused effort with a good bump-up in number of people to deal with these arrears that are plaguing our people and our local housing offices. The five positions that are mentioned here, is that the same five positions that would have been transferred from Housing to ECE previously when the transfer took place five years ago? Thank you.

Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I recognize that there is interest in issues broader than this supplementary appropriation. What we’re talking about today is basically carving the money out of Education and the resources out of Education to move them back into the Housing Corporation and this does not talk about any further program enhancement at this point. I mean, those are legitimate questions, once again, but sitting here with the supplementary document, it’s not something I’m in a position to speak to in this particular forum. If there’s further information, I could ask the appropriate department to provide that to committee. Thank you.

I recognize that we’re dealing with a real specific here, but in asking for approval of specifics, of course, we need to do that within the context of the larger questions. I appreciate the Minister’s commitments here. I guess I would like to point out that committee has been promised a number of times for a human resources plan in association with this transfer back, and yet here we are approving something without this plan in hand so that we can have the important context with which to approve or deny these expenditures. I will leave it at that and just ask that the Minister does pursue this and see if we can have the full context provided by a human resources plan so that we’ll know that this is being done as a step amongst many to resolve our issues for people. Thank you.

I appreciate the Member’s comments. This is a step among many others. There’s program work that’s being done. The function here today is to, as I indicated, basically reallocate the funds from Education back to the Housing Corporation to allow that transition and transfer and the program delivery as has been envisioned and supported by the House. There will continue to be other work done through the business planning process, and as the Minister of Housing, for example, indicated extensively yesterday, there are a lot of things underway at the Housing Corporation and this is one part to deal with an issue that has been of concern for some time. Thank you.

Finance, operations expenditures, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $34.214 million

Total department, not previously authorized, $34.214 million.

Moving on to page 6. Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $1.024 million.

Program delivery support, not previously authorized, $150,000.

Health services programs, operations expenditures, not previously authorized, $2.909 million.

Moving on to page 7. Health and Social Services, continued, operations expenditures, supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $6.801 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am somewhat concerned by the numbers on this page. This indicates that in both last year, fiscal 2009-10, and anticipating the cost in fiscal year 2010-11, we are overspending our medical travel budget by about $3.2 and $3.6 million. So I have to anticipate that going forward it’s probably going to be about the same kind of an overage in future years. I’d like to know from the Finance Minister whether or not he can advise what sort of actions are being taken to try and minimize the cost of medical travel, or are we just simply going to come back year after year for a supplementary appropriation to cover the deficit? Thank you.

Minister of Finance.