I’ll come back to this question, but I’ll ask another one. I think one of the programs especially on the program officer side, it seems like they’re all in the regional centres and I think this might be a perfect opportunity for this government to decentralize some of those positions from the regional districts to the communities that they serve. That’s something that we should consider looking at, because I think in my riding I have two people, one serves Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson, the other one serves Aklavik, but they both live in Inuvik. I think that whenever possible if it’s possible that those individuals, if they decide to deliver the programs out of those communities, out of, say, their home community, which could be Fort McPherson or Aklavik or whatnot, and they’re qualified to deliver the programs which are presently in the Inuvik headquarter office, because I think this is a perfect opportunity for the people in the communities to have better access to those program staff. Like Mr. Yakeleya mentioned, they come and go and if you don’t get to see them one trip, you’ve got to wait until the next one.
The other thing is that if they’re in your community, they know who their clients are and they can deal with the on a day-to-day basis. More importantly, ensure that the work that is being approved is actually getting done and they’re there in the communities to actually see it happen.
So I’d just like to know, is that something that the department can seriously consider in regard to moving some of these positions into the communities where you have high numbers of clients, where the work is there, that they can operate and shuttle in between those community programs and the regional centres? If they have to go into the regional office, it’s just a simple two-hour drive down the road, it’s not as if it’s a major expense. We have local housing offices in our communities where they can work out of. We have a community office in Tsiigehtchic where we have a sub-office there that’s not being used. So I’d like to ask is that something that we can look at in regard to decentralizing some of these jobs in the regional operations to communities to run those programs and services.