This would include up to page 8-39.

Committee, I would like to have you return to page 8-7, Health and Social Services, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $349.926 million. Committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that we have concluded final consideration for the Department of Health and Social Services?

Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank our witnesses here today, Mr. Elkin and Ms. DeLancey. If I can get the

Sergeant-at-Arms to escort them out of the Chamber, please. Thank you.

Noting the time, committee, we will take a short break and we’ll return after that. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Welcome back, committee. Next on our list we have the Department of Executive. With that, we have Premier McLeod. Premier McLeod, do you have any opening comments?

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. McLeod, go ahead.

I am pleased to present the Department of Executive’s main estimates for the fiscal year 2012-2013. The goals for the Department of Executive are centred on our role in ensuring effective coordination of government activities; supporting informed decision-making related to policies, planning and programming; and coordinating the implementation of strategic activities to advance the priorities of the 17

th Legislative Assembly.

The overall proposed budget for the department is $22.862 million for 2012-13, which is an increase of $8.857 million or 63 percent from the 2011-2012 Main Estimates. The overall increase is due to $155,000 in forced growth and $9.301 million for other adjustments related to devolution negotiations and implementation planning, offset by sunsets of $599,000.

The Department of Executive provides overall coordination and support and ensures departments are moving forward in a collaborative, transparent and integrated way. A new committee of Cabinet structure has been established to support the vision, goals and priorities of the 17

th Assembly. A

key role for the department is to support evidence-based decision-making:• by providing information, advice and support to

Cabinet through the Cabinet Secretariat;• by reviewing and evaluating program

effectiveness and efficiency through the program review office;• by developing and distributing statistical data for

policy and program development;• by analyzing key indicators, measures and

outcomes to aid with informed allocation of resources and effort; and• by regularly reporting on our progress.

The directorate includes the office of the secretary to Cabinet and the office of devolution. The office of the secretary to Cabinet is responsible for providing overall leadership for the public service, supporting

Executive Council decision-making, and coordinating the development and implementation of government-wide direction.

The office of devolution includes two branches: negotiations and implementation planning. Members will be aware that the Devolution Agreement-in-Principle includes funding for the Government of the Northwest Territories and Aboriginal governments to address a number of significant issues before a final agreement is reached.

The department anticipates revenue of $2 million related to federal government contributions to support activities between Devolution Agreement-in-Principle and Final Agreement. Although this amount is well below the Government of the Northwest Territories investment of $9.3 million this year, a critical lesson learned from the Yukon devolution experience was the need to carefully plan for the transfer of authority and staff and to make the necessary investments to ensure a smooth transition.

The executive operations branch includes the strategic planning unit, program review office, Bureau of Statistics and the regional operations offices for the Department of Executive. In addition to the core business activities, there are a number of priority areas that will be advanced during 2012-2013.

A key area we are focusing on is finalizing an ambitious work plan for program review, which will complement the planning work being done by strategic planning and be supported by statistical analysis from the Bureau of Statistics. Members have told us it is important to evaluate our plans on an ongoing basis to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness and we have heard them. The program review office will also support initiatives to reduce red tape, which is a priority of the Refocusing Government Committee of Cabinet.

Based on the success of the Single-Window Service Centre pilot project initiated in October 2010, the regional offices will be expanding government service officer positions into five new communities: Sachs Harbour, Tsiigehtchic, Tulita, Fort Liard and Gameti. This will bring the total number of single-window service centres to 13, thereby improving access to Government of the Northwest Territories programs and services, as well as increasing Government of the Northwest Territories employment opportunities in several small communities. Executive, together with Finance, is leading work on organizational design, to take into account opportunities for decentralization presented not only by devolution but also by reviewing all government operations.

Also included in these main estimates is the Cabinet support branch of the Department of Executive, which is responsible for ensuring

systems are in place to support informed decision-making and successful implementation of Cabinet direction. The branch includes the Cabinet Secretariat, legislation and house planning, corporate communications, protocol, the women’s advisory office, and supports the Commissioner’s office.

Other key activities for the department that are reflected in these main estimates include the Ministers’ offices, which include the Premier’s office and support to Ministers.

That concludes my introductory remarks and I am prepared to answer any questions that committee members may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Premier McLeod, do you have witnesses you would like to bring into the House?

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Committee agree?

Thank you. Can I get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the House?

Thank you. If you would be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left is Penny Ballantyne, secretary to Cabinet; to my right is Mark Warren, assistant deputy minister for the Executive.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Thank you, Ms. Ballantyne and Mr. Warren. Welcome to committee. With that, we’re going to be going, committee, to general comments on the Executive. General comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask the Minister about the relationships we have with the Aboriginal governments. I know we have an Engagement Strategy. I guess it’s two-pronged. One, are we going to continue to support the efforts made by this government to strengthen our relationship with the Aboriginal governments right across the North? It’s pretty diversified and quite challenging. However, this should be strengthening our employees to not be so complacent and go out and expand their ability to look at different points of view, the different nations and different governments. We are on Aboriginal land, so come around to those types of issues. We also go to work together. That’s the end goal for these 42,000 people we have in the Northwest Territories. The big ticket prize is Ottawa. We have to keep our eye on that. How do we stay together? Sometimes we have to walk together, not one too far ahead of the other. I’m going to ask the Minister on those type of

discussions that we have with our Aboriginal governments.

The other area I want to ask is: How do we work effectively and efficiently with the people in Ottawa? The Minister talked about our relationship and we have a Federal Engagement Strategy with the Conservative government, Mr. Harper. They’re in power. They have the numbers. They certainly have given us some fairly good money to do some things here. I think we have a relationship that we know we can continue to benefit from. Sometimes I really don’t like what they’re doing, sometimes, but I guess Ottawa has more than the Territories to look after. I’d like to see how we can effectively use whatever tools we have in Ottawa to advance our initiatives such as territorial-wide projects like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the fibre optic link and the hydro. Things like that on a big scale. The biggest one, the Premier and I had the pleasure of witnessing the signature of another Aboriginal government to sign on to devolution. Congratulations there, Mr. Premier. I don’t know how you did it, but you did it, and I don’t want to know how. I just want to say that to you.

That brings me to how we govern ourselves here with this. I look forward to the lands that are going to be under our jurisdiction. There’s a land use framework on how we use those types of tools that we have. The Crown lands are now going to be over to the territorial government. How are we going to work on those issues with our Aboriginal governments who are in settled and unsettled land claim issues? That’s going to be really challenging for the Cabinet. You need all of us to move on these type of issues here. I think that’s something that we need to be cognizant of.

My other comments are with the self-government negotiations. More specifically the one that’s close to signing in my region is the Deline self-government arrangements. I’ve talked to some of the Members and they’re pretty optimistic. They’re looking at maybe two years. I’m not too sure. I’m not involved in the day-to-day, face-to-face negotiations. All I get are briefings from the government here or when I go to Deline. They tell me about some of the stuff and they think they can come through that with some type of agreement. The Deline self-government negotiations are something that is an interest of mine, and I’m not too sure if I will be able to see or will see an LP, legislative proposal, to give the final sanction to that piece there. I know the other communities in my region are working on different levels of self-government, so we’ll continue working on that.

I wanted to also talk to the department here on Aboriginal governments on the duty to consult and accommodate when appropriate to the Aboriginal people and their treaty rights. Especially to the treaty rights. They’re very important. There are

different views of the treaty rights; however, when you go to the communities, the honour of the Crown is always at stake, and we have to be very careful when we go into areas that we may have to consult a little further and accommodate some of those issues here.

I think for myself those areas that I wanted to touch upon, the last one is the issue of – I’m not too sure if this is the department to talk about decentralization. We know devolution is being negotiated. They are looking at positions in the North. We just now have 95 percent completion of our budget for this year. I have with me some information from the research that I asked for and I looked at… Maybe I should talk about it with the Department of Finance, but I wanted the Premier to know through Executive, that when you look at the positions being added to the GNWT this year, there are 62 new full-time positions and 66 part-time positions being added to the GNWT’s budget. Of that, there are notes here I can share, that there’s 57 full-time and two part-time positions being added to Yellowknife, according to the numbers here. You can check them for yourself, but that’s about $7 million being added to the economy in Yellowknife. When you look at positions being added to the regions and the small communities, there’s five full-time and four part-time. That’s about $738,000. There’s a great disparity, a huge gap.

I’m going to ask probably the, I don’t know if it’s this Minister or the next Minister about decentralization, because right now it doesn’t look too good or favourable on our side. These positions are now pretty huge and they’re all being added to the Yellowknife economy, nothing in our community. I can’t wait for you to come out with a decentralization policy while this is happening. I’m awake here. I have to make sure that we get our fair share in the region, and get our fair share in the communities. I want to ask you: Is this what we mean by decentralization? It’s already happening. It’s right in the budget here. It’s black and white. The positions are coming to Yellowknife. There are 62 added to the budget, 57 of them added to Yellowknife, and two part-time. The regions and communities are getting five full-time and four part-time in the regional centres and small communities. I don’t like what I’m seeing right here. I’m not too sure how we can start working on this and I would really like to see a policy that stops this, that says this is not good. We need to look at next year’s budget, hopefully, and I’m not too sure how devolution will affect this. You have $7 million coming into Yellowknife. That’s $7 million into the economy. That’s just on salary. That’s an estimate. I’m not too sure if that’s a correct number. That’s a lot of money that’s not coming to our regions and small communities. All we’re doing is building up Yellowknife. Building, building, building up Yellowknife.

My time is up. I’m tired.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on general comments I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s been a long day here. I’ll try to make these really brief and quick so that we can get into detail here. I just wanted to make some comments on the program review office, the good recommendations and the hard work that goes through there. It’s something that I don’t think we should take lightly within this government and start implementing some of those recommendations to make some of our departments more efficient, and spending the dollars that we do have wisely and with quality programs. The only review I’ve seen, I think there are some good recommendations that came out of there.

With the NGO Stabilization Fund, it’s good to continue to see that in there, but I believe for the amount of money that’s in there it doesn’t reflect the amount of applications, the amount of money that’s being asked for. In the terms of distribution across the Northwest Territories, I think there’s got to be a better model so that we can start supporting some of our regional centres and our smaller communities, as they are probably seeing some tough times trying to keep their organizations above ground and all continue to operate. I was glad to see that there are five new GSO positions. I hope each year that we get to add another one or two. They’re very helpful, especially in the small communities with some of our elders and others that are not too familiar with the process of filling out forms. They’re very helpful in getting those completed. They save time further on down the road.

In terms of devolution, just a little bit more information and updates would be good to get as they’re put out to the public. If not just for us, for the public, so that we know what’s going on. Even maybe from the office itself, the implementation team, any challenges that they have speaking or working with the communities.

Something that I’ve brought up before is the Forging the Future Conference that was done last Assembly, and possibly taking the role on, because we had some really strong youth leaders who made some really good contributions, some good feedback, some good recommendations, that I think they wanted to see some action too and they did bring it to the Legislature and I think we should follow up on that.

These are just some quick, basic ones and as we get into detail I’ll have more questions. Seeing as we got a long night here, I just wanted to keep it short.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Moving on, I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to commend the Executive on what was mentioned; the single-window service centres that are in some of the communities there. I know there’s been great success in Aklavik and I’m glad to see that extending to another five communities, including Tsiigehtchic. I think that’s a very good initiative by the department and I look forward to the outcome of that.