Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Moving on to questions, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start off with the office of devolution, if I could too. I am just wondering what is the expected life of this. We start off anticipating a long haul and now we hear negotiations are done this fall, expected to be a final agreement in place. I imagine it will take some time for implementation. I’m wondering what the expected life of this new division is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, the Member is correct; that is our expectation. Right now implementation planning will sunset 2013-14 and April 1, 2014, is the effective date. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chair, it’s great to get specific information. It is rare. Thanks to the Premier for that. That was very good.

Without trying to be hyperbolic or maybe I should say without trying to be too hyperbolic, will the Premier lead the charge in asking all of our residents what they want for a unique northern and responsible land and resource management regime, asking them what comprises, in their minds, economically, socially and environmentally sustainable land and resource management? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, my expectation is that we will do that in due course. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I’ll shift it to the other extreme here. From the 1

st of April 2014, to due

course. Is there any way the Premier could hone in a little more on that? The reason I ask is that I have long said, and many people have said, that it would have informed our negotiations, for one thing. Obviously, it’s pretty late in the game for that now, but it could be very important to implementation and to decisions on what sort of model we follow, for example, in taking down authority. Leaving it to later will be too late. Thank you.

There could be a number of different ways to do it. I think, first and foremost, we have to decide on which approach we’re going to take. If we take a delegated approach, then we have some discussion paper approach we could have. We are working on one outlining our perspective with regard to land use, so sustainability framework. Similarly, if we go with mirror legislation or through the MVRMA, I think there will be limited opportunity to change it because of the fact that it’s premised on land claim agreements. I think the best avenue would be through our Land Use Sustainability Framework. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the comments from the Premier. The point being here, the residents of the Northwest Territories, perhaps rationally in the mind of the Premier, would like input on this. That’s a big decision and a decision that’s made on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. I’d say it’s very irresponsible not to go to our people and have their input on that, especially as this government is on record, as are our partner governments at all levels, at criticizing the federal land management regime. Thank you.

The previous Assembly spent, as far as I recall, about $800,000 going through a process to get input from people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don’t know where to begin in response to that, Mr. Chair, other than give up, I guess.

I’ll take that as a comment, Mr. Bromley. Going back to Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I did forget I wanted to ask a question with regard to a

recommendation from the Auditor General’s most recent report. It was a follow-up on four audits that had been previously done. Within their report, they made three recommendations that apply across government, and I bring it up here at the Executive because the Executive, under the directorate, states that it is responsible for the implementation of government-wide direction. The Auditor General identified three barriers to the operation of the government that are barriers to effective program management. They were: inadequate information to manage programs and make decisions; insufficient monitoring of third-party program delivery; and an absence of detailed action plans to implement audit recommendations. The suggestion of the Auditor General was that this needed to be dealt with government-wide. I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not he agrees with the Auditor General that this is something that his department needs to take hold of and take responsibility for. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My previous view was that I thought we had sufficient oversight. We have an audit committee that is chaired by a number of deputies and involves the Audit Bureau. We have a number of other checks and balances. I communicated that to committee; committee felt that was unacceptable. We agreed with committee and are taking steps to provide the necessary oversight to address all of those shortfalls that the Member has read out to us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the Minister. What sorts of steps are being taken? How will these three inadequacies be addressed? Thank you.

We are working on that. First of all, we are reviewing our existing processes. Right now we’ll have to work with the Minister of Finance. The Auditor General doesn’t necessarily forward his reports to the Department of Executive, so we have to look at that. Do we have to change the process?

Secondly, with regard to measuring performance by third parties, I thought we had a third-party accountability framework. I guess we’ll look at reviewing that. We’ll have to have a tracking system for all Auditor General reports. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the Minister for that information. I’d be happy to provide you with a copy of the Auditor General’s report if you feel you need one.

In terms of getting this work done, I know there’s a fair bit there that needs to be done, but I wonder if the Minister could advise what kind of a time frame they are looking at to try to have the investigation

and the analysis done to try to change things if things need to be changed. Thank you.

I was going to say as soon as possible, but I think a better idea is it’s our intention to meet with the office of the Auditor General to get more background and insight into his recommendations. I would expect that probably within six months we will be able to have some idea with where we’re going with this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That’s great to hear. I would just ask the Minister if he could advise committee in six or eight months’ time. Give us an update on where things are at. That would be much appreciated. Thank you. I’m done.

As per our normal course, we’ll make sure committee is apprised as we move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Page 2-13, Executive, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $9.980 million.