Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The two positions that are in question in Human Resources have existed. This is an internal reallocation of funding to account how they’re paid for, and the positions have been re-described, so the bottom line of the Department of Human Resources has not been changed. They’re not asking for money; they’re just reflecting that particular change. We could have waited and done it in the business plans and just put it in there as an organizational change, part of the internal workings and business of the department, but it was brought forward this way so it was clear and visible.

The ENR piece, the fixed-wing and rotary wing contracts are for a short time period. By the time we get into the main estimates the fire season will be probably in full swing. These are all short-term, important contracts and it’s front-end loaded because that’s when fire season is.

I’ll ask the Minister of Human Resources if he wants to add anything further to the positions question.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Abernethy.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don’t really have too much to add. These positions were created in 2008. They both haven’t been re-described; one of them is exactly the same as it was in 2008, the other is switched from an associate to an assistant deputy minister. It doesn’t change the bottom line of the department. We’re still funding it from within the department, but we thought it was important to not have the positions invisible. We thought it was important for people to see the, so we brought them forward that way.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to both Ministers for the explanation. That’s pretty much what I had understood. I guess the Minister of Finance has suggested that they wanted to make these positions more visible; well, they’ve become extremely visible at this point. Putting them in in sort of a manner that suggests you’re trying to slide something under the table has highlighted it for a lot of Members. I’m not suggesting that anything underhanded was done, by the way.

With regard to the ENR contracts and the fire suppression, the Minister stated that most of these contracts are front-end loaded because fire season starts at the beginning of our fiscal year, but I didn’t really hear an explanation as to why, for instance with aircraft contracts, we need to pay those contracts 100 percent at the beginning of our fiscal year. Is that the case? Do we give the contractor for these aircraft 100 percent of the value of the contract at the beginning of the year? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We commit the full value of the contract – it’s a short-term contract – then it’s paid out on an as required basis. If you need a whole whack of aircraft support – for example, they had huge grass fires in Alberta in February of last year – you have to put your resources to work. You never know what the demand is going to be. If we weren’t doing this interim appropriation it wouldn’t be a question; it would be in the budget, we would be doing the work. The fact that we’re doing a three-month interim appropriation brings into question only for that reason why this isn’t part of the main estimates. Well, it normally would be and we would commit the money and have it available to meet the demand.

Thanks to the Minister. I think I’m getting a clear picture. Thanks for the explanation. I did have a concern in the Department of Executive, there’s a huge increase from the 2011-2012 budget year to the allocated three-month portion in the 2012-2013 budget year for the directorate under the Executive. I wondered if I could get an explanation as to why this amount for this particular three

months of this fiscal year coming up is so much greater than it has been.

That’s the additional money that was approved for devolution and to fund the process and negotiations and all the ongoing work that is picking up speed as we move forward here.

So, to the Minister, was this money that he states was approved for devolution? I do recall that, but is this increase due to the fact that this money was approved as a supplementary appropriation? It wasn’t in the mains for 2011-2012. Is that why we’re seeing such a difference from one year to the next?

The Member is correct.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have another question with regard to Health and Social Services. I share the same concerns that have been raised already with regard to Health and Social Services. Again under Health and Social Services there are some contracts which are paid out 100 percent at the beginning of the year that are fully funded in this interim appropriation and then there are other ones that are paid out a quarter at a time. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could elaborate on which contracts under Health and Social Services are ones that need to be funded 100 percent up front.

It speaks to the issue of getting money to fund contracts for child care facilities for purchased services. Some we can do on a quarterly basis or do it for three months and renew as we go. Others, where there are full-time programs running and some certainty needed in terms of funding would be we’d be looking for the full amount. Once again, as well, to have funding available for those specialized purchased services that are demand-driven.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro, your time has expired. I’ll allow if you any other last questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m struggling to understand the explanation. Purchased services I can understand, but my understanding is that many of the contracts reference programs and services are delivered to our people. Many of the contracts are with non-government organizations. I fail to understand how some organizations will get 100 percent funding at the beginning of the year and other ones will not. If I could get a bit more explanation from the Minister, that would be helpful for me to understand what’s going on here.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Moving on in questioning, we have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments from the Minister of Finance to the interim appropriation bill here, I wanted to clarify that. I wanted to ask, hoping he was asking some of the specifics to the Minister of Health. For example, the Nurse Practitioner Program. We know it’s running. There are going to be graduates this year. This is only an interim appropriation for the operations to continue. I want to ask what plans you have for the nurse practitioners. There are going to be graduates. Is it still a program? Do we wait until business plans? I know some of these things are going to take awhile. I concur with the comments to my colleagues on the senior director positions in HR. After four years we catch it. Why can’t it go through the normal process of the business plans? This is an interim. So it’s a give and take here. That’s what I was hoping to get some responses on.

I understand the Minister is saying that we will make some changes, but some of these things I think are already in the operational plan, some of the details, like the issue with the Executive, devolution. How much money have we received so far from the federal government? Questions like that. The activity with ITI on the explanations for the low level of funding on energy. Some of these programs are sunsetting. Things are happening through this interim appropriation bill. It’s $404 million that we’re approving here.

I think the government needs to be accountable. The transparency needs to be here rather than just saying it’s operations as before. If I could get some answers like why is forest firefighting funding so huge and why everything’s up at front. Those are predictions of the fires that will happen next year. We approve money, sometimes it’s less, sometimes it’s more than what they need.

I guess for myself we want to go through this process and we should be able to answer some of our questions here, other than to put us off and say, well, we’ll do the business plans. I’m not asking for any hard, specific commitments. I know we have a

business planning process. We’re going to have to make changes through the whole Assembly. We’re approving $404 million for three months of operation. We need to have these questions here answered or on notice. I believe the Ministers are taking some of them on notice. There are some things that are going to be changing here. Like I said, the energy initiatives, some of them are sunsetting so that’s going to mean some changes to the way we do our operations.

For me I’d like to have some of these concerns that I just brought up here the last four and a half minutes, five minutes, and see if I’m going to get some answers from the appropriate Ministers.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll speak to the ENR and then I’ll turn over the nurse practitioner question to Mr. Beaulieu.

My response to the Member for Sahtu will be very similar to the one I just gave to the Member for Frame Lake regarding the front end. We bring the fire crews on; we bring all the aircraft on. It’s a very time-specific, seasonally oriented situation. It’s definitely, if not demand driven, it’s driven by the weather and very many factors. Dryness, rain, lightning, those type of things. It’s an emergency essential service in many cases. We need to be fully operational April 1st . That’s sort of the intent.

Which is hence the funding request for that particular portion of the ENR budget.

I’ll ask Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Chairman, with your concurrence, to speak to the nurse practitioner issue.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Beaulieu.