Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Like I said, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions makes up a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which we’ll be tabling in the House tomorrow. We have had consultation with Standing Committee on Social Programs on that action plan. This $300,000 is what we think we need in order to carry out that portion of the action plan. I think that we’re here requesting that money. It’s not been spent. It’s not something where we’ve advised individuals that they would sit on the forum. If the Legislative Assembly decides not to approve this portion of the budget, then we’d probably develop the action plan without the forum.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your comments on the term sleight of hand. I’d like to try and use that appropriately, because I do agree with your comments that it is kind of accusatory. This program, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, was clearly in process as part of this year’s fiscal budget. We were participating in it. We had been invited to participate in it. We were participating in it. Committee recommended 900,000 new dollars for new programs. Cabinet has shifted that request and allocated those new dollars into old, existing programs. I’d like to know from the Minister why should this not be regarded as sleight of hand.

Somebody will have to give me a definition of what sleight of hand means. It sounds like trickery. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the purposes of this discussion, it was requested that we put more money back into Health and Social Services. We agreed to a number, 1.2 or so million dollars. The Minister of Health and Social Services has laid out where they would propose to spend that money, and we’re having the discussion today about the approval of

the quantum number and new money that was being put into these different areas. We’ve talked about some of them already, the Heritage Fund, the emergency response money, and we’re going to talk about others in a bit here.

The Minister has indicated that if there are discussions and this particular proposal for this forum doesn’t go ahead, that money, unless it’s cut out of this supp by this Legislature, will stay in there and will be spent appropriately, pending the outcome of those discussions.

Once again, I’ll as the Minister of Health and Social Services if he can speak to the specific question about this forum was in the works before this money was voted and the Member is asking if, in fact, there is some untoward chicanery going on here or shell game that we’re moving money around, laundering it or whatever. I’m not sure what sleight of hand means, but it does impute that we’re doing something untoward that wouldn’t stand scrutiny, and I don’t think that’s the case. We are here with new money, but I’ll ask the Minister to speak further to that very specific question by Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The $300,000 is, in the opinion of the department, new money. It is not something that this is an action plan that we are developing now. Like I said, it will be tabled in the House tomorrow. Yes, it has been discussed with the committee. We think that this forms a very huge part of our Prevention and Promotion Strategy. It is one of the bigger parts, aside from the wellness plans and so on. We have some other stuff that is in the works, like the community wellness plans which are funded by the federal government, that we are working on now. This is something that we are intending to fund it internally by the GNWT. It was put in here because we consider it to be a big part of the prevention and promotion. It was not budgeted anywhere previously.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.

Madam Chair, I have a motion in preparation. I wonder if we can wait until we are done on this. What is the process here? Thank you.

What is the wish of the committee with respect to taking a brief recess while a motion is prepared for Mr. Bromley? What is the wish of the committee? Agreed?

We will have a short recess to allow that to take place. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Okay, committee members, when we took a brief recess, Mr. Bromley had the floor. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that $300,000 be deleted from the activity community health programs, operations expenditures.

---Interjection

Mr. Bromley has the floor. Order! Can we have order please? Mr. Bromley has the floor. Mr. Bromley.

Yes, that will be fine right now, Madam Chair.

Mr. Menicoche:

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. This whole budgeting cycle, committee on this side worked really hard with Cabinet to institute some funding. We made our impact on the budget. Often this side, when we get some wins, like in particular this time we got I think here in Health and Social Services overall I think we got, that was not previously authorized, $1.267 million and it was hoped that we’d have a nice, good dialogue about how to allocate these resources. I think the feeling on this side is that government, in its infinite wisdom, is saying okay, there’s extra money so we’re going to spend it.

Well, that’s not how we see it, Madam Chair. When they say “we,” it’s different than our “we.” We as an Assembly, whereas we as Cabinet sometimes they get unfocused like that. So we’re a little bit upset on this side, Madam Chair, but I can say that the Member is upset enough that we can consider a motion to delete this particular line item of $300,000.

I can say that it’s not a line item; I was mistaken. The appropriation process speaks overall to $1.267 million, but I think it’s in the details where government is proposing an expenditure of $300,000’ for a Minister’s Forum on Addictions, and that’s something we certainly disagree with strongly because we never had our input.

The feeling is that we got the money as an Assembly, we didn’t get money for Cabinet. So it’s not up to them to be starting their own priorities. I think the priorities should be us and the Assembly, and working with committee as well.

So I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Health to challenge us not to approve it if we didn’t like it, and we’re certainly prepared to do that, Madam Chair.

Okay, thank you. We are on supplementary appropriations, operations expenditures, Health and Social Services, community health programs, not

previously authorized, $1.267 million. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me reassure the Legislature that what we’re voting on today is, as the Member for Nahendeh said, $1.267 million. There are two different pots: one for $900,000 and one for $367,000, and once that is voted, then there will be opportunities for discussion as there will be on the energy money, how do we move forward with that.

The Minister of Health was asked to look at putting more money into early childhood development. He’s come up with some suggestions. Clearly, what this House is voting on today is that global number and the commitment here is, as we go forward to our normal processes of committees working with the departments, we’ll have opportunities to resolve how that $1.267 is being spent.

There have been some areas that I sense agreement, the cancer screening and those type of things. On this one item, the hope would be that we will leave the money in the global figure and we’ll have that broad discussion going forward.

It’s not an attempt to pre-empt any input or involvement of committee. It was an attempt to lay out a proposed roadmap going forward for that money, listening to the strong debate about the essential nature of the early childhood investments. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think that’s the type of dialogue we’re looking for – willingness – and not to say this is the way it’s going to be done. We worked hard for the last three weeks and it’s just that kind of openness and dialogue we’re prepared to continue on. It’s just that we need on record here today that if we’re not happy with this $300,000 ministerial forum, that government won’t proceed with it.

Thank you. The commitment is to that discussion, so that it’s clear what the final determination is going to be. Our commitment is to have that discussion. Our commitment is to hopefully keep all this money in the budget so that we can have the discussion; and if the money is gone, then it limits the discussion. If the money stays in the budget, then you have room to do other things. So our hope is similar to the Member for Nahendeh, that we have that discussion going forward to resolve this, but we need the resources collectively to do that together. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have a dialogue and that’s what we’d like to hear, and I’m pleased to be moving forward with the supplementary discussions.