Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess a couple of the key issues the Member raises are what type of duplication does going out consulting cause with the role of the MLAs. The MLAs are elected officials. We gather here. Our job is to run the government, it’s to pass the laws, it’s to listen to the feedback we get from the people. Some Members say and we pride ourselves on consultation and empowering the people and being able to get feedback from them, that we could all benefit from that. There should be no sense of somehow feeling threatened by going to the communities that we’re not going to listen to the MLAs. The MLAs collectively vote and pass budgets and the bills. So to reassure the Member, those roles should be very complementary and there is, no doubt, the final say the MLAs have in this whole process.
The Member mentioned that Yellowknife was only mentioned once in the budget address. If I were to hazard a guess, the last five years Yellowknife was probably mentioned numerous times, repeatedly in this House and in the budget as we worked through that major project. So now we have a major project that has a focus and a location outside of Yellowknife. That does not detract from the fact that a big chunk of the budget comes to Yellowknife. This is the seat of the government. Half of the positions, as Mr. Bouchard pointed out, that have been created have been coming to Yellowknife. So Yellowknife is very present even though it’s not named repeatedly.
The issue of decentralization, in my opinion, unequivocally I can tell you that the jobs that are moved can be easily done outside of Yellowknife. There is not some special something in the air, something in the location that makes the fact that jobs can only be done in Yellowknife. We’ve created a bit of a myth that you need to be here, that you have to be five feet away from the deputy, or people won’t want to live in Hay River, they don’t want to live in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Fort Smith and so, therefore, you can’t fill them and so we will just fill them in Yellowknife. The challenge is we have about 180 jobs we can fill in Yellowknife as well, as well as 180 we are trying to fill outside of Yellowknife. So it’s a challenge across the board, but there’s enormous centrifugal force that attracts things to the centre. The challenge for this august body is to try to counteract that to a certain modest extent. We’ve made a commitment with devolution that we are going to look at new positions and look at relocating them outside of Yellowknife. We’re going to take the time to work with communities, and there is going to be a trickle-down effect and we are going to look at small communities as well.
There is no doubt that communities outside of Yellowknife are more than mature enough to handle decentralization. They just have to be given the opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.