Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. For general comments, next on my list I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments, and they’re not in any particular order. I mentioned some of them in my statement today. I want to say off the top to the Minister and to the House, and I mentioned it in my statement, that I support and I did support and I do support the fiscal strategy that we have put in place, at least for the first two years and presumably for the next two years as we finish this Assembly.

I mentioned the electricity subsidy in my statement, so I don’t need to mention it again. But we need to look ahead to what we’re going to do when we come to the end of the rate increases and we can no longer continue putting money into electricity rates. I haven’t yet understood quite what we’re going to do when we come to the end of rising rates and there’s no subsidy.

One of the things that I am disappointed about that isn’t mentioned in the budget, that the 16th Assembly spent a great deal of time on, and that’s the Child and Family Services Act review. There

were 75-some recommendations in that report. There was a commitment to child and family service committees in, I think, one or two budgets ago. I don’t see any reference to that in this particular budget. I also don’t see any reference to implementing any of the recommendations in the Child and Family Services Act review, particularly legislation which was recommended. There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that any changes are coming forward any time soon.

I am disappointed that there’s no new revenue source in this budget, and I’ll speak a little bit more about that tomorrow.

The midwifery expansion I’m very pleased to see there, but I think the way the money is earmarked is not the right way to go. I think we ought to be putting the money into actual midwives on the ground as opposed to putting it into headquarters for planning.

The Minister of Health and Social Services confirmed to me the other day that we will have money in the budget for the day shelter here in Yellowknife. That’s very good news. It’s a very positive program. Were it to stop, I think it would be felt by both businesses and residents of Yellowknife but also by residents in other communities because, as I mentioned in my statement, many of the people using that shelter are not from Yellowknife.

The energy initiatives that are mentioned in the budget, some of them I have great difficulty with. I don’t think they’re initiatives. I think they’re more activities as opposed to initiatives. I regret that we are not in this Assembly taking the same approach to electricity initiatives that we did in the 16th , which

was $60 million over a four-year period. There’s some $5 million identified by the Minister in this budget for electricity initiatives, but some of them, I think it was pointed out by Mr. Bromley, was to put high-efficiency boilers into public housing. I hardly see that as an energy initiative.

In terms of mental health and addictions, there are many concerns here. There should be a focus on prevention and promotion, and the government says there is. I don’t believe that the activities that have been identified in the budget as prevention and promotion are adequately labelled, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. I think many of the activities that the government says are prevention and promotion are not. I think they’ve just sort of put them into this list and labelled them as that in order to make things look good, so to speak.

There is no mention of a treatment centre. There is a mention of detox beds, but there’s no mention of a treatment centre. I believe the Minister of Health has referenced an analysis of Nats’ejee K’eh, but there needs to be a treatment centre in the largest city in our territory.

I am somewhat disappointed and concerned, I guess, that there’s no mention in terms of funding to replace the declining federal funding for housing. CMHC funding is declining continually. We’ve heard discussions over the last year or so that there is a plan for that. I don’t see any mention of that in the budget, and that is a huge concern. Housing is a really big issue for us, and how we are going to continue to fund our public housing over the next 10 years is largely unknown at this point.

Another thing that is not mentioned in the budget – I should say it is mentioned. The Family Violence Action Plan is mentioned, but it’s a continuation of funding from the previous year. The Family Violence Action Plan has many, many recommendations which have not yet been instituted. I don’t see any new money in the budget for advancing the Family Violence Action Plan activities.

The Minister mentioned that we have to focus on increasing employment opportunities. I had to wonder how. I don’t know what he means by that. Yes, we need to increase our employment opportunities, but it’s my understanding that a program which was initiated not so long ago, the Small Community Employment Program, it’s my understanding that that program is not going to be continuing in the next budget year. I really wonder how we’re going to increase employment opportunities if we’re taking a known program off the books.

I mentioned in my statement the early childhood development. The funding that’s being put into that is really a good-news story. I cannot stress enough that if we put money into zero to three, zero to four, preschool-aged children and families that it will have a huge impact on all of our residents, and over time, another 10 or 20 years, we will see great advances and very positive advances in how we are as a people. It will have an impact on our spending and it will reduce our spending for income support or many of our programs and services. We need to continue that focus on early childhood development.

Lastly, I mentioned in my statement, as well, the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I’m really glad that’s coming to fruition. I look forward to seeing the report that’s coming in a few months’ time. I am particularly pleased that there seems to be a bit of a change in government thinking, and in the thinking of Ministers from departmental silos and everybody out for their own to recognizing that, in order to make advances for us as a territory and for our people, we have to involve all departments when we do certain things. The early childhood development was one. There was a discussion, as well, about the Anti-Poverty Strategy and how much it relies on all departments working together. I was pleased to see that in the budget.

So that’s it, Mr. Chair. I don’t have any other comments at this point. I will have questions for the various Ministers when we come to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the electricity subsidy that we have budgeted for to soften the rate shock is concluded, then we will transition to that significant rate increase, but over time as opposed to an increase that was initially potentially going to happen all in one year or two years and be very, very high.

I make note that the Minister of Health and Social Services is here about the Child and Family Services Act review and he will be in a position to speak to that. In fact, we do have a new revenue source that we’re working on, looking at. Of course, it’s tied initially to devolution, and that revenue source is the Resource Revenue Sharing Agreement that is part and parcel of that Devolution Agreement. In the longer term, it will also be the levers and opportunities that allows us to create and manage land, water and resource development as a territory.

We will look forward to the debate on midwifery again. There is a stabilizer program in Fort Smith, Hay River scheduled for next year. The year after that, I believe the plan is for some type of midwifery presence in Inuvik. I will look forward, as well, to the Member’s specific references where she thinks addictions and prevention has been mislabelled in her opinion to make it look like we are doing things…(inaudible)…

There is slightly over a million dollars in the budget to offset some of the declining CMHC funding. In addition to that, we are also looking at the possible divestment of some of the older units, as well, and a number of other things in terms of efficiencies and trying to cut our costs in terms of operation. It is a challenge.

Once again, we share the agreement on a continued focus on early childhood development as well as, as the Member has indicated, we’ll see what the Anti-Poverty Strategy tells us. We are prepared to respond when that’s done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on my list I have Member Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Minister has the much touted “hold the line” budget. One of the things that the hold the line budget does is, when you start concentrating on big ticket projects, it impacts the delivery of projects to the smaller regions and communities. But I just want to say upfront, high on my agenda would be the highways, particularly Highway No. 7, Trout Lake school.

However, I wanted to discuss a little bit about new and emerging issues, and that’s the oil and gas development that’s happening up in the Sahtu. It definitely impacts my region. I also feel that despite success with NWT Days, we lost an opportunity to lobby government in saying that impact funding is needed for this region and my region. There’s much to be done. We’re allocating, I think the Minister said, $1.2 million to assist the Sahtu. But what the federal government has done with other regions such as Voisey’s Bay, Churchill Falls is they’ve actually contributed with the impact and training of those regions. With a great lobbying effort, we could double, triple or even quadruple funding that we have to assist with the development there, most particularly the infrastructure.

There’s a huge opportunity for the Mackenzie Valley Highway starting north of Wrigley. I’ve always said some other regions get their special projects and I think it’s about time we started looking at the Mackenzie Valley. It doesn’t mean we have to take away from other regions. It just means that we just have to continue focusing, and with the investment from the federal government, we can certainly look at developing a Mackenzie Valley Highway.

I know that project descriptions are almost done from Wrigley right up to even Good Hope, I believe. So we’ve got a lot of the work done, so we can certainly make a business case. We should continue our lobbying efforts in Ottawa. In fact, we are working with Mr. Yakeleya. We will be working together over the next couple of weeks advancing this idea forward and, I believe, it should also be a priority of our government, only because it’s a new and emerging issue. Nothing we could have foreseen a couple of years ago.

The cost of living continues to be pressing in my smaller communities. Most particularly during my last tour, we were talking about the cost of fuel. The government controls the price of fuels in the small and remote communities. They are asking me, how can you approach government. What’s the best way you can reduce the cost of living when it comes to fuel? I guess one of the ideas that I had is that somehow, if we subsidize the cost of delivery, that would go a long way. I don’t know if that can be done right away, but I think we should work on that. We often say that devolution and extra funding is going to help a lot of different program areas, so I think if we can recover the cost of deliveries to the small communities, then the fuel will be almost $2 per litre. It’s only because in the smaller communities, these people use it on a day-to-day basis. They are out on the land, out in the boat, out on their skidoos. They need this gas to sustain themselves.

I want to focus on the health centre replacement for Fort Simpson. A planning study is coming up this

fiscal year and I’ve already heard that when we replaced the health care centre in Fort Simpson, we are going to reduce long-term care beds again. So I’m looking at my colleague Mr. Bouchard who, right from day one, has said we’ve lost 10 long-term care beds in this new health facility and, potentially, I hope I don’t. I’ve been asking the appropriate Minister for more information on the planning studies, because I don’t want to lose these long-term health care beds. In today’s questioning, I think the Minister told Mr. Bouchard that we’ve got spaces for them, but if you are reducing, potentially, up to 20 beds, where are all these people going? Are you going to build a long-term care facility somewhere? I would like to know where all these long-term care beds are going.

I think the point of power is in the moment, Mr. Chair. If you are planning these health care facilities, just spend that little bit of extra money and continue with long-term care beds in the community. Hay River is an example now. They have to go through the capital planning process and somehow add 10 more long-term care beds to their facilities. I’m not too sure about government’s infinite wisdom on planning. Everybody knows that statistically we’ve got an aging population and we’ve got to plan for seniors.

While I’m on health, and during my last tour as well, Mr. Chair, community wellness plans are being developed by all my smaller communities. They are really well done. The community works hard on it. I know that the departments have worked hard in developing the community wellness plans, but they are saying it’s good to have a plan, but let’s resource them. I think, for example, the community of Trout Lake is saying, I think we had $18,000 in the past to deliver community wellness. I keep saying that at least 30 or 40 percent of those costs are for travel. Trout Lake is a fly-in-only community and you are using a lot of your money for travel expenses, getting people in there. That’s what they’re saying. We have this great plan; well, you have to resource us.

I know that we increased the Health and Social Services budget in prevention and promotion. I’d like to ensure that these programming dollars get to the communities. It has been said in the media and in this House, we have great programming, but let’s make sure we spend the dollars and get them out to the communities. I think we often see we will develop a nice big program, but then we’ll create a job, often in Yellowknife. Out of a $400,000 program, you are creating a $160,000 job position in Yellowknife and then you cut your potential programming dollars right down to 60 percent almost. We have to deliver our programs, spend the programming dollars in the communities.

Finally, in conclusion, I mentioned devolution as well. As we continue our planning with devolution

and continue our discussion, we have to create infrastructure in the regions and in the communities so that we can continue on with decentralization. I am a firm believer in it and we can do it. I know in the past, like in the community of Fort Simpson, departments have actually said, well, we wanted to give you a couple more jobs but there is no housing or office space there, we have to start planning for that, we have to build another office space in Yellowknife. That’s going to be their argument: there is no office space in Simpson, but we have lots in Yellowknife. Those are the things we have to be aware of and pay attention to. I would like to see that continued to be involved in devolution and planning for decentralization. I won’t be doing my job as MLA if I’m not trying to get resources out to the communities, decentralization and jobs out to the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Next year, as we expand the capital plan, there will be money for highways like Highway No. 7 on an ongoing basis. Once we ink the devolution deal and we have that nailed down, the fiscal framework will change somewhat. As well, we still have to manage our money and control the growth, the size of government and all these good things. We have collectively agreed that we need to focus on infrastructure that we are spending roughly $1.6 billion on programs and services, and barely less than 10 percent of our money goes into trying to do the infrastructure needs, and replacements and maintenance we need.

Sahtu oil and gas, if it proves up, we will be in a significantly stronger position going forward in terms of approaching the federal government, in doing business and planning. If we know for certain that there is going to be a major… If it is going to move from exploration into development and implementation, then that will be a game changer.

Right now we are still in the very early days where we’re putting money and resources in there to try and make sure we can respond to the demand by the ramped up exploration, but the big next step is going to be to see what it tells us.

We agree that road north from Wrigley to Norman Wells is a logical next step for the Mackenzie Highway. Once again, if the Sahtu oil and gas play proves out, then there’s going to be a powerful economic driver to have that road put in.

The issue of trying to lower the cost of living in communities is something we are always interested in. Is it subsidizing the cost of delivery of fuel? I think that’s a discussion we need to look at. As I indicated, one of my earlier comments, just on liquid natural gas alone, if we can in fact lower the cost of energy generation in communities, we will be better off and that will lower the cost of living.

The discussion on the resources for community wellness plans and getting the money to communities, we agree. We want to get the money to where it’s targeted, but that is a discussion you will be able to have with the Minister of Health when he is at the table.

Once we have devolution and we get the money to the A base, we will be responsible for delivering all of those programs or services currently provided by the federal government. Then we will have the time to plan. We’ve already started the planning on devolution and some places that need beefing up. There will be an opportunity to look at what those are. I have indicated some of the communities are more ready than others; Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Smith. There are challenges in other communities, but we are committed to looking at those. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Could I ask the indulgence of the Chair for two minutes? I need some break time.

---Laughter

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. With that, we will just take a quick recess. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Welcome back to the committee. We are going to continue on with general comments. Next on my list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This budget, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

---Laughter

It is the learning process of doing this budget here over the last nine years. The Minister has been quite steady and has been quite consistent with the message from government. I do want to, on a serious note, offer my condolences to him and his family. That is part of business in the government and continuing on doing what we have to do.

The process that we have entered into is doing our committee work, doing our consultation with the Minister, but the Minister also… I want to hear more about the Minister’s public consultation on the communities with the demonstration of the legal blocks, and the efficiency and effectiveness and if we in our constituency… This is a good measurement if we’re doing our work right, by having the Minister do a public consultation on how the money could be spent, and what we’ve been telling them over there, that we’ve been meeting with the Minister in committee meetings to look at some of the wish lists of our ridings here. I want to see if we’ve got value for our dollar through that consultation process.

Mr. Chair, the wish list comes up every year, and we go through an exercise called the business planning session. I do want to give my thanks to the

Minister and to the Cabinet Ministers for responding to some of the needs in the Sahtu in regard to the proving up of resources that are happening right now in the Sahtu with regard to the oil and gas exploration, the record 11 parcels that have been taken up by the five major oil companies to expend over $630 million for five years, with an extension of their licences to be renewed for another three or four more years.

The people in the Sahtu could see that we’re going to need the help of the government to deal with the increased activity in all sectors and all fronts of the territorial government. Even with the RCMP in Tulita, we thank you. I’ve been getting calls from Tulita saying that the increase of activity, because of alcohol and other issues that deal with the laws, there’s a high number of criminal activity happening in all the Sahtu communities. So we have some support there, also with ENR and ITI and Education. We want to thank the government for responding to the needs.

There’s probably going to be another request as the activities continue, once the oil companies look at the area they’re working on, and more looking needs to be done in that area to have a business case go forward to look at a different type of development in that area. So I do want to say thank you to the government for responding in this area for us.

The process that we go through is very tedious. It’s long. We have many meetings. We look at the other big projects that are going on with regard to devolution, decentralization, governments, infrastructure, programs and services, and we try our best to respond to some of these needs in our communities.

We also have to deal with the fiscal realities, as the Minister states, of what’s on the table right now. That’s what we have to deal with. Some of them seem more beneficial to the whole of the North, and some of the communities that I serve continue to push for basic essential services for the well-being of the people, such as the communities without RCMP stations or health nurse stations in our communities. There are communities today that are not served by those basic essential services. We need to look at some of those and start adjusting our priorities to say that, in this government, we’re going to make sure that we start filling those communities with RCMP officers or nurses or the quality of our educational schools or the so-called schools. It’s a very tough juggling priority we look at, but that’s what we are here for. We’re here for those things. There are many issues that I see in the budget that we can work on.

My colleague talked about the cost of living. It’s something this government can work with us, with Nutritious North Canada and look at the entry points of Nutritious North programs coming to the

North. It might be cheaper for them to have an entry point in Norman Wells, Inuvik, Simpson, Hay River, so that we could take advantage of, once they are in Norman Wells, we could fly them to the Sahtu communities which would reduce the cost of food in our communities.

I talked to Minister Ramsay in our exchange the other day about providing some flexible, strong opportunities to have northern fish, bottled water, those types of things come into our community. I’m looking forward to some flexibility with this budget. I look at some of the things that we could embark on, such as the Voisey’s Bay model that Mr. Menicoche talked about, and see if that would fit the scenario with the Sahtu.

Some of our communities continue to suffer high employment, into the 42 percent, and somehow small employment opportunities, a program that was fought for and approved through this government, is a question that we need to think about. Some regions have and some regions have not. I want to look at the employment of our small communities and look at the small employment opportunities program that we had going.

I also want to look at decentralization through the percentage of positions in our region that are hired by the GNWT in the North Slave, South Slave, Tlicho, Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta. I want to see how we can get those numbers that Mr. Bouchard talked about, so that we can start preparing our regions for these decentralization positions, because what is there now for us to go on? Where are these positions coming? Which region is going to benefit in the millions once these positions are signed over to the GNWT? Where are they going to go? We have to have a hard look at these numbers, a sobering look and say, the matter of the fact, Jack, $20 million is going to come to Yellowknife and $100,000 or $2 million is going to come to the Sahtu or the Delta regions. We have to have that discussion. That’s why we’re here. Those kinds of things I want to look at.

The last thing I want to say is, we have to look at empowering our people. They have the answers. The Minister and the Cabinet, I want to thank you for the budget. It is a good budget, but we still have a lot of work to do. Let’s not sleep now. We have a couple of more years to work before we go back out and ask for our jobs again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. I will look at his last comment first where he talked about how we have to empower the people. That was one of the goals, I think, of the public consultation process, to take the time to go to each regional centre. Next year we want to improve on that process, but to talk to the people as

Northerners about how we manage the money we have, living within our means, the challenges we face, the discussions we have here. Did we get value for money was the question that the Member asked. I would suggest to you that yes, we did, that it gave us some specific suggestions. It provided a broader confirmation that as a Legislature we are in touch with the people we represent. A lot of concerns that they’ve talked about we have been trying to address for some time.

The prevention piece, do a better job. More money for infrastructure. Look for efficiencies. Avoid red tape. Put more money into infrastructure. Take advantage of economic opportunities in an environmentally sustainable way. Those are all things that as a government we’re committed to try to do, and we’re going to… Some things we didn’t address in this budget but we’re going to go back again next year, next fall, and we will pick up some of the pieces.

One of the things that came up, for example I was asked about by the press, was there was a significant arts and crafts representation in the budget dialogues here in Yellowknife and we, in this budget, didn’t manage to address the concerns that they raised, so that will remain on the table in the coming year as we look at the next budget.

The key in the Sahtu, as we’ve talked about already, is should the Sahtu oil play prove up, the world as we know it will change. We appreciate the need for essential basic services in communities, and we’re going to continue to do the work that we’re doing. But once again, in the Sahtu if there is going to be that massive influx, a big oil play, lots of money, employment opportunities, then it’s going to be a matter of how to manage that success. We’ll be there.

We will have the discussion on decentralization, as we’ve committed to other Members. Over the long term, once we’ve signed the devolution deal and the money’s in our base, we don’t have to rush to do stuff right away. We have to take the time to think about it because once it’s done, as the Member said, it will be hard to undo.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Moving on with questions, general comments, I have Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just some comments from a territorial view in terms of where things are at with the Deh Cho, the riding I represent. For the most part, I think this budget is a status quo budget. There’s nothing really extraordinary about the budget, but it’s a responsible one in that we’re still experiencing a downturn in the economy so we have to really watch in terms of balancing our revenues and expenditures. For the most part, it’s a responsible budget, and at the same time, we have to give the Minister credit for leading a team on this effort to

come up with a budget that’s workable, of course. He’s been at it for some time so I would like to give him at least credit for that.

In saying that, there are some concerns that I have in terms of how it is that we’re trying to maintain the budget. That one area that was highlighted just briefly is in terms of the personnel that we have or the workforce that has become the GNWT. We seem to have lots of people that we hire and we maintain the operations, obviously, in Yellowknife. If we identify an issue or concern that we would like to have addressed in the community, for the most part, I’m not saying that it happens all the time, but generally what our approach is to identifying issues, maybe create a position, and then, unfortunately, the obvious decision is to house the position here in Yellowknife. There is another option. The other option is to consider at least some discussions at the community level, and look at the approach of trying to build capacity at the local level and ensuring that locally, people understand how systems operate so at least we build the capacity to ensure that at least we give the option of communities preparing themselves for eventually becoming more responsible in terms of delivering the governance responsibilities to their residents. I would like to at least be constructive and bring that forward and see if that could be realized within this fiscal year to ensure that we meet communities to try and ensure that we build up to capacities.

There are some good things that have become of this budget and, of course, it’s ongoing. There’s the fibre optic opportunity that would be extended right down the Mackenzie Valley. There are some good energy projects, as well, that have been initiated, like efforts made to take advantage of the biomass initiative. I’m hoping that it won’t wane. We need to ensure the sustainability of this operation, that it’s not just a one-time thing. A program initiative like that, I think, periodically we need to step back and try to fine tune it so that at least it’s delivering not only the needs of addressing energy options but at the same time making it sustainable so that they can be initiatives that perhaps we can carry out for a long stretch and ensure that we maximize the opportunities for it.

Briefly too, in terms of some of the other concerns, there are some initiatives. One of them is from one end we have the Economic Development Strategy that we’re developing. I look forward to that. Of course, the Mineral Development Strategy that we’re developing. We need to try to balance the social needs in terms of some of the real challenges that we have at the community level. We have rates of social issues that we need to contend with at the same time. There are some very fundamental challenges such as the rate of education and training of our people.

There are standing socio-economic agreements at the mines that have to be honoured not only from industry but from governments. The governments, at the same time, really need to extol and encourage our people to advance education as an opportunity to at least elevate them out of the circumstances that sometimes beleaguer them and withhold them from going beyond some of the challenges that people find themselves in.

Briefly, if there’s anything that I kind of look forward to is the communities that I represent and looking at their aspirations. I think there’s an interest to see at some point, maybe it could be next year or it could be within this period, in terms of providing programs and services and looking at the needs of the public in terms of safety. I think there’s an initiative in terms of trying to enhance the volunteer fire departments at the local level to ensure they are prepared fully to be on the offensive if a matter arises on the highway and they have to mobilize the crew to go out into the highway and help the public in terms of, perhaps, a vehicle fire. They need to be in a very ready and poised position to respond to that. I feel that we could be doing more in terms of preparing local fire departments, which are for the most part in the communities I represent volunteer fire departments.

Of course, there are other initiatives that I feel that, perhaps, will come down the road within another year or so and that’s recreational infrastructure. Looking at addressing at least the needs of our youth, I think sport and recreation is a very positive thing. It’s strong. We need to try to meet the interests of our youth to ensure we have facilities wherever we can. I know in some communities, like the community I come from is at least examining the idea of trying to enhance the use of the arena, the recreation complex, and that’s going to require some cooperation and a level of discussion with the community levels.

There are other initiatives, too, like with communities to try to undertake more with less. The key thing is that we’re trying to build capacity and prepare our communities to deliver these services to the residents and at the same time trying to live within the means of the budget. Sometimes we don’t have a lot, but we really have to go that extra mile to carry at least limited funds.

For the most part those are just some of the comments. I understand we’re going to have more opportunity down the road. Generally, for the time being those are the comments that I have.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, as well, Mr. Nadli’s comments and recognition of the hard work that the folks have put in to try to build this budget. His concerns are very consistent in terms of some of

the outside-of-Yellowknife issues: size of the bureaucracy, centralization versus decentralization.

The biomass project in his riding is being designed for the long term to be sustainable. We’re working on forest management agreements. The proponent has worked very hard to build up a business relationship with the communities and the Aboriginal governments, has signed agreements, looked into the employment opportunities, the partnership arrangements that are there, and it should stand the territory in good stead for many, many years to come, both in terms of the energy and the employment opportunities it’s going to provide.

As the Member indicated, there will be significant opportunity over the next five weeks with the other Ministers to discuss a lot of the detail that the Member has raised in areas like recreation facilities and employment opportunities and those type of things on a going forward basis and some of his suggestions for the future.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Moving on with questions, I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t spend a lot of time, although I could probably talk well beyond 10 minutes. I just have a few things I want to pick up where I commented the other day and was unable to sort of highlight my thoughts on the budget because of the restriction on the Member’s statement.

I wish to applaud the government’s focus on the early childhood development, although I caution the government in the sense that I worry about where the money may be coming from or be filtered through and what departmental programs through education school boards will be suffering for that. I’m grateful the money is emerging, but where is it coming from? In some respects, when we’re looking at programming, it’s certainly necessary. We have to look at things like inclusive schooling. Inclusive schooling, as we all know, is a very intense type of service offered within our education system and it comes at a great range. Some students only need a little help; others need a full-time assistant. I could be correct or even mistaken when I say I think I’ve even heard of one situation that they needed more than one person to help them. It is such an important role that we play within that and, of course, we see government finding new ways to do business and I just fear that it would come at the cost of our education system where they’re trying to provide the best services and opportunities for those who want to participate and need to participate.

The discussion about detox options and model provided by the Minister of Health the other day were quite interesting, and he did talk about two bed opportunities in Inuvik and two in Yellowknife. I

mean, that’s certainly a great step forward and I cannot ignore the fact that I wish to thank him for that and how important that is, but the next phase really is to now talk about a treatment centre and how we build that into our continuum of care for offering people good and clear options. I, like other Members, found that budget discussion or dialogue very interesting. I think it ran around $40,000. In some ways, in discussion with the Minister, it’s difficult to put a price on good consultation and building relationships, but what I would say, though, is what type of duplication are we looking at and how is it getting into the system and being recognized. In some ways, I wonder that the same messages that were delivered by constituents at the Lego building exercises are some of the same messages delivered by MLAs and I often worry, and I stress this, that are our message is being drowned out because we’re MLAs or is the government only taking us serious when they need our three votes or are they taking those Lego exercises by the public more serious than our message that we try to deal with here today. So the frustration of potential duplication and the fact is sometimes I wonder that is our role being appreciated. Not everyone has the benefit of sitting on this side of the House or realizing how challenging it is to run these issues up the flag pole. It becomes quite frustrating at times when you articulate a message but somebody walks in with a piece of Lego and they seem to make more sense, which is frustrating.

I would like to say that I do appreciate the concerns, and they are certainly not lost on me by my community colleagues. I understand and I’m not a stranger to the reality that options can be few and far between, whether they’re employment options, housing options and the list could go on well longer than my 10 minute allotment of time.

At the same time, we’ve always got to be cautious. The word Yellowknife was really only mentioned once, if I read it correctly, in 12 pages of the Minister’s budget speech, where I think he just mentioned the Inuvik-Tuk highway alone six or seven times. This isn’t a criticism of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway Project, but I worry more in a broader scale of things, almost 50 percent of your population in the centre. I realize we have synergies that should never be ignored, but by the same token, we can’t ignore the needs of the larger centre because the larger centre does have different needs. What we do need, though, in the longer haul is a philosophy in strategy in how we ensure what is considered an equitable support system throughout our community regions and I do support the development of them. Just so people know, Yellowknife is not such a bad place, folks. I wish you wouldn’t beat us up for being the community we are.

That said, I understand in the glaring, if not immeasurable, needs that some of the community regions need. At times, some are so obvious to support when we support them, we wonder where has government been for years and never touched upon.

When I consider just one more issue at this particular time because I think I got through most of the initial concerns, though I could probably go on at length, the decentralized position issue is certainly an issue for everybody. Those who want the jobs, by all means, those who need the jobs in our communities, you know the fact of trying to get some type of employment dollars in those communities is very critical. Those micro economies have to be developed and, certainly, strengthened. The only concern I have here while we are doing the budget process, I don’t recall that many particular positions being highlighted as simple as it is in the budget speech. That said, I wonder if that glazed over was never in our budget development process in our budget plans. I wonder if it never really got the deal that was required. That said, of course, I’ve asked some of my colleagues and someone will say, of course, we’ve heard those numbers. I don’t remember hearing those specific numbers ever in our particular discussion.

We were made known, near the end there would be some jobs being moved in a particular department. That said, I worry, have we done enough to consider new opportunities and new focus. It’s an easy sell for me by saying if we want to establish a new service, we should look outside of Yellowknife. It doesn’t pay me to say if we were establishing something new, we should always look outside the region to see if we could make it fit and, certainly, make it flow. But it does cause concern when we operate a particular area within government, regardless if we were moving from a small centre to a larger one, not necessarily Yellowknife, but the change in the community and the dynamics, certainly the change of the employees and how they feel, it does seem in a microcosm of not being very sensitive to that.

I do appreciate the fact that the challenges to get those jobs out there are great. It’s easy to say let’s just do something and it’s difficult to actually do. I understand that. I can appreciate that decisions have to be made. Like the old proverbial you can take the band-aid off slow or you can just rip it off and do it, I can only imagine these are tough decisions to make by anyone, whether it’s a department Minister, director or managers when they are trying to find positions to go.

The only question I would have for the Minister is back to the decentralization points. Perhaps you could put on the record exactly which positions are being decentralized from that number that has now been refined a little. What kind of notice to

employees have we provided and what type of program evaluation have we considered? Not all decentralized positions need to go, say, to Hay River, when we have Norman Wells, Fort Simpson, Inuvik. How did we come about saying one should go to a particular area over another in the sense of the economics and making sure that they do work and are supported?

I think my colleague Mr. Menicoche’s point earlier was very well made, which is it’s great to talk the great line about saying let’s farm positions out, but housing availability and options are a true challenge. In the same token, I think he’s right. As well, I think Mr. Bouchard had made this point about building space and future availability about future building space, I think that needs to be part of the bigger program, because if we want these options to succeed, we have to start off with the philosophy of ensuring that they do have the best chance. So the likelihood of them succeeding all comes down to the evaluation and consideration. It’s great to say they need to be there or there, but by the same token, at what type of evaluation? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Miltenberger.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on my list I have Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn’t going to make general comments, but after hearing my colleague from Yellowknife Centre, I guess I do need to talk about the budget here a little bit.

Yellowknife only got mentioned once in the budget address? Like please. This government has got to look outside of Yellowknife. I mean, Yellowknife might as well be on a different planet when you get out into the other communities. It’s not even in the same league, and how for these few jobs that are being decentralized after, for my case, 18 years of begging in this House? I know beggars can’t be choosers, but we are definitely beggars when it comes to getting government jobs.

Finally, this government and this Cabinet have responded with a few jobs for communities outside and we have to worry about whether we are being sensitive to the employees that are being moved.

We live in Hay River. We live in Fort Smith. We live in Norman Wells. We live in Fort Simpson. There’s nothing wrong with these communities. Whether there will be infrastructure, the minute the word goes out in a community like Hay River that there is potential for needing privately invested office space or infrastructure, whatever is needed, it’s just that nobody can afford to build it on speculation and hope that maybe something is going to come there.

We can’t build it and let it sit there empty while the government decides if they are going to send something. But there would be lots of capacity, I would suggest, in communities outside of Yellowknife, and particularly if there was a little bit of heads-up and a little bit of notice that there was some economy coming.

It’s not good out there. I come to Yellowknife after being back in Hay River for a few weeks. I’m driving down Old Airport Road and there are new buildings that have sprung up while I was gone over the summer. It’s great for Yellowknife. Is there anything wrong with Yellowknife? Absolutely not. We should just all move to Yellowknife; that would solve the big problem, wouldn’t it? We aren’t going to do that. We want to have viable, sustainable communities outside of the centre.

I am very happy that this government has finally seen fit to move a few jobs. Yes, the government continues to grow. I am sorry; I guess I am to the right when it comes to fiscally conservative. I don’t want to see government grow for the sake of growing. I don’t want to see the government and the public service growing on itself. Industry will decide where they want to go.

We don’t have a lot of control over that as a government, but where we do have control over government offices that can be away from exactly where the programs and services are delivered, we have an obligation as a government to be fair and live up to our stated commitment for sustainable and viable communities across the Northwest Territories wherever that’s possible. I personally would support that going out to… One or two jobs in some of our smaller communities would be a big thing.

In Hay River, on the few that we are getting is a big thing. There is so much buzz in Hay River about these few jobs, decentralization, these new positions, our phones were ringing off the hook after the budget address. What is Hay River getting?

In Inuvik I know it’s the same thing. Times are not great there. We struck a program review office here to look at government programs. The big prize finding that came out of it is that we should build a $40 million office building in Yellowknife downtown to relieve the pent up demand -- I just love that term -- that pent up demand for office space and infrastructure in downtown Yellowknife. Of course, I know the argument will all come back that it was to save money and everything, but it just put more infrastructure into the centre. We know devolution is coming. We have to be prepared for that.

I am happy with what we have. Thank you to the government. It is a start. As it was described to us, it’s the beginning. It is the easier things to identify. But our Cabinet represents the whole territory. I do thank them for finally seeing the plight of some of

these communities outside. It’s quiet. It’s quiet in Inuvik. It’s quiet in Hay River. It’s quiet in Fort Smith. We can’t make industry appear with jobs. But where our government can make sensible, efficient, effective, viable transfer of positions and programs and services, I think we need to do it. But like I said, I’ve been preaching that for a long time. I am really excited that finally there are a few things happening. It has a ways to go; it is a beginning.

I just had to respond to my colleague from Yellowknife Centre. It is great that Yellowknife is doing as well as it is, but we have to be fair and we have to look beyond.

I don’t even know what else I had to say about the budget. We will get through it in great detail in the days, the five weeks that lie ahead.

Just back to the point, though, for a moment about being fiscally conservative and not getting ourselves as a jurisdiction into difficult financial times, as the Finance Minister alluded to earlier. I still think there is lots of room within the money that we do have and the way we do spend money, to spend it more wisely, to spend it smarter. That’s, I think, where we have to focus a lot of attention, because it isn’t like for a jurisdiction of 42,000 or 43,000 people and we don’t have a fair amount of financial resources. We do. But to get the most results from those financial resources, I still think there is a lot we can be looking at. We have the room. We have the capacity to look at how we do spend our money and to respond to needs with the right kind of spending. With that, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Miltenberger.