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.