Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last few sittings that we have had here since we started the Assembly, there have been a lot of questions regarding some of the human resources practices that this government exercises and we have talked about the career fair and going into the communities. We talk about trying to recruit our northern people into positions within the government. We heard about how many vacancies we have within the GNWT, within the departments.
We are going through the budget process right now where this government, actually the departments determine positions required for them to do the programs and services that they provide the people of the Northwest Territories. These fully funded positions are budgeted for and funded through the
business planning and main estimates process. That is where we are right now. As I said, we have heard a lot of issues on these funded positions that, as committee, we go through page by page, department by department, we look at these positions and we approve them.
Now, not all of these positions are people getting these positions; we have all these vacancies. Where do these dollars go? In discussions with the government, it opened up another, as Mr. Hawkins put it, you peel one layer away of an onion and there is another layer.
It brings me to something that I have to look on in the Financial Administration Act and dealing with how dollars are moved around within our departments. It brought concern to me because, looking at the actions, there is a significant amount of cash and budget that has been approved for within this government that can move from these job positions that we are talking about, that we approve and fund through the budget process.
I will have questions today to see who has the authority to move the funds that we put for these positions within the government, why they are being moved around, and I will get some more clarity on those with questions later. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.