Just to give the Minister a little clue on Peter Pan, it’s pixie dust, not fairy dust.

Can the Minister clearly indicate what savings were realized by using this FMB policy in the past for years? In other words, what total dollars were saved from 2010-2011, from 2011-2012 and from 2012-2013 by initiating this Passive Restraint Policy?

Of course, I will defer to the Member’s superior knowledge when it comes to Peter Pan.

In regard to the savings, every budget that we have done in the life of this Assembly has met the targets that we have set out in terms of managing with fiscal discipline the budgets of the first two years to control our expenditures, the forced growth limits, the hiring limits, all those types of initiatives. We have met those targets this year. While we are still continuing with passive restraint, we are going to be able to in fact honour the third year plan, which is to add $25 million to the capital infrastructure budget this year as well as next year. Thank you.

The only sound I am hearing on this side of the House is tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Clearly the Minister is fine with sharing his numbers with the committee, but somehow 24 hours later he has no idea and has nothing to present to the people of the NWT, which I think is quite shameful.

Given our questionable financial situation in the current budget, where we continue to have a number of funded, dormant, inactive positions and a miscalculation of our taxation revenues, can the Minister indicate if the Financial Management Board is initiating any passive restraint policies in its 2014-2015 budget, and if so, what are its targets? Thank you.

Just so the people at home are clear, this is the Legislative Assembly, not never-never land.

The issue that the Member has raised, the answer is yes.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I would remind the Members, since I was a kid, I have heard Walt Disney in this building more than once, and now this. Let’s try to keep the decorum going respectfully. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bang on. I agree with you.

In my view, this government’s duplicitous free spending of its entire first installment of the resource revenues in this current budget is a clever maneuver to cover revenue loss, but sadly, it’s not so clear, from the Minister’s comments today, the need to find additional offset savings for the miscalculated taxation revenue.

That said, why is this Minister financing and not initiating a full court press of passive restraint initiatives in this current budget to find the much needed savings? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Member has accused us, once again, of duplicitous behavior and nothing could be farther from the truth. There was no miscalculation of our estimates for income tax, corporate or personal income tax. We are here with the budget, it’s transparent, we’ve been going through the business planning process like normally we would, we’ll go through the public accounts, and to have the Member accuse us of duplicitous behaviour, to me, is uncalled for and it is not acceptable.

If he wants to stand up and point to something that is truly duplicitous, then I would have him do so. We are on a full court press, we are going to find savings in this budget and we are going to find an additional $30 million in the ‘15-16 budget as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Deh cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Part of the initiative that we are undertaking through the Early Childhood Development Framework is aimed at dealing with that matter and providing the best services we possibly can for children of the Northwest Territories, covering all communities and regions as well.

Some areas we have been providing to those communities through Education, Culture and Employment through the Early Childhood Development Framework, and the action plan with 22 recommendations is the part of the plan we are willing to move forward on. Once the budget is approved, then we will be rolling out the program to the communities. Mahsi.

It seems that once the budget is approved, that’s when things will move.

The other point is people are very familiar with the federal initiative. The federal initiative, not a GNWT initiative, that’s been very successful is the Aboriginal Head Start Program and some communities have taken advantage of that.

In my statement I talked about child poverty, noting the high rate of poverty in small communities. The ECD Action Plan will involve data that measures children’s readiness for school. It’s an internationally recognized instrument called the EDI.

How are kids in small communities performing on the EDI compared to kids in Yellowknife or the regional centres? Mahsi.

It’s important to note that the EDI has been performed throughout the Northwest Territories so it can capture how our children are doing in the small, isolated communities versus the regional centres and larger centres as well.

The Member is raising some areas of concern about how some small communities are in a different calibre compared to regional centres. That is quite true. We need to focus on those areas. Due to that fact, we are developing action plans. We have developed action plans around the Early Childhood Development Framework and the whole

Education Renewal Initiative. We will be developing an action plan towards that, too, as we move forward this summer.

We want to capture those individuals that may be falling behind in small communities, providing the best available resources, the best available services we possibly can to reach out to those individuals in the small communities. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Minister’s response. Recognizing that there is a real disparity between how kids are doing in the small communities compared to the larger centres and, actually, Yellowknife, I’m worried that this government will feel fiscal restraints and fail to adequately fund the Education Renewal Initiative.

Can the Minister commit to a substantial increase in funding for this initiative and especially in attacking dismal education outcomes reported in small communities? Mahsi.

The Member is quite correct; with our GNWT fiscal constraint, we are challenged with that throughout the whole Northwest Territories. At the same time, we must move forward on the initiatives before us. We certainly will be providing or developing an action plan towards Education Renewal Initiative and Innovation. That will be available by this summer. Based on that, it will highlight the cost factor for those recommendations being brought to our attention as part of the recommendation plan. Once that’s available, then we will go through a business planning process, then we will highlight the cost factor from there, so it will be captured as part of the business planning process. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I’ve highlighted some realities and facts that our government is challenged with, but more so the responsibility of Cabinet and the Minister. At this point, there seems to be a push for an action plan to be developed and strategies, initiatives, to address the poverty issue.

What steps will the Minister take to ensure that there’s an immediate response towards addressing these very core issues of poverty in the small communities? Mahsi.

As it’s been highlighted with the budget address in this House, it is capturing a lot of social issues in the small communities. I believe we have gone a long way to reach that point where once we go through this action plan through the Education Renewal Initiative, then it will capture those small, isolated, vulnerable communities. We initiated that earlier.

Part of the pillars we have is focus on small communities, small community schools. Those are key factors and part of discussions we have been having with engagement with the public and we will continue to do that. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about having the courage to finally publicize some of these direct appointments. First of all, we don’t know how many there are and we don’t know who are getting them. Annually, the Legislative Assembly tables our public service report. We could table the names and positions of where these direct appointments were issued and directed. My question will go to the Premier of this Assembly who is in charge of Cabinet and could make this decision and show some political courage today and demonstrate some accountability.

Would he finally be willing to table annually the direct appointments that Cabinet makes in secrecy and show the Northerners, both the public service and Northerners, that these appointments aren’t being based on who you know and who you’re related to? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member gets his picture in the local rag and he thinks he’s a movie star. The answer is no.

That was an original answer, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure to even bother acknowledging it.

Why won’t the McLeod government show some courage for a change and say we’ll prove that these direct appointments were meaningful and appropriate and we can honestly measure them? Right now, there’s zero accountability on a single one of them.

Again to the Premier, would he do something different by showing the public he’s being accountable by annually tabling who got these jobs and which jobs they went to?

Direct appointments have been a management tool for this government ever since this government has been in place. On every occasion, a direct appointment is a benefit to the government and it is provided for through appropriate legislation and we will continue to use that practice.

The Member complains that we don’t have positions filled. We’re trying to fill positions and now

he doesn’t want us to fill positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.