Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering what’s happening with the Financial Administration Act, unless that’s been asked already. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intention is to have it brought into the House for first reading in October. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, page 5-13, activity summary, deputy minister’s office, operations expenditure summary, $89.632 million.

Thank you. Page 5-14, activity summary, deputy minister’s office, grants and contributions, $86.532 million. Agreed? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I realize the amount being contributed to Northwest Territories Housing Corporation has taken a big leap this year, from $67 million to $83 million. My understanding is that this is going towards bumping up housing in small communities outside of Yellowknife in particular. Am I correct in that understanding? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Deputy Minister Aumond.

I know the $700,000 was in there last year, as well, so I assume that’s not part of the bump-up this year. So about $7 million for providing market housing in our small communities. We are transferring a large number of positions or locating a large number of positions through our decentralization work related to devolution and additional decentralization work. Is the housing that we’re providing for these people, will that be covered through the devolution implementation funding?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No.

Thanks for that response. It’s obviously because of devolution that this is happening. I know the Minister is claiming that we’re being very efficient with these dollars, but here we are not using the money that was intended for this sort of expense.

How can the Minister justify not using the surplus devolution implementation dollars to supply market housing in our communities that is clearly the result of decentralization of devolved positions from the government?

Thank you. It’s a bigger issue than just the devolution positions we have as we’ve discussed at some length in this Assembly, a significant number of vacancies, about half in Yellowknife, half outside of Yellowknife and in the smaller communities, one of the biggest impediments to staffing hard to staff positions has been the lack of adequate housing. So we, as a government, have come up with a plan and the Assembly is going to be voting on this to put $22 million, roughly, over three years into housing in the small communities to address that need. In the

other larger communities, the regional centres, housing issues are not going to be covered by devolution and we, as a government, are not going to get back into housing and the Housing Corporation’s focus is going to be on the smaller communities. Thank you.

Thank you. How many devolution positions are we decentralizing?

Thank you. I believe it’s 52. In phase three we’re going to be looking at further decentralization as well. That work is underway and other opportunities for decentralization are being identified. So that’s to date, but I’ll ask Mr. Aumond if he wants to add anything further to that issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Aumond.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. Mr. Bromley.

So it sounds to me like at least 50 percent of this housing cost should be derived from the devolution implementation dollars, obviously, especially given that these devolved positions generally have bodies with them, whereas our vacant positions don’t.

Just on the Northwest Territories Power Corporation general rate application business, I see our subsidies; exceptional subsidies are dropping while the cost of living associated with electricity is soaring through the roof, as people know. I believe close to 30 percent in the last few years increase in our electricity rates, our subsidies are dropping from $15 million to $9 million last year and now at about $3 million this year. What’s happened to the dollars that we were putting into those subsidies?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Kalgutkar.

Thank you for that information. Just to be accurate here, it’s been 7 percent per year for the last three years and another 5 percent on top this year. The question was what are we now doing with the dollars that we’ve been spending. Committee has made suggestions that those dollars should be going into reducing costs of

living especially through energy costs in the NWT in the past. What are we doing with the difference between the $15 million and $3 million this year, and the $9 million, $9.5 million last year and the $3 million this year?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.