Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 248-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016; Bill 37 and Committee Report 15-17(5).

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agreed?

Okay, committee. We will commence after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We have agreed to consider Tabled Document 248-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016. I would like to turn it over to the Minister responsible, honourable Minister Miltenberger, to make opening comments. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here to present

Supplementary Estimates (Operations

Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016. This document proposes an increase of $11.3 million in operations expenditures for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

The more significant items included in the proposed supplementary estimates are:

1. a total of $4.6 million for the Department of

Transportation associated with runway service improvements at the Yellowknife and Inuvik airports, of which $1.6 million is offset by a lapse in the prior year;

2.

$2.4 million associated with various departments to provide devolution transition funding for the continued transition of authority of Territorial lands, water and resources, of which this full amount is offset by lapses in the prior year;

3. $1.5 million associated with the Population

Growth Strategy which includes:

• $1.3 million for enhancements to the NWT

Student Financial Assistance Program, and

• $215,000 to support the GNWT Immigration

Program.

I am prepared to review the details of the supplementary estimates document.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister, do you have witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Minister Miltenberger, if you’d be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the House, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me the deputy minister of Finance, Mike Aumond; and Sandy Kalgutkar, our deputy secretary to the FMB. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond, Mr. Kalgutkar, welcome back to the House. Good to see you. Committee, I’ll now open the floor to general comments on Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1. General comments. Does committee want to proceed to detail?

Thank you, committee. We’ll proceed with detail. Committee, I’ll get you to turn to page 3 of the Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016. Expenditures on behalf of Members, Legislative Assembly, operations, not previously authorized, $8,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $8,000. Any questions?

Agreed, thank you. Page 4, committee, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, operational expenditures, intergovernmental relations, not previously authorized, $50,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $50,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Throughout this document we have quite a few

items that have to deal with the adjustment to the Collective Agreement. Can the Minister maybe give me a little more explanation why these numbers weren’t available during our regular process of budgeting? I guess it’s spread throughout the document. So, if the Minister could just explain to us why this is a supplementary estimate as opposed to the regular budget process.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These numbers are calculated as of April 1st , and some of it, as we’ve noted, some have

gone up and some have gone down depending on the communities in the region. Thank you.

Thank you. I guess, would we have not negotiated these allowances in the process, or would we not have known that number or estimates based on April 1st when we went into

budget?

These numbers are set on a methodology that’s negotiated with the UNW, but I’ll ask the deputy to provide more information. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering if we’re able to get that information or is it available on a public website where we can get the new northern allowance adjustments or the new allowances and which communities went up and which communities went down.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can provide that information to committee. Thank you.

I’ve just got a question about the ones that are going down. Is that based on the fact that the cost of living is going down in some communities? I would assume most of them or all of them would have gone up. So what would the differences be and why would there be a negative?

The one thing that comes to mind, and I’ll ask the deputy to speak further to this, is things like if you put in a bridge across a river, possibly, I’m not sure of the methodologies there tied to cost of living, inflation and location and those types of things. But I’ll ask the deputy, Mr. Aumond, to speak further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.

So if we’re using Yellowknife as the base and also using the calculations of the community, it could be the price in Yellowknife went down or the price of the community went up or vice versa I guess. Is that the factor or, I guess, how do we keep that stable in the fact that the greater the northern living allowance adjustment to a community, the cost to the community may have gone up, but if Yellowknife was affected then everybody gets affected?

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, we’re on page 5, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $84,000; income security, not previously authorized, $1.332 million; labour development and standards, not previously authorized, $226,000. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am in the right section. I wanted to ask a bit about the $215,000 here to provide funding for increasing immigration to the Northwest Territories in support of the NWT Growth Strategy. I’d like to ask the Minister where this strategy is. I don’t believe that Members on this side of the House have seen that strategy. I would like to know what it is that ECE is doing that will contribute to this Growth Strategy to increase immigration. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The update on the NWT Growth Strategy is on its way to committee. I just signed the letter at the break and we will be tabling it before the end of session by Thursday.

What is contemplated here is to deal with the increased number of seats that we have, spots that we have with the Immigration Program and to be able to ramp up the recruiting and the advertising and getting the required immigrant staff or folks who are interested in coming or immigrating to the Northwest Territories to get them into the system, through the system under the new Express Program that has been set up and to make sure that we have every position that we have available for our nominees filled. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. It’s difficult for me to feel comfortable in approving a fund, sorry, and to approve this funding in the absence of knowing exactly how it’s going to contribute to a plan that I haven’t seen yet. So, I appreciate that the Minister says that it’s coming, but it certainly would have been helpful if we had had that strategy before we had to approve these expenses.

I just want to say, in my limited experience with trying to get somebody through this Nominee Program, it’s not an easy process. It seems to be fraught with bureaucratic red tape and much of it, part of it is imposed by the feds, some of it is our own red tape, but the Minister mentions the express, I forget the title, but an express route, I guess, through the Nominee Program. Does that mean that some of these roadblocks through red tape and through requiring this document and that document and this evaluation and that evaluation, are some of those going to be waived so that we will be able to get people here quicker or better? Thank you.

Yes, the intent is to look at a six-month timeline. It’s geared to economic immigration where you can go in and reach into the lists that identify people who have the skills, if you need to bring in, to offer employment to. We had a base of 150 spots and we’ve received an additional 100, so we are very keen to get those all filled and operational as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s all well and good. It sounds good, but what is the department going to be doing to fill these 250 spots? There’s money here and there’s also money in ITI, so it ends up to be about $314,000. What are we using that $300,000 for? Thank you.

We’ve got $100,000 identified for a communication campaign. There’s $30,000 identified for communication materials for the campaign strategy; $15,000 for website change, revisions and ongoing maintenance; French translation, website and all

other materials is $20,000; immigration, legislation and regulatory training is $10,000; travel and transport, NWT and national, is $20,000; and international travel and transportation is $20,000. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for the detail. I accept it at face value, but I just have to reiterate that it’s hard to know exactly how this is going to fit in with a strategy we haven’t seen yet. Thanks. That’s all I have, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. More of a comment, but I will allow the Minister an opportunity to reply. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We note the Member’s concern and hopefully the proof will be in the pudding here in the not-too-distant future. If we can fill those hundred spots and each spot that is filled is calculated to bring in somewhere in the neighbourhood of potentially three people or a shade more, depending if they’re married and how many children they have, it’s an investment that I think we need to make. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to follow up on my colleague Ms. Bisaro’s comments. I’m obviously uncomfortable with this without the context of what the strategy is, something we’ve heard talked about for years but have never seen the pudding.

Did I hear that we’re going to spend something like $100,000 on communication materials? If I did, maybe I can get some explanation, in this day and age of busying your thumbs for a couple of minutes and being able to communicate across the globe, exactly what that $100,000 is going to.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a highly competitive area, especially economic-based immigration, so we have to look at what’s available in Canada, what may be available elsewhere, and we have to be able to make sure that the people who have the skills we need are where work’s possible, probable and available in the Northwest Territories, and all that requires some of the SEED money to do that. Thank you.

Again, not something I can support. We have extreme unemployment in parts of the Northwest Territories, and we’re travelling, there are international programs here and so on, and I’m all for immigration, but my understanding is there’s a lot of people trying to get here, and I don’t see how we’re spending over $300,000 on this

when we have already so many people who, with some training, could start to fill in these sorts of things. We’ve got the students graduating. The schools in Yellowknife are some of the best in the country, so we know we’re producing capable people. What are we not doing to bring those capable people back home?

Mr. Chairman, as we have discussed and we have been taken to task for, the population is flat or declining. Everybody in the Northwest Territories who has skills, qualifications, that is available to work, for the most part is working. We have a very high employment rate in that area.

We know that there are job requirements in the North that aren’t being filled. We are investing money, as well, to do a better job to make sure that northern students are given every opportunity to return home with employment with the government or anywhere else that employment may be available. We’re making changes to SFA to provide more incentive for that to happen. We’re going down south now with the Human Resource folks to job fairs and such, sometimes in conjunction with partnership with industry, where we can now hire while we’re down there and make interim job offers pending reference checks.

So, this is not just that there’s only one level to pull or there’s a silver bullet. We know that we need to look at all these different areas. We know that many of our own students when they come home, even if they get jobs here, especially if they’re in the fly-in/fly-out, may go south anyway.

So, we have all these challenges and we’ve been tasked and we set out a goal of 2,000 in five years, four now, and we need to leave no opportunity unexplored in order to bend that trend. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s comments but, I mean, many of us take a completely different view. It’s that we’re not doing the right things to retain our people. We are training some of the best people in the world, very professional people coming out of the Northwest Territories and they’re leaving, or not returning, after education. Why is that?

I wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question, but we have people coming and going all the time. We have some of the best benefit packages, lifestyle issues that we think would attract folks, as do the private sector. But the reality is we have a fly-in/fly-out population that is fairly large. We have our birthrate that balances out, but on the exodus side we have some folks leaving, a few more leaving than are coming. So, those are questions, one that Mr. Bromley raised, that we are trying to deal with, with incentives to come here and to stay here and to bring folks from other places where there are jobs that are going unfilled because there’s not available

skilled labour in that area that want or can do that job. Thank you.

Again, Mr. Chair, we’re doing all these things and they’re not working. Is there not a lesson to be learned there? I mean, we hear over and over again that people want real supports, not big money going to big multinational companies and subsidies and $300 million highways, you know, that are going to cost us to try and maintain. People have real needs right now, and if we were delivering those properly, we’d be retaining people, we’d be giving them the quality of life that will make them want to be here and we will be attracting those skills. So, without that reasoning laid out in a strategy that supports expenditures like this and programs like this vetted through committee, I can’t support this sort of thing.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’m taking that more as a final comment. Is there a question to that, or is that the end of your questions, Mr. Bromley?

No question.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. As convention presents itself, I will let Minister Miltenberger have the final comment here. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a challenge ahead of us and it does require some investment. We can’t just turn our back on trying to address the issue. I know the Member’s position is that we can somehow find all the talent we need in the North and if we keep it here it will all be well and good, but first we need an economy.

We have diamond mines that add $1.6 billion to our GDP every year. They have a significant fly-in/fly-out population. We are working with the mines. In fact, there’s a meeting this week to talk about this initiative, as well, from the private sector’s perspective and the things they’re doing to try to keep and encourage their workforce to stay in the North, and it’s a long-term commitment.

You can’t just, after 18 months, throw up your hands and say it’s not working and let’s not do it anymore and then wonder why our population keeps dropping. We have to make decisions, make choices, and we have to make investments, and that’s what this is.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, we’re on page 5, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $84,000; income security, not previously authorized, $1.332 million; labour development and standards, not previously authorized, $226,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.474 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 6, Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, conservation, assessment and monitoring, not previously authorized, $1,000; corporate management, not previously authorized, $9,000; environment, not previously authorized, $206,000; forest management, not previously authorized, $15,000; water resources, not previously authorized, $519,000; wildlife, not previously authorized, $59,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $809,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Turn to page 7, Executive, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $575,000. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some concerns with the two items of funding on this page. The first one is under the directorate and it has to do with funding for costs associated with the communications functional review. Five hundred sixteen thousand dollars is itemized under directorate and then $335,000 under Ministers’ offices. I know we’ve been back and forth with the government a bit on this between Members and Cabinet. We have had some information about what this expenditure is for. I’d like to, first of all, I guess, ask the Minister, since this is an additional cost and I don’t believe it’s being offset by any funding that we already have like federal funding or devolution money or whatever, but I’d like to know what this $516,000 under the directorate is going to be used for.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This funding is coming from transitional funding tied to devolution, and there are two things at play here. One is we have taken over about $63 million worth of new programs and services that we’ve integrated into the government with many new responsibilities, mandates and authorities. We’ve integrated them into the Government of the Northwest Territories. As well, we have a communication infrastructure that’s 20 years old and in need of enhancement prior to devolution, even more so now after devolution. We’ve taken on, for example, significant regulatory functions. We need to be able to manage those and other communication responsibilities. This money is going to go towards identifying what needs to be done and then putting in some funding to in fact address the communications issue, an issue I would add that, once again, we’ve been taken to task for time after time by Members of the Legislative Assembly, in terms of things that should

be done better, that need to be done better, and we’re attempting to do that in a reasoned way.

I would ask, as well, if the Premier wanted to add anything further to that particular issue.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’ll go to the Premier. Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, we feel that it’s important for us to fulfill our new responsibilities by having better communications, functions and structures, and in order to meet these requirements we’re requesting funding that has been through the devolution transitional funding which will provide for three additional positions, three in the corporate communications and two in the Cabinet communications. This is an opportunity to provide communications that would respect our unique northern cultures and also fulfill a lot of the principles that we’ve talked about, to ensure the public is informed on a timely, accurate and consistent manner, that it’s managed in an orderly and planned function, that the public is informed about government policies and activities and that the concerns and the views of the public are taken into account and ensure that the government is visible and accessible and that adequate information is provided.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to both Ministers. I hear that this money is going to be used for five new positions, and I can appreciate two things. I can appreciate that we’ve taken on greater responsibilities, and I can also appreciate that our communications have been seen to be lacking. I am certainly one of those who has suggested that we could do things a heck of a lot better. But I’m wondering where the decision that we needed five PYs has come from. Minister Miltenberger indicated that this money is going to be used to look at things and determine where to go. The Premier indicates that there are five PYs, so how did we come to this decision that we needed five PYs?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a GNWT communications functional review that captured this and did their review and took a look at what was needed to enhance our capacity. We’ve attempted to be very reasonable that what was in an ideal communications systems would require a much greater investment, but once again, I’d ask if the Premier wants to add anything further to that.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’ll go to Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did a communications review that looked at all of our responsibilities. They also interviewed deputy ministers and senior management and offered to interview MLAs. We also recognize the fact that, as we stated, we have new authorities, new legislation and program responsibilities, and also the communications environment is changing very rapidly with the advent of social media, 24/7 news cycles, and we also focused on communications professions standards such as communications policy, currency and congruence, strategic management of the communications function, professional functional excellence. We did look at other jurisdictions, the other territories which have smaller public service sizes and less government expenditures and smaller populations, where the Yukon government, for example, has 59 communications staff, the Government of Nunavut has 32, and the Northwest Territories has the largest public service size, the largest government expenditures, the largest population and we currently have 27 communications staff. So we took all of those into consideration. Functions review made some recommendations and we determined, through the results of the review, that three positions in the public communications sector and two in Cabinet communications will fulfill the responsibilities in the communications area that we feel are required. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks again to the Minister. I have a few more questions here. First of all, this is being funded through transition funding, but presumably once it has been funded through our devolution transition funding, it’s then going to be added to the base. So, this is an increase to our budget, I’m presuming.

The Premier mentioned that through this report and through comparing Yukon, Nunavut and NWT, the determination was to add five PYs. Does that mean that this is the final decision that we’re adding five PYs to our communications and our staffing complement is going to be 32 now, or is there going to be further additions to our communications staffing later on down the line? Thank you.

For that we’ll go directly to Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the review, we feel that would be sufficient to fulfill all of the responsibilities. As a government, we constantly review our programs and services. So, at this time, we expect this will fulfill all of those responsibilities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just with regard to the nature of the funding, this is coming out of implementation funding to the A-base, so it will be ongoing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have 18 seconds, so will fit another question in here. I appreciate the clarification on the funding, but we have just recently approved an operations budget in early March. We are now being asked to spend an additional $800,000.

Why was this expense not put into the operations budget which we approved just a few months ago? Why does it have to come forward as a supp? Thank you.

The work was still being concluded. The report has been written, the assessments made. We had to take it back through the due process and we weren’t able to get it done in time. That would have been our initial preference, but it was not possible, hence this request through the supplementary appropriation process. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Next on my list I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro covered a lot of the questions I had, but I will ask some of the questions a bit differently. I have concern with the fact that we’re equating these positions and this funding through our devolution fund reserves that we have, but after the devolution money has been spent, this becomes part of the cost of the GNWT. Obviously, on top of the positions we’ve added to devolution, we’re adding five more positions into Yellowknife. Is there any way we can make these term positions and we look at the assessment and the effectiveness after the devolution money has dried up after spending all this money on these positions?

I’m having a difficulty with the fact that we’re creating more bureaucracy and I’m not sure what we’re going to communicate more to the public. Often we get criticized with government about our communications, so I’m not exactly sure what these five positions are going to do with the communications of government. Could the Minister answer some of that information?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With devolution there were two funds. There was one-time transition money to help us over the course of the year to get up and running and then there was implementation funding where we negotiated a global figure, $65.3 million a year

tied to our formula that will increase as our formula increases and goes into our A-base. It’s out of that $65.3 million that these positions are being funded from. That money will go into the A-base. It’s not coming out of existing government expenditures, nor will it. That funding is covered there. Then the issue is, just to quickly restate, we have a system that hasn’t been looked at in over 20 years, a communications system that has been the target of a lot of concern and unhappiness.

We’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities. We have funding available into our A-base where there is some funding available to help us pick up our game when it comes to a communications system. First we did a review that laid out the things we need to do, areas that need to be addressed. There are four areas: We are under-resourced on a comparative basis, we need to better define the roles and purposes, which we are doing, we need to work on consistent messaging, and we have to make sure that what we’re providing is what is needed by the citizens. All this requires and points to the fact that we’re not as well organized as we should be and we are significantly under-resourced. We think this will address that issue. Thank you.

I’m trying to get clarification. I think on Ms. Bisaro’s question, the Minister indicated it was going to be added to our ongoing costs and you just indicated to me that it wouldn’t be added to our ongoing cost, but be part of ongoing devolution money. Can I get more detail? How are these positions going to be funded after devolution money has been expended completely?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. For that response, we’ll go to Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.

So I think I’m getting the picture here. This is funding from the federal government

on an ongoing basis. Why would we continue to have these positions if part of these positions are just to assess our communications system now? The Minister indicated we need to assess our communications system and the way we communicate. In my perspective, that would be reviewing something that would only be a short period of time, something we would need as a term, not a full-time position where after the assessment is done, we don’t need that position anymore. Why wouldn’t we do that as a term position or why wouldn’t we do it as a contract to have the assessment done?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. This was a two-step process. We did the functional review of our communications system which gave us the information that pointed to areas of concern, including the under-resourcing and being better organized to take on these new responsibilities. Based on that work, which is already done, we’ve come forward with this request to put some resources into the communication systems to make sure we can address those issues, improve the communication systems and incorporate all the work that needs to be done with the new authorities.

So, I apologize to the Member if I wasn’t clear enough, but both those things were done. Thank you.

Then I guess I’ve got a question about this communication report that was done. We’ve been given the information, as far as this report was done, in November. So, it should have gone through our regular budgeting process.

Why cannot we, as a government, get a report in November and have it ready for our March implementation of funding in the March review? Now we’re back here on June 1st looking at

something that we don’t really have full direction on, we haven’t had full discretion about it, we haven’t had a business planning process to go through. I guess, why does it take so long to get that process going forward?

You know, then I guess the other question that I have while I have time here is: What happens if this wasn’t approved? These positions would have to be reviewed in the fall, into our budget process, put into a business planning process and then approved through this Assembly that way. If we delayed this for a year, what would it do to our communications system?

This report was done in November when the budgets were pretty well set. There was, as well, significant internal review, assessment, debate, discussion

going back and forth about what was exactly the best way to proceed. When we finally reached that consensus, we had missed that window. So we identified, as have Members and the public, significant shortcomings in our communications system. So, if this money is not voted on and it doesn’t get approved, it would be about another year to potentially get the resources to work to do the improvements that are needed today. Thank you.

If I could get a little bit more detail. When we talk about communication, communication seems to me like consulting. I mean, anything can be communicating. We’re communicating here in this House today.

What exactly does communicating mean? Does that mean we’re communicating with the general public? Is that communication between Cabinet and Regular Members? Is that communication a communication system as far as telecommunications? What does communication mean when we’re talking about these types of positions and what these people will be doing?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. For that reply we’ll go to Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’ve broken it out into two functions. One is corporate communications, that’s communications coming from the departments whereby the departmental people know what’s going on and they’re communicating to the public and operational requirements and so on; and we also have Cabinet communications where we communicate new changes, new policies, explain new ways of doing business to the public and to the rest of the people in the Northwest Territories.

The review that was done concluded that the GNWT communications function is not being managed strategically. Communicators are being used as technicians, not strategic advisors. Communicators are not well-positioned in our organization to support planning and decision-making. Functional scope, roles, responsibilities, authorities and accountabilities are unclear. There’s policy enhancement needed to modernize and to provide guidelines, directives and processes that are missing and, as well, as I said earlier, there will be an additional focus on capacity to accommodate social media, online citizen engagement and other digital strategies as well as specific two-way strategies for remote and small communities. We have 18 to 20 government services officers and we need to address those specific communication challenges and needs of small communities. We also want to address communications, as we discussed here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dolynny): Thank you, Mr. Premier. Continuing on with questions on this activity, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again here I see, without informing us on the thinking and where things are at, we’re being asked to spend the taxpayer’s dollar and I think that’s the under-riding and overriding concern here. We did have some discussions on this. I know the Premier will recall committee sent a letter back agreeing with the need for better communications but raising a number of concerns about the report.

Just to follow up on the number of positions we’re talking about here, we’re talking about five here, $185,000 apiece. The briefing material said… Well, let me start with the review. The review said, in fact, the proposal was for adding I think it was 13 full-time equivalents plus up to three for each department and agency, which would amount to up to 45 to 54 positions. So, an amazing expansion from our current 27.

So I’m wondering – that’s in contrast to the Premier’s remarks – are there more positions to follow? Briefing material indicated there was, but the Premier is saying there isn’t. The problem is that we have no context for any of this other than the earlier discussions that weren’t concluded, so maybe I could just ask that question again. Which is it? Are we proposing to add positions eventually here or not?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go over to Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did have that discussion and our estimation was that five would fill the requirements that were identified after the communications review. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess where the debate becomes important is this 900-and-whatever-thousand dollars, over ten years that’s $9 million. These are significant dollars that we’re talking about, and we know that there are very serious needs in a number of priorities – and I know the Premier and the Minister would agree – and we have not had that debate on where these dollars would go towards the delivery of our new priorities. That’s talking about the $63 million, $65 million. So that’s a process problem again.

The last communications we had from the Premier on this was that the Cabinet has made no decisions with respect to the recommendations of the report, so that’s why committee, I guess, is surprised and disappointed at this coming forward in a supp when we see the process would call for it to come forward in a budget, as per what my colleague Mr. Bouchard said earlier.

So, I ask again, can this be brought forward through normal process, budgeting process, rather than in this supp without the background that we need on which to base our decisions?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money that we’ve got into our A-base, $65.3 million, is for specific functions tied to land, water and resource development. We don’t have the latitude to be able to say we’ve decided we’re going to spend half of it now on social programs, for example. We have obligations tied to devolution and agreements we signed to honour that commitment and fund those critical functions tied to land, water and issues related to managing that and the resource development.

In regard to the question about the layout, I’ll defer to the Premier, Mr. Chair, with your concurrence.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If it’s a delay, then we’ll have the same problems that were identified in the communications review and we would not be able to provide the new services that will allow us to fulfill the new responsibilities that we have taken over.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that sums it up. With regard to Minister Miltenberger’s comments, I had specified specifically the 63 or 65-point-whatever million of our new responsibilities, so that’s what I’m talking about, indeed, and I think there is a lot of room here, although committee has never really been included in the discussion of the allocation of those funds, but that’s the discussion that’s missing here.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just restate, the conditions of this A-base transfer is to provide the functions that we negotiated with the federal government, AANDC, and we’re committed to that. That money is built into our A-base to provide those functions that we’ve taken over that were formerly delivered by the federal government, and we don’t have the latitude to arbitrarily say now that we’re going to start taking that money and doing other things that what we negotiated and signed an agreement on.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I completely agree with the Minister. My comments are in line with that. For example, I see development of the energy policy with our new

responsibilities, and particularly renewable energy, as some real opportunities for spending some of those remaining dollars, and I think we need a debate on whether it’s best needed there or any other area such as that that committee might come up with versus the communications side of things. Committee did offer comments with respect to the communications side of things that we weren’t convinced that we needed a change in structure, and we didn’t have a response or a discussion following up from that, nor evidence provided that the current staff are insufficient or unable to do the work, so there is, again, communications that have not been completed here. Just a comment.