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. 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.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. As indicated, a comment. With that, I’ll continue on questions with Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some really good comments and questions by committee members on how we got to these two issues of the five positions that we’re discussing here. When you look at the review that was done in November, there were a lot of key findings, and I think Mr. Bromley alluded to briefly here in terms of just better management within our current system, and in terms of communicating to the public, do we need to fill more positions out there to try to do what other people are supposed to be doing right now.

I know all of our departments have communications staff. We have communications here in the Legislative Assembly, and I think it just needs better leadership and better management moving forward and addressing some key findings. Has the department done any… I know they did, last year, talk about fiscal responsibility and telling all the departments to look at cutting down their funding. Has the department looked within the departments to find ways they can better do their communication, considering the findings that were found in November, rather than just throwing more positions out there and looking at how we can improve our communication system? What are some of the key findings that were described under this report?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a considerable review done on this, which is one of the reasons it took so long. As Mr. Bromley pointed out, the initial report, if it was accepted at full face value, would be coming forward with dozens and dozens of new jobs, which we knew in our day and age of ongoing fiscal restraint was not sustainable, supportable or acceptable, so we’ve worked at how we could address this and do some of the improvements. We’ve taken over, once again, $65 million worth of new programs, hundreds of staff, in addition to the fact that it has been clearly pointed out to us that

our current system is not up to the task for the government pre-devolution, and post-devolution we know we have to up our game, and it covers all aspects of communication in a government that now has about 5,600 employees, 14 departments, just about a $2 billion budget that covers a whole range of services across the whole spectrum from the health and social service side to building roads and everything in between. We have looked at this and what we’ve come forward with is what we think is the barest minimum we need to keep managing on a go-forward basis and look at some of the improvements that are expected, both by this Assembly and the public.

I appreciate the responses from the Minister and our Premier. As mentioned, when these positions come in and looking at things as policies and directives, we’re taking on more responsibilities, especially in the land and water and looking at developing our… We’re unique up here in the North in terms of how we do business, especially more unique because we have so many Aboriginal governments and groups. But you’d think that looking at creating policies and new directives for the departments might be more of a priority with these kinds of dollars coming out of this transition funding, and as you’ve heard already, that discussion hasn’t taken place with committee on how these dollars are going to be spent.

As I said, we’ve got some departments here that need some upgrades on their policies as well. I understand that the Communications Strategy hasn’t been updated in 20 years or so. I just wonder, coming out with how we’re spending this A-base transfer funding and having those discussions and whether or not it’s policies and directives, or should we possibly be getting more positions for those is more of a priority than just the Communications Strategy?

We are looking at all those issues, the structural issues, the policy issues, all the things that drive how we’re structured. That’s one big issue. The other issue is enough resources to, in fact, take all those improved structures, infrastructure policy base, and allow us to implement it in a more improved fashion.