Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just make a few brief remarks. I think there were a lot of remarks yesterday as we discussed this page and these expenditures. Members have a lot of concerns, one of which is that this should have come through with the budget that we passed not even two months ago. Maybe it was more than two months. We have yet to see a plan for how the government is going to reshape our communications complement of staff. Those are just two things and I think that, as Members, we feel that this is something that should have been funded through the regular appropriations process, not a supplementary appropriation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to speak to this motion the other day as I was sitting in your capacity, so this is my first time to address this and I appreciate the ability to do so under the motion here.

Without repeating what has been said in the House, this expenditure, really, I don’t believe it was well thought out, even though everything that was presented to committee here was under the guise or umbrella of something that was supposed to be well thought out and it didn’t occur.

From a managerial point of view, I look at this as a manager and I look at what is the ask here. The ask here is to add five new positions to an already existing base of 27 to deal with our communications. All the while, I guess the rationalization for that was because we are now undertaking, as we were told – and I heard two different numbers yesterday – anywhere from 63 to 65 million dollars more of so-called work.

It doesn’t take much rocket science to equate the increase in capacity in dealing with the amount of workload. We are being asked right now to approve the capacity building of almost 19 percent increase in a department which is only really increasing its workload by about 3.5 percent with this so-called new money or new devolution money and new way of doing business.

If one was looking at this as a manager, one would have to be suspect as to whether or not this would even pass the nose of the board of directors.

Madam Chair, we are that board of directors and, by de facto, we are the oversight here, the so-called natural ombudsmen, and I think we are enacting that power as ombudsmen to say, “This will not fly.” Unless the department has a better way of proving its need to increase this area by 19 percent of personnel, the argument that they have before committee is just not that satisfactory. For that reason, I definitely will be supporting this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. Premier McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to make a few comments. First of all, with regard to the question of due process, we mentioned it yesterday that committee was offered briefings on three occasions but chose not to take advantage of them. The last letter that we sent was December 18th . There was no response

from committee as to the feedback and the response to the previous correspondence.

Communications in the public sector is about ensuring that citizens have access to their government. It means providing them with information they need to access programs and services and to benefit from the work government does. Communications is also about providing services to each of your constituents. Effective and strategic communications will deliver the right information to our communities in timely and relevant ways. Public sector communications is also about getting clear, accessible authorities’ information to residents during emergencies, and an organized, strategic approach to the use of social media is one example of how these positions will bring effectiveness to the role of GNWT communicators.

You may recall when we had a blackout around New Year’s. There was a lot of criticism that we didn’t use more social media. We want to bring our communications efforts up to modern realities. Also, last year’s fire season is a perfect example of how social media could work for us. Twitter and Facebook played an important role in notifying residents instantly, and this can and should become the standard practice of other departments, other issues, other information.

As a government, we are still in the dark ages when it comes to the use of social media. We did not have the resources to standardize and manage this well, as was pointed out in the after action reviews that recently came out. Using radio, television and newspapers to build awareness about important services is important. Reaching out to citizens through online surveys to hear their thoughts on new policies and programs or regulations will help us immensely. Ensuring that our tourism and economic opportunities are shared nationally and internationally will benefit from these additional resources. Helping citizens understand the regulatory system in the Northwest Territories and opportunities for participation is important. We also have about 20 GSOs in the communities that we use to pass information on to their clientele, and these additional resources would improve those services in those areas.

Thank you, Premier McLeod. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for recognizing me. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this.

Just because they didn’t follow the normal process doesn’t make it any less important, and I think that’s an important fact. It doesn’t make it any less important or any less necessary. I think the Premier spoke about some of the issue. He didn’t say any of my issues. I have problems with communications, and I will give them to his list so he can add them.

I personally think communications needs to be better coordinated. It’s my opinion that we should have a communications secretariat in some way that actually works directly with the Premier’s office in a manner that disseminates out. We create a chain where we work with newer communications folks, work with more experienced ones, a little bit of a network there that all tie together. That way everyone is working from the same page and they understand what departments are doing and even that feeds up better to the Cabinet table. I would prefer a system that works more integrated than the one we have now. Is this the right approach? Well, maybe one can look at this as the thin tip of the wedge that we’re trying to start, the smallest piece, and hopefully it will expand beyond that.

I think we don’t demand accountability of our communications people in the same way that we do

out of our politicians. We have to have a system that can meet those demands when we put the pressure on them to communicate better, as we’ve seen in the past. We have high expectations here, and how do we do that when they’re all in these little pockets all over the place beating to their own drums or coordinating in their own methods but, as I said earlier, not integrated.

I’m not sure. Well, frankly, I really don’t care that they came late to the table with their request. To me it doesn’t make it less important.

The last point I’ll say is in this modern age, I’m not sure all the communications positions need to be in Yellowknife. I say that because some of them are new. I think maybe it would make sense that the coordination of them might be where the masses are, obviously. But in this modern day with the way people communicate it’s not the same as in the old days whereas they all had to be at the same table, face to face, pressing flesh directly with each other. In this modern day you could have a communications expert in every single region rather than nestled ever so comfortably in every single department. That’s not to say I’m suggesting any one of our communications people don’t do any good work. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, we need to look at, sort of, how we organize them, as well, and I would certainly hope that that would be part of the longer term goal, because there could be some great opportunities here to find regional positions out of some of these, out of all of these positions. I’m not speaking to these three and these two which are obviously five positions, but I’m also speaking about the whole suite of communication positions of probably about 20 or more.

I won’t vote for the motion. I do appreciate my colleagues’ perspectives, but at this time I simply just don’t share it.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion.

Question is being called. The motion is defeated.

---Defeated

I will read this page again. Executive, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $575,000.

Ministers’ offices, not previously authorized, $335,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $910,000.

Turning to page 8, then. Finance, operations expenditure summary, budget, treasury and debt management, not previously authorized, $1,000.

Deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $743,000.

Office of the comptroller general, not previously authorized, $20,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $764,000.