I've been involved with government for over 30 years, and decentralization has always been in the mix. In the early Assemblies, there was always -- the government always looked at it. There was always a concern about winners and losers, and a lot of the initiatives didn't go anywhere because there was a concern they didn't want to be winners and losers in the different communities. In the last Assembly, the government of the day decided we weren't going to make excuses for not having decentralization. We committed to spending $21 million over three years to invest in housing. The NWT Housing Corporation invested $750,000 to invest in market housing and we took a three-phased approach to decentralization which resulted in, as I said, 182 positions moving out of Yellowknife to the regions. We are now in the third year of the housing, building housing, $7 million a year for housing. So we expect that we will review where we're at after this fiscal year and I continue to see that I would expect that decentralization will continue to be a very important priority for this government, and I believe it's in the mandate statement that was agreed by all of us.
Bob McLeod on Question 290-18(2): Update On GNWT Decentralization Initiative
In the Legislative Assembly on June 28th, 2016. See this statement in context.
Question 290-18(2): Update On GNWT Decentralization Initiative
Oral Questions
June 27th, 2016
See context to find out what was said next.