Agreed. Thank you. We will consider with the Department of Infrastructure. Minister, would you like to bring witnesses into the Chamber? Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you. Minister, please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left is director of Corporate Services, Vince McCormick, of Infrastructure. On my right is Paul Guy, deputy minister of Infrastructure. On my far right is Jaylene Robertson, assistant deputy minister of Regional Operations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Schumann. Committee, we have agreed to resume corporate management, operations expenditure summary on page 239. Any questions from committee? Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we left off, I think one of the Members was starting to talk about some of the concerns that committee has raised in the past with regard to the centralization of some of our government departments. While it is appreciated that we are building some efficiencies and ways to be effective by doing some amalgamations, the concern lies that, over the years, as we have begun to kind of centralize human resources finance, procurement, and even IT into these centralized government departments, the concern is that a number of the departments and particular regional offices have started to lose the ability to build and maintain the relationships that they have had for a long time with contractors, consultants, and maybe other community partners.

I would like to ask the department, in particular the Minister, because Infrastructure is one of these amalgamation departments and they also seem to be the big spender, I respect and appreciate that, you know, they are tied heavily with the federal funding contributions, and that is well appreciated. I would like to ask the Minister if the department is doing any kind of observation or measuring of what the impacts of these recent amalgamations and centralizations are having on some of the regions and other departments that this department serves, because this is a department that serves other departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Schumann.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think the amalgamation of these two departments in particular has affected that. We have so many regional people out there who interact with the general public and the contractors on a general basis, that either it be procurement or superintendents who are on the ground that deal with contractors on a day-to-day basis. Nothing has come to my attention that clearly made this amalgamation detrimental to the contracting side of things, as far as I am concerned. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Schumann. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that that is the opinion of the Minister, and we have seen some concerns from other departments whereby the ability of a department, for example, that used to once be able to put out its own procurement and be able to hire its own workforce, be able to manage its own accounts receivables and payables and its own procurement, it is now a challenge to do that because we have essentially taken are of those abilities and centralize them into -- maybe, I guess, the question is something that I will reiterate again later when we meet with Finance. It might be better suited there. I apologize, Mr. Chair. I am going to defer that question until a later time with the Department of Finance. Thank you. For me right now with the activity of corporate management, I have no further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Would you like to comment, Minister Schumann?

I guess the one thing I would like to add to that is one thing that we did in this government, too, is we added a whole new region in the Northwest Territories and in the Sahtu, which, you know, there was some strong support from the Member from the Sahtu region to make them their own region. I think, as we are moved forward with five strong regions, the regional support has just gotten better by doing that, as well. That is just an extra comment I wanted to add. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Schumann. Any further questions, committee? If not, I will read the page. Infrastructure, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 2019-2020 Main Estimates, $10,715,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Next, we have Infrastructure, programs and services, operations expenditure summary from pages 242 to 246. Any questions? Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I note that this activity includes procurement shared services. I would like to know: what funding is being put in place to enhance the department's outreach to clients through procurement shared services to better understand the GNWT's procurement system? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Guy.

Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Testart.

If I could just get some information clarified: I heard both 60 participants and 200 participants for the last fiscal year. Which number is accurate? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Guy.

Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Testart.

I don't know if the department has this information on hand, but what, statistically, does 200 participants represent? How many clients is the GNWT doing business with in a given fiscal year? Is 200 close to a majority, or is this just a sliver of the overall economic field? Thank you.