If we’re continuing to do reviews of the operations on an annual basis, how do we include the public or our public sector employees to contribute to some of these cost reductions the ways that we do some cost reductions or the way that we can make the government more efficient? How do we include the public or the public sector?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I have concerns with the budget process. My questions today are for the Minister of Finance. When was the last operational business review of the GNWT costs done?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a new Member here I’d like to discuss the budget process that this government is involved in. During the process, the government has introduced an act to increase the borrowing limit and we are asking the federal government to increase our debt limit. Not once during this discussion have we discussed the cost reductions in our O and M. I know this is a scary discussion, the fact that we may look at cutbacks or even to make the operations more efficient, but what is scarier is the fact that since 2000 the operations budget has doubled from $600 million to $1.2 billion. However, during this time the

population has only increased by 7.5 percent and the public service only by 26 percent.

My questions today will be for the Minister of Finance about what this government has done over the past years to review the operational costs and to reduce this large, increasing rate in the operations.

I know there are a great deal of people out there that believe that we can be doing more with less. We are looking for more money from the federal government; however, if we reduced our costs by 5 percent, that would represent $60 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is about the tour operators and how they will be involved in this promotion and can get involved in this Spectacular NWT.

I would like the Minister to maybe consider, or my question would be: Would the department look at creating some sort of evaluation process now so that you have a benchmark to compare your results for the next two or three years? I understand that it’s difficult to evaluate some of that stuff, but you have to have a benchmark that you’re comparing to for two or three years. Would the Minister commit to that?

As I indicated, I do believe this is a good program. Does the government have some sort of evaluation process in place of how beneficial this program will be and how they will evaluate the results from the promotions?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to commend the government on their Spectacular NWT promotion through ITI. I have a question for the Minister of ITI. Is this program a multi-year program and promotion?

Yes, we look forward to that sooner than later, Mr. Speaker. I have no further questions. Thank you.

My next question is: What is the timeline that the Minister would expect that we’d be able to implement this type of funding to allow nurse practitioners and, hopefully, a Midwifery Program into the Hay River Health Centre. What kind of timeline?