Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some of those documents in front of me here too. I have a document dated December 18th , when we

actually got the plan of the final report that we’re making decisions on. So, that’s my difficulty in the fact that we got it December 18th , but there was no

indication that it was coming into a supp into the new year, or there’s no discussion of it being added to our January discussions to get a briefing in January to talk about getting this put in the budget.

I don’t have the details, but I do believe we have, in the past, added this stuff to the budgets in a quick manner. We have meetings in January; we have meetings at the beginning of February; we have six weeks of session in February/March to deal with this type of stuff. If the Cabinet and the Executive deemed it as an exercise that had to be done as soon as possible, then we would have looked at it at that time. But for us to look at it in a supplementary in one of our last sessions, with limited time to review and discuss, and this is the

only place on the floor that we have it today to discuss this issue, I guess I’m having difficulties in the fact that we’re forced to either allow the process to move forward or maybe we just hold the whole thing to a grind and we don’t approve this and we let it go to the business plan process for the next Assembly.

I guess my concerns are how do we move forward when this type of stuff gets held back and we’re forced to make emergency decisions based on the floor of this House? Again, I guess I’m having difficulty with the fact of what happens if this goes forward if we don’t have this funding approved.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to bring up a couple of other issues. The difficulty that I’m having with this process is the timing of it. Like I indicated, the fact that this communication report was done in November, I guess committee has had some discussion with the department about it, and I think it was brought up on Friday about the supplementary exercises we are going through and some of the short notices we are getting on the reviews and the process and the fact that all of a sudden we hear now this money, these five positions are being added to the budget.

It seems like a very quick process for us on the Regular Members’ side. I think some of us are having concerns on how this was all laid out. I understand the government had to do a review, but I’m having trouble swallowing the fact that we did a review in November and we couldn’t get that information to this House by February or March to get approval. It just seems like it’s taking us six to eight months to get the process of approval for any funding you want to do. It seems very difficult to us.

Now we’re being asked to approve it in the supp when the supp only came to us a week ago. I’m just having difficulties on the process and the steps of how we got here.

Could the Minister give me more detail on was there a holdup in their area and why would it take us that long to go through the process and why couldn’t we have seen this in February or March when we looked at the budgets? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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?

Then I guess I’ve got a question about this communication report that was done. We’ve been given the information, as far as this report was done, in November. So, it should have gone through our regular budgeting process.

Why cannot we, as a government, get a report in November and have it ready for our March implementation of funding in the March review? Now we’re back here on June 1st looking at

something that we don’t really have full direction on, we haven’t had full discretion about it, we haven’t had a business planning process to go through. I guess, why does it take so long to get that process going forward?

You know, then I guess the other question that I have while I have time here is: What happens if this wasn’t approved? These positions would have to be reviewed in the fall, into our budget process, put into a business planning process and then approved through this Assembly that way. If we delayed this for a year, what would it do to our communications system?

So I think I’m getting the picture here. This is funding from the federal government

on an ongoing basis. Why would we continue to have these positions if part of these positions are just to assess our communications system now? The Minister indicated we need to assess our communications system and the way we communicate. In my perspective, that would be reviewing something that would only be a short period of time, something we would need as a term, not a full-time position where after the assessment is done, we don’t need that position anymore. Why wouldn’t we do that as a term position or why wouldn’t we do it as a contract to have the assessment done?

I’m trying to get clarification. I think on Ms. Bisaro’s question, the Minister indicated it was going to be added to our ongoing costs and you just indicated to me that it wouldn’t be added to our ongoing cost, but be part of ongoing devolution money. Can I get more detail? How are these positions going to be funded after devolution money has been expended completely?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro covered a lot of the questions I had, but I will ask some of the questions a bit differently. I have concern with the fact that we’re equating these positions and this funding through our devolution fund reserves that we have, but after the devolution money has been spent, this becomes part of the cost of the GNWT. Obviously, on top of the positions we’ve added to devolution, we’re adding five more positions into Yellowknife. Is there any way we can make these term positions and we look at the assessment and the effectiveness after the devolution money has dried up after spending all this money on these positions?

I’m having a difficulty with the fact that we’re creating more bureaucracy and I’m not sure what we’re going to communicate more to the public. Often we get criticized with government about our communications, so I’m not exactly sure what these five positions are going to do with the communications of government. Could the Minister answer some of that information?

So if we’re using Yellowknife as the base and also using the calculations of the community, it could be the price in Yellowknife went down or the price of the community went up or vice versa I guess. Is that the factor or, I guess, how do we keep that stable in the fact that the greater the northern living allowance adjustment to a community, the cost to the community may have gone up, but if Yellowknife was affected then everybody gets affected?

I’ve just got a question about the ones that are going down. Is that based on the fact that the cost of living is going down in some communities? I would assume most of them or all of them would have gone up. So what would the differences be and why would there be a negative?