Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been several years since Hay River has had a full-time resident judge and remand in its South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, SMCC. It was not too long ago that we had a full-time judge that lived in Hay River, that worked in Hay River and travelled around the South Slave doing work for Justice. Along with that judge came remand, inmates that were waiting on trial. Several years ago the Department of Justice, in their wisdom, decided to remove remand out of Hay River and centralize Yellowknife. We’re very concerned with this. There are a lot of extra costs for travel. We’re shipping inmates up to Yellowknife, waiting for their trials, holding them here in Yellowknife as opposed to closer to home and dealing with Justice in the territory, in the South Slave territory.

We have added pressure on our RCMP who have to travel with these inmates. We are concerned that the next step is to centralize everything back into Yellowknife with our justice system. We need to get back the justice system in the South Slave and in the Hay River area. I will have questions for the Minister of Justice on how we get back Hay River’s judge and the remand.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple comments in the general comments area. The first one is I’d like to know what the Housing Corporation is doing to combat obviously all the pressure we have with seniors, the aging population we have in the Northwest Territories and how many units we’re expecting to build for seniors, how much we’re expecting the seniors to stay in their own homes, maybe seniors programs to assist in that area. I guess I’d like to get a little update on what we’re doing.

We know some of the pressures that are coming over the next five or 10 years with the aging population of the Northwest Territories and what we’re doing to assist in that pressure.

The other area, and I’ve talked to the department about it a little bit, is the centralization purchasing or the use of shared procurement. We’ve had some concerns from local providers of goods and products and services and the fact that we’re using shared services. I guess I’ve been hearing that there have been some difficulties in that process. There’s a little bit of a disconnect between the LHO and the supplier of the products and when the products are coming in.

The other area of concern is if BIP is being extended to the LHO, where LHOs are able to go south without having to use BIP? I’ve even heard stories of some LHOs getting

together and hiring a southern purchaser to buy stuff directly from the South and not following BIP. My understanding of BIP is if you’re funded by the government and you’re over 50 percent, you should be following BIP as well.

Those are a couple of the main areas that have come up more recently. I’d like to see what the Minister and department have to say about them. Thank you.

This is the problem that I have, is I think that those park positions were in the budget before the budget dialogue. So, I’m looking for specific examples from the budget dialogue that were implemented. We already knew about the fibre optic line; we already knew some of this stuff. I’ll even go back to the previous budget dialogues.

What has the department learned from the public, has implemented and put into our budget process and into the operations of the government?

I would like a specific example of what, out of this year’s budget dialogue, came out from the public? Because I’m concerned the presentation was just made, the presentation was there, the public was heard, but nothing was implemented.

What specifically was implemented from this budget dialogue will be going forward or was implemented to this budget?

My next question is: What did we hear this year and how does that apply and how has it been applied to our current budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement about the budget, I will have questions for the hard-working veteran Minister of Finance.

I would like to see if the Minister can give me some information on how they look at getting more information from these budget dialogues going forward. The numbers are definitely low. Can we get some information on how we improve that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will obviously be talking about the budget dialogue that the Minister of Finance continues to hold for the last three years.

I’m not sure if I’m really that confident in this budget dialogue process. Indications from this year are we had 97 people attend and we had 11 individuals or groups submit. Those are really low numbers and I’m not sure if we’re using this to direct or just as an excuse that we’ve consulted, because the numbers look crazy as far as I’m concerned. Thirty people from Yellowknife attended. Thirty people from a community that’s very large, the centre and our capital. That’s a very small number. In Hay River we had eight and I know Hay River had more interested; we had a conflict in meetings.

From this type of dialogue, the government moves forward with the budget. Like my colleague indicated, most of this is probably in stone already. So I’m just wondering if the Minister and his department really were hearing the public in this process, or did they have a preconceived notion? Because I know at each meeting, the meetings that I attended, the Minister and the staff had a presentation to make, had a discussion on the fiscal strategy and that we were limited to what we can do anyway. So I’m just wondering if there’s a preconceived notion of how this process is going to happen and the budget that was going to happen. So, are we just playing lip service to the general public?

I’ll have questions for the Minister about what he actually learned out there this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support the overall act, but I know Hay River does have some concerns about the public sector, our hospital authority, that’s not in the public sector. I guess I would like to put that on record that there is some concern here. We do support some of the activities and changes here, but we do have some concerns going forward how we implement this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.