I look forward to those questions in the House. The Minister stated in his budget address, the 2,000 people plan.

Can he give us a bit of an update on where that plan is? Ms. Bisaro discussed this as well. Where are we at? We are one year in. Have we made any successes in getting 2,000 more people to live in the Northwest Territories?

I would just like to get clarification on the scheduling of when this would happen and when we would get a report on how that transition will happen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be for the Minister of Finance on a few things that were in the budget. The first thing I have is about the moving of the territorial parks positions to Hay River.

Can he indicate to me how many positions that includes?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to also introduce constituent Jackie Milne, who also, as Jane indicated, is the face of agriculture in the South Slave and working on a lot of exciting projects down there. She’s a go-getter. If we could divide her up into a few more and multiply Jackie in a couple of industries, that’s for sure. She’s a go- getter; she’s enthusiastic.

I’d also like to recognize Tony Whitford, a good friend, as well as Darrell Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to make a few comments about the budget. Obviously, there are many things in this budget. Some of the things that we are pleased with is obviously the moving of the territorial parks office to the Hay River area, the $1.5 million in support of the commercial fishery, the housing programs in Hay River, and maybe even a million dollars for the Arctic Winter Games for Hay River or Inuvik. Obviously, we’re happy with no new taxes. I think most people are pleased with that.

We are spending $930 million in social programs, a large amount, but yet we still have a lot of people asking questions, people that want help with mental addictions, drug and alcohol addictions or mental health. Northern contractors are still complaining about northern content and northern supply. People are still concerned about northern manufacturing and the fact that we’re not supporting some of our northern businesses.

We have some other positive things in the budget. Obviously, the $20 million subsidy to power rates, our constituents wanted that, didn’t want to pay more in power, but we need to find better ways to do that and I see other things, solar, wind, other investments. All of this positive stuff done with the government’s budget, with forced growth, trying to hold forced growth, but the concerns are the spending.

In this Assembly we’ve seen a 16.7 percent increase in our budget. Not a bad number, 16.7, but when you look at it in the way of a number, $236 million more than when we started this Assembly, that number has to be put under control. We have to figure out a way to do more with less. We have to control this spending. We can’t let it get out of control. It’s getting way too big, never mind the amount of debt that we are carrying and we’re getting bigger and bigger. We need to control that more. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Gwen Robak, a Hay River resident, as well as friends Ruby Simba and Lloyd Lush. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome everybody back to the Assembly for a six-week session. Mr. Speaker, as you are well aware, two regions in the North have been working on bids for the Arctic Winter Games in 2018. The

Beau-Delta and the South Slave have been working hard on these proposals. They’re rallying all their volunteers in all their different sports.

These will be exciting games. It has been decades since the Arctic Winter Games have been outside the capital of the Northwest Territories. It will be exciting to have them back in our regional centres.

I would like to thank all the volunteers in the South Slave region who worked so hard to put this bid together for the South Slave. The International Committee came to the Northwest Territories, seeing all the communities, all the facilities, and we are hoping that they are impressed with our South Slave bid.

In 1978 Hay River and Pine Point hosted the Arctic Winter Games, and we’re hoping that 2018 will be the 40th anniversary of a South Slave Arctic Winter

Games.

Again, I would like to congratulate the bid committees for all their hard work, and as the ongoing joke is, the MLAs from the South Slave will be happy to pick up the Beau-Del representatives at the airport in Hay River.

On a following note, I’d like to congratulate some of the participants that are going to the Canada Winter Games in Prince George. The Canada Games will be from February 13th to March 1st and I have four

participants. I have Novelyn Bordey, Dawson McMeekin, Amanda Roach, and Curtis Rowe as a coach. Congratulations to them. Good luck in Canada Winter Games. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to acknowledge the mover and the seconder as well as Government Operations for their hard work on this motion and the work on the ombudsman implementation. I know I’ve been able to attend several of the meetings.

In my short term as MLA, I’ve seen many situations where an ombudsman would be convenient and useful. There are several opportunities where MLAs can fight the fight to a certain point until they hit a roadblock, whether that’s in the Minister’s office or whether it’s in bureaucracy or whether it’s in the legislation. An ombudsman would be able to take care of some of those issues. I think we’re talking about the small percentage of issues that have been before MLAs and the government. I know the government’s probably reluctant to accept this ombudsman, seeing as they would indicate that we take care of the issues that are before us, and that’s true. They do, on the majority. But there is that 1, 2, 3 percent that they cannot fix. There is no immediate solution and maybe they agree to disagree with one of our constituents.

The other argument that lots of people have a concern with is the cost. Granted, there will be a cost to this office, but we know that we would implement it with a statutory office to do economies of scale for implementation to maybe do some joint work, office and staff-wise and similar work-wise.

There are many constituents that have issues with the way government is doing certain items, but they can’t risk that, whether they are a contractor who continues to do work with the department on a daily basis, they can’t risk their livelihoods to make a complaint. An ombudsman may be able to take that complaint anonymously, so that individual or that company can make a complaint that they haven’t dealt with or this situation hasn’t been dealt with.

As the mover and seconder indicated, this issue and this discussion have been here for more than 20 years. We need to look at an ombudsman office sooner than later. We’re at the last year of this Assembly and we’re going to go through another Assembly that didn’t implement this important office, this important feature in GNWT to take constituents’ concerns and complaints that are not being dealt with, that are taking too long to be dealt with.

Like I said, in my short three-year career here, we have had issues where people have been working on complaints and concerns for over three, four, five years, and I’ve taken them on from previous MLAs. There are certain things in this government that have to be dealt with promptly, and we believe that an ombudsman will allow this to happen and should be implemented. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the information that I received from the Premier, phase three is a ‘14-15. When we come back to this Assembly in February, we will be in ’15. So I am looking for the next phase of what is happening in ‘15-16 for decentralization and what is the plan going forward.

Once we hit that two-year mark with the federal government, do we have a plan of how to implement more jobs out into the communities? Thank you.