Mr. Speaker, from the perspective on this side of the House, we haven’t seen the plan of where these jobs are going to be.

Is there a plan coming forward? We just completed phase three. Is there a plan to do a phase four and where and when will we see this plan? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do a follow-up to my Member’s statement about decentralization. My questions will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.

This Assembly is going into its last year. Is it a priority to do decentralization? Is the government any closer to solving some of the housing issues and some of the office space issues to do decentralization throughout the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we started the 17th Assembly, we set up some

priorities, and one of those priorities was decentralization. Yesterday Mr. Bromley referred to decentralizing his position to Hay River.

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Seriously, I know Mr. Bromley works hard in Detah and Ndilo, small communities that need his support.

When we started this journey about decentralization, the government gave us issues that we had: housing issues in small communities, office space requirements and residential issues. The government has indicated to me and given us some stats that they’ve created 158 jobs outside of Yellowknife. Mr. Speaker, we would be celebrating that if those were all the facts.

The other facts are we know they started and devolved over 200 in Yellowknife, so decentralization is not happening, Mr. Speaker.

We need to be committed to decentralizing, putting more jobs out into the communities, not only to the regional centres but some of the smaller communities. We need to solve those issues of housing and office space. We need to know the next phase. We’ve had our three phases, but what’s the next phase? What’s happening next

year? We still don’t have a plan coming forward, and we know that this is the last statement for 2014. What is going to happen in February and March? What are we going to hear about a continued decentralization?

We need to get this done. This is the 17th Assembly

and something this Assembly set as a priority. We need to be committed to it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are kind of two strategies that are here. Obviously, there is the Economic Opportunities Strategy and I am pleased with this strategy. Seeing this strategy and seeing some of the implementation, I see it as very conducive to some of the business that is done in the South Slave. I know that they had some public consultation there. In this report, some of the comments are tying the two of them together and I have some difficulties with that because I am obviously supportive of the Economic Opportunities Strategy and a lot of the initiatives that are in there.

The Mineral Development Strategy, on the other hand, my colleagues have expressed concerns with the consultation with the general public. I was there for the launch of the strategy, which was done at a major mining conference. Some people questioned why it wouldn’t have been launched in the Northwest Territories, but when you have the opportunity to launch it in a national light I thought that was a good opportunity to get it out that the Government of the Northwest Territories is looking at doing a Mineral Development Strategy. Should we have done more consultation? Sure. Our committee had a report done by Pembina and we should have had more answers and concerns that were in that report given to us, but we weren’t. That’s the downside of the Mineral Development Strategy.

Going forward, implementation-wise, we’ll have to see what the future brings on that strategy. I know the Minister is committed to some reviews in a short period of time. My comments, Madam Chair, are just the fact that we tied both of these strategies together because they basically rolled out at the same time. I guess I definitely see some of the concerns with the Mineral Development Strategy and where we go to relieve that or make that better the next time definitely needs to be taken into consideration.

Those are where my concerns are. Most of my concerns in this report are directed at the Mineral Development Strategy, not so much at the Economic Opportunities Strategy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister just talked about the regional wellness councils and the advisory board.

Could the Minister give me a little bit of detail how that would work in the Hay River area and surrounding area, and will that board replace the public administrator that we currently have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know the Minister indicated to Mr. Bromley, talked to him about purchasing and some of the efficiencies there and I guess there was some real concern at the Hay River meeting that that meant Yellowknife purchasing of all goods. I am just wondering if the Minister can alleviate those concerns that Hay River had about a centralized purchasing and the fact that we do a lot of our own purchasing through our own authority right now and how that would work. Thank you.

As the Minister indicated, he was in Hay River a few months ago talking about the same situation. At that time they were going to get us a cost of what it will cost to put these people into the public service.

When can we expect that cost and why is it taking so long? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Services about his Member’s statement today.

Obviously, my statement today was about Hay River and how special it is, but it is also special in this process of the one territorial board or one management board for health and social services. Hay River is an anomaly. The employees are not territorial employees.

Has the Minister come up with a solution to put these employees into the territorial system? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize one of my constituents, Rick Groenewegen, the brains behind Greenway Holdings. Thank you.