The Minister is an experienced politician and I ask that question again. Is this government committed to reducing the cost of living to Northerners?

Thank you. Can the Minister indicate are we done doing the studying, are we done doing planning, are we looking to put money on the ground in the communities in renewable resources to reduce the cost of living in the Northwest Territories?

As we left this afternoon, the charrette was looking over the review of the budget.

Is this government committed to shifting gears if the charrette group indicates that we need to shift some of our funding arrangements right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my Member’s statement about the

Energy Charrette, I’ll have questions for the Minister of ENR and the Minister of Finance I guess. But I guess the first question I have: Do they have the estimated costs of this Energy Charrette?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night and this morning I had the opportunity to attend the Energy Charrette. It looked like there were over 200 people there. The Premier and Minister Miltenberger made presentations there last night, and last night and today we listened to Marlo

Raynolds from BluEarth, an expert on renewable resources. He described the Northwest Territories as one of the most complicated 64 megawatt systems he has ever seen.

We have brought in a whole bunch of different experts. We have brought in engaged people from the Northwest Territories. We have brought in power providers, regulators, private businesses, NGOs, experts from around Canada as well as even European experts. This is all an answer to the cost of living in the Northwest Territories, the cost of power, the cost of heat, and we need to look at opportunities. We need to look at changing our way of thinking.

Currently, in Detah right now, they are continuing to discuss… Just when I left they were just getting the review of the current projects that the GNWT is going through. They were going through the current budgets of what the Energy Plan has going forward. This group will give us direction and give us some idea of where they see us putting our dollars to, to alleviate the cost of power, to alleviate the cost of energy in the Northwest Territories.

It’s not just about dollars, but it’s a way of changing our way of thinking, not only the GNWT but individuals. We need to look at different opportunities that individual people can do throughout the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act; Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act; Bill 27, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2014; and Bill 34, 2015 Polling Day Act, and I would like to report progress with one motion being adopted and that Bills 25, 27 and 34 are ready for third reading and that Bill 30 is ready for third reading as amended. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess the two issues that were brought up, you know, it’s fine for right now I think as far as what’s going on, but the problem is when you create this bureaucracy and put the superintendents into the public service, what’s going to come forward in the future once there’s a new Minister, once there is new staff in the DEA, DEC, and once there’s new staff in the Department of Education and now they’re going by the written document? They’re not going by okay, this is what we agreed, we agreed to the fact that the superintendents will report to the DECs and the Minister and give them direction from there. But the way it’s written, the way it’s being described and will be described in the act, is the fact that they actually report to the Minister. Right now we’re saying this is the way it’s going to be, but in the future when you go back to the written document, it’s going to read completely different, so the direction can be taken and interpreted any other way. Like I said, that 5 to 10 percent of the decisions that have to be made and argued for a DEC against the superintendent or against the Minister, when the Minister is the boss of the superintendent, will put that person in a wedge that would be very difficult for him to fight the battle to a point. He will be able to make the point, but he won’t be able to fight it because the Minister will just say, you know what, you are an employee of the GNWT. You should be taken to a certain task, but you can’t be pushing me too far, and the DECs may need that superintendent to push the Minister to the point where they need to go in a different direction.

I find that very difficult in the fact that superintendents are going to be able to fight that battle when he’s got two bosses being pulled and pushed from both sides, so I guess I do have concerns about the way it’s going to be. We can say what it’s going to be like right now, but when it comes five, 10, 20 years from now, how it’s going to be written in this document is going to be the way it’s going to roll out after a period of time after we’ve gone.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have some concerns about some of these changes. Obviously, the superintendent, one of the reasons I’ve had more concerns is he’s in the South Slave. I guess the one main area of concern is how this reporting would go. I know the Minister talked about how the reporting wouldn’t change, but I guess the difficulty comes in the fact that now you have a superintendent that’s a government employee but also reporting to a board at the same time, the DEC. I guess how that individual will be conflicted, obviously, from his boss versus the people that direct him on the initiatives. I would use recent discussions about our Junior Kindergarten as an example. We have the department who are the bosses and will be paying his wages and yet the direction of the DEC was that there was difficulty they were having with implementation of that. I guess my concern will be the reporting.

In difficult times, I think on most issues this wouldn’t be a factor. Most of the day-to-day operations I can understand the superintendent working with the DEC and not even having to deal with the government most of the time on day-to-day operations, but in the critical decision times there are times to criticize the GNWT about some of the implementations of any program or funding budgets. Some of those types of items, I think it’s going to be difficult for that superintendent to tell his bosses – and I say “he” because in the South Slave we have a male superintendent – the people that sign the cheque, that this is the problem that we have, we need to fix this. I think that’s one of the issues we’ve been pushing for Junior Kindergarten, as an example, this was an issue.

So I have difficulties with this as far as superintendents becoming GNWT employees, and I understand some of the rationale behind doing it, but there’s that main issue of the reporting process and when it comes down to some tough decisions, and they may only be five or 10 percent of the time, but at that time it’s going to be critical when you need a superintendent to fight for the DEC. How much can you really fight when he’s giving direction and concerns to his boss? So that is definitely a concern.

The other area of concern that we’ve heard from our DEA was just the fact that our superintendent has a great deal of education and can he keep the same type of individuals that you want. Doctorates, let’s say, for a superintendent. Would you be able to keep that type of individual if they’re a government employee and on a pay grid? My understanding is that as superintendents come in, they’ll be red circled for whatever their wages are if they are above the existing pay grade, but the difficulty comes in the fact that don’t we want the best person that we can possibly get in our system. That would be limited because we have a set wage, we have a set amount of money that we can pay this individual. Sometimes when those people have a doctorate, they may be able to get work other places for bigger money. So, obviously, are we getting the best people in our education? Yes, we can find people that are educated and do a job, but are we getting the best people that we want to get in this system?

So those are the two main areas that I have concern with on the changes to this act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today was on Movember and I challenge you to be baby-faced like me, too, if you want to be for Movember. My questions today will be for the Minister of Health.

Obviously, we are concerned with men’s health this month. I am just wondering what the Department of Health is doing to piggyback on top of this national campaign. Thank you.