Bob McLeod

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

I think we’re saying the same thing. We’re planning to go the communities. In the regions we’re going to partner with our Aboriginal governments. We’re also going to go to the regions where the Aboriginal governments haven’t signed on. They’re going to come with us, their regional government, whoever is representing them. Even though they haven’t signed on, we’ve done that before where we’ve gone to the communities. For example, in the Deh Cho we’ve gone to the communities with Dehcho First Nation representatives. Then we’ll be going to all the communities and regional centres as well.

One more...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess we came up with this policy when the Metis Nation no longer existed. At that time we tried to find a consistent approach, and the government of the day decided that they would take the money that was available for funding the Metis Nation and divide it up amongst the 17 Metis locals that were in existence at the time. The money stayed the same for all these years and the last few years we took an approach whereby if some of the money was not disbursed, we would disburse it before the end of the fiscal year to those Metis locals that were in good standing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left I have Penny Ballantyne, the deputy minister of Executive and secretary to Cabinet. To my right I have Lisa Turner, director of Finance with the Department of Executive. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we understand that and I think it must be working because the largest part of our workforce is female, and I think our deputy minister cadre is about 50 percent male and female. So I think this helps promote gender equity in all the things we do. Thank you.

We’ve been preoccupied with devolution and some other priorities, but we will develop a human resource plan. With regard to whether there was a report developed in response to the Auditor General, through you I will ask Mrs. Ballantyne to respond.

Thank you. We’ll do that and as we flush out our thinking in more detail, we’ll also make sure that the public is more aware of it. Thank you.

I am pleased to be here today to present the Department of Executive’s 2013-2014 Main Estimates.

In 2013-2014, the Department of Executive has identified a total operations budget of $20.464 million. There is a net decrease of approximately 10.5 percent from the 2012-2013 Main Estimates. As noted, this decrease is primarily associated with the sunset of devolution negotiations funding. Once a final Devolution Agreement is signed, the level of implementation activity and the required funding for 2013-2014 will increase significantly from the $6.071 million currently projected but will be offset...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s correct and this position gives a focus to not only women’s issues, but also to promote advances in gender equity. Thank you.

That’s correct.