Floyd Roland

It is reflected in these numbers. When invoices are not sent out in a timely fashion, they become, for that year, a debt owed to the authority. It continues to grow after that. That’s why we’ve become involved, now, in looking at the collections side of the ledger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, June 18, 2008, I will move that Bill 18, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No.1 2008–2009, be read for the first time.

Mr. Chairman, in fact it does cover to March 31, 2008, because that’s the end of the fiscal year for accumulated debt, and that’s the time we have to bring forward bills of this nature, looking at the expenditures of departments during the final supp of the government. This being Supp No. 4, it would be our final piece for looking at the previous year’s expenditures.

I’ll go to Ms. LeClair for looking at how this…. There has been much talk about the payroll piece. I’ll have Ms. LeClair give more detail.

Talking about this year would be another matter. Talking about this supplementary appropriation for previous years’ expenditures is one thing, but a large amount of what the Member’s referring to is the fact that we need to collect on revenues that are owed to the Stanton authority as well as the Government of the Northwest Territories. For the 2007–2008 fiscal year, there are a number of unfunded programs. Of course, that would mean unfunded positions. But they’re, again, delivered through the fact that they have some flexibility in the delivery mechanisms within the territorial health and...

Mr. Speaker, part of it is a request we make of the corporation. We request a dividend on an annual basis, and then we top it up from general revenue for the rest of the program. In fact, in the last few years of the budget it has been $3.5 million from the Power Corporation. The rest has been from general revenues of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The relationship is spelled out, initially, quite clearly in the territorial health and social services act — the relationship between the authorities and the Department of Health and Social Services.

At times, working with authorities, the department would initiate new programs and program delivery. Telehealth was one the department initiated and worked with authorities in that delivery. There are examples of that where the department has become involved and has encouraged authorities to come on line.

When it comes to other service delivery and the level of delivery, the department gets...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll let the Minister give some of the detail, but for the record, once again, the fact is that previous governments did initiate action. A zero-based review exercise was undertaken. A plan was being put together on how to move forward on this file to the point where FMBS got directly involved and remains involved to date.

In the other areas of the breakdown of services the Member is quite correct. When you look at the fact that we’ve had as much concern as Members of the Assembly about reducing to the levels we have, there’d be even a greater level of concern if we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The program itself hasn’t been reviewed for quite some time. In fact, the Member is right: everyone above the Yellowknife rate would pay the first…. We would provide the Territorial Power Support Program for everyone up to the first 700 kilowatt hours. We are concerned and want to look at this. That’s why the Energy Coordinating Committee will be looking at this power support program, its structure and how it’s used in the Northwest Territories.

There’s no $26 million request in this supplementary appropriation. That, the department is working to come together on. Of course, FMBS is involved in some of that work, and some of that is receivables, and some of it is the ongoing delivery of programs and services. Again, that started a couple of years ago, intermittently, initially. But in this last number of months it’s been on a regular basis.

As we go through this work and look at the service delivery, the mandates and the program levels, we’ll be coming back to Members with this type of information.

Mr. Chairman, we work through the territorial health and social services act, and that lays out the relationship that departments have with the board and how FMBS can become involved in the operations of an authority.

Under the last government, initiatives were taken to bring FMBS to the table. That’s how the zero-based initiative was started: with the involvement of FMBS, the Department of Health and Social Services and the Stanton facility to come up with a program on reviewing its expenditure patterns and looking at how it was carrying on with the management of delivery of that service. That...