Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, I see the path this is going down: that as a new government, as Premier, we’ve not shared any information with Members, that we’ve been withholding information. I’ve taken a large number of steps to be as open as possible with Members, to share the direction we’re going in.

In fact, early in January I offered up the opportunity to see where we’ve looked at setting these targets. We’ve shared information. Is it complicated? Is it because the Member just disagrees with where we’re going? I’m not sure.

What we were trying to do is prevent the reverse. When we heard that departments...

Mr. Speaker, the way we reviewed this is the Department of Human Resources and the Ministers brought concerns to the table. For example, we had different departments reacting in areas that were shutting down certain hiring positions. So that is not the situation. We are using a consistent approach now, and that is where departments are going out for hiring. Before an actual hiring occurs, it goes back to the deputy minister for review to ensure that it’s aligning with the work that’s starting to happen. We wouldn’t want to hire a position and then six months from now that position is not going...

Mr. Chairman, I’ve been informed that that is one of the areas that’s targeted as a potential migration over to the FIS system. So it is one of a number of areas that we’ve worked with. All the departments in this…. FIS is coming up with a new system that would work with departmental equipment as well as new programs, and this is one of those areas that is targeted for migration into the FIS system. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard the Member in the past talk about the growth of our government and the growth of our employees. I don’t have a handle today on just what positions, what areas of departments, are not going to fit with our initiatives. We’re undertaking that work.

The jobs are still going out there for areas that we need to fill. There hasn’t been a job-hiring freeze. The process still goes, but before a final hire happens, deputies are working on initiatives with their senior staff, bringing them back to our government and seeing how they fit with the cost-saving measures we’re making...

Mr. Chairman, as we highlighted with the interim appropriation, we’re proceeding for the status quo for the first three months. As we review how we need to budget in areas where we can save funding and look at the investments, we’ll follow through on the next phase of our work. Some of that is being looked at. A number of these areas….

The Member asked about combining a couple of secretaries for departments. That is something that can be reviewed when we talk about refocusing-government, as well as looking across departmental initiatives. Again, we look forward to the Members’ work that they’re...

The work is ongoing, looking at what options are being developed by departments. Every department is going to be affected by this process. The decisions we make on what is acceptable to bring forward as well as incorporating what Members would bring to the table through their work is under careful review.

At this point we are unable to put out the detail, as we're putting that together so we can go to committee, have that review, and get some feedback as to what's being presented. We're not at the stage yet where we can lay out: here is where it’s going to happen, and this is how people will...

I thank the Member for his words in this area and the interest he has for the facilities we have dealing with those seniors in the Northwest Territories — elders and working with the groups. I think the dementia facility is an example of a partnership between the government, NGOs and industry to make this possible. It’s that type of program — thinking outside the box — that allows this to happen. If we were to stick to our typical process, it would be much more problematic to do this and come up with a cost-effective way of doing this type of work.

Our experience in the North has been, when we...

Mr. Speaker, the biggest things we’re working at is taking the appropriate amount of time to ensure that what is being advanced as initiatives or cost-saving areas is, in fact, going to be cost-saving areas. It is going to minimize the impact on the delivery of programs and services.

But the cold, hard reality is that if we don’t take the necessary steps today, then we are mortgaging our children’s future — and I would say mortgaging at a sub-prime level, which we don’t want to see happen.

We are taking initiatives, looking at how we do this, taking the necessary time. We will be presenting...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Bisaro is correct in the process that we are undertaking. At least at this stage the interim process is a feature of how we do business. We don’t see it too often in the life of a government, and this allows us to then have a very good look at the way we do our budgeting, the exercises we go through, and to make the required changes as we would like to see it as Members of the 16th Assembly. That is why we are doing the interim appropriation process.

The capital plan is one where we also realize that we’ll need to move ahead with key projects; for example, in areas...

Mr. Speaker, as to the reason why we’re moving forward in this manner, instead of a main budget being this session we’re in, we’re looking to delay it so that we can do the right analysis for what we bring forward in cost savings as well as investing in the new initiatives. The message has been that we need to look at that.

The earlier question today about the deputy ministers being involved in reviewing who’s being hired is part of that overlap. The policies haven’t changed. We’re just ensuring that if we’re going to go through this exercise, we don’t unduly affect employees that are either...