Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the scenario we entered into as Members of the 15th Assembly, with the fiscal forecast as it was, we laid out our fiscal strategy which included three years of reductions. The first budget we brought in had a $10 million capping of government expenditures plus own source revenues of $10 million.

This is our second piece of that. There is a $20 million reduction scenario that we are looking at and year three of the plan would bring another $20 million in reduction. With our fiscal picture changing as it is, we may not need to see any large-scale...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am aware of some of the erosion concerns from the communities the Member has raised, but the involvement that we would get into from the Public Works and Services side would be somewhat limited. Again if the project has been established, contracts would be let out in those areas of geotechnical work that needs to be done. In some cases we might be directly involved; in some cases it may be strictly within the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. I’d need to get more detail on the specifics of the project. Again, as well, if it directly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when an individual applies to the Government of the Northwest Territories under a casual position, they’re fully aware and made aware that in fact that position is short term and there are no other ties to the GNWT once that position is deemed no longer necessary. There are no additional benefits in the sense of pension and those things. When somebody is hired on as a casual, they’re aware that the casual basis is different than that of a term employee or a full-time employee. So that’s the information they operate with and some individuals do choose to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, the price and how it is established takes into consideration the transportation, the contracts that are in place, and we're aiming at a cost-recovery basis. So there is little to no profit made. In fact, if we were going to try to just make every community pay for the price of delivering the product, some communities would see a significant increase to a litre of gas and a litre of home heating oil. But again, through the structure we've put together here and with our stabilization fund, we try to mitigate some of the increased costs of providing fuel...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the numbers that Mrs. Groenewegen has used do not include, in some cases, health boards in the calculation of those. For the overall reduction scenarios that we are facing and positions that we are moving from the public service through the reduction exercise are approximately 70.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, a lot of things over the years have changed within Public Works and Services since the days of government services. A lot of departments have taken more and more of the program end of operations and done those. We’ve also gone through a privatization initiative where a lot of the work we used to do is done by the private sector through contracts. As well as user pay/user say is another term that affected the department in a fairly significant way when departments were given the control of the dollars for their operational facilities and they would go out...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, affirmative action is something that this government takes seriously and we are working to continue to improve on what we are able to do at this point. That’s one of the reasons why the Human Resource Service Centre idea is one that we feel will bring some positive results. Right now, each department is doing their own thing with different interpretations on the same rules. If we pool these human resource service staff together, they will not only support each other in the work they do, but the interpretation will be the same amongst all service centres. At...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, for the detail on the pricing that we do come up with, I'll go to Mr. Aumond, but before we do, a number of factors that do come in, and one of the things is the renewal of the contract for whether it's a winter road delivery or barge system delivery, that would take part of it, as well as our own fees in the sense of government tax. But for the breakdown of developing the cost per litre of gasoline in a community, Mr. Aumond will give that detail.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, once a project is approved and put into the capital plan in the year it is approved, when contracts are let out there is room to involve community corporations in that phase, the construction phase. But the front end work we do with departments is based on the department’s requirement. If it’s Education, Culture and Employment about the size of a school, they would come to us with that preliminary information. If it’s Municipal and Community Affairs for a shop or something of that nature or RWED for an office, we would become involved in that place. Once...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our intention is, as we begin this work and pull the initial portions together, to meet with Members of the Assembly and through committees and put the work forward in that way and begin the in-depth discussion that we need to do on how we come up with a program that is going to work well for us as the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.