Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Public Service Act that we are going to be going forward with is going to follow on the heels of the human resource service centres' work. Once we have that piece of work done, then we can begin to focus on that. This is one of the high priorities that we hold. As we move forward with that, we are going to need to sit down with committee members to see where we want to see our public service go and how we proceed down the road that is acceptable to Members of the Assembly. It’s early and we need to sit down and have that discussion, but it will...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the first thing we need to do is to calculate the total losses of the situation we’re in right now. Again, a fair bit depends on what the receiver can come together with in the sense of another deal. Once we have those numbers and things proceed, we will be able to calculate the total amount that we will have to come forward to this House and seek approval for. That would come through a supplementary appropriation, as we have not booked that within our budget at this time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the program, as it’s laid out, is based on Yellowknife rates, so those that receive the subsidy would be paying higher than the Yellowknife rate and that is the program and we’ll stay on that. The changes in dealing with the rate rider will work on the same principle. If we find, for example, the Yellowknife base rate goes up, then so will everybody else’s rate go up accordingly, because Yellowknife, again, is used as the base rate and if it goes up then the subsidy will kick in from that rate up. So the rest of the residents of the North will feel, if...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the amount we’ve identified here for going forward with this budget that’s before Members, $174,000 for travel includes, for example, superintendent’s travel to headquarters for the meetings that are required. As well, there is a new human resource assistant deputy minister and the traveling for the staff directly involved in that process. So we know there’s going to be that requirement and that’s why you don’t see the corresponding 25 percent reduction process, because we’ve added further responsibilities to this that were not there before and that’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, first of all, for the record, let's state that the accounting that took place of the loss as required by the Financial Administration Act was done so according to the Financial Administration Act, and through that supplementary document showed the loss as we have to account for it. So it was public, it was transparent. Just a portion of that was paid from within an appropriation amount we had within FMBS.

The other area; what we’re going to conclude here is the waivers to ensure that the receiver can go out now and make contact with other interested...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The review that’s ongoing is one that we’re doing from within FMBS. It’s ongoing now. At this time I’m not anticipating that we would change the work that’s going to include other work. What I did state was if Members of this Assembly felt that it was an area that we need to address and make that recommendation, then we would definitely look at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can get that information for the Members. Again, the way it was budgeted for has changed since the actuals to the 2004-05 mains is what we built in for the year we’re in and we’re about the same as what we are planning for, expenditure wise, for this budget exercise here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are prepared to work with the other departments if they find that the non-government organizations -- or NGOs, as we call them -- are finding difficulties in those areas and their contributions are continuing to go up for coverage in those areas. We are willing to work with, for example, Health and Social Services, to see what areas we may be able to assist them with. But we haven’t, at this point, come up with a plan to change the way we do things. Our first goal is to ensure that we are able to insure both from a properties side and cover our...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Member is right; the role we play now from within the Department of Finance and the NWT Liquor Act is not as broad as some of the areas. We know, for example, as a government, the impact that liquor has on our communities and families is much broader than the act itself. As a government, we’re going to have to deal with and come up with a way of dealing with this as we’ve heard earlier about what programs are being run through Health and Social Services, like the anti-smoking campaign. Those are things as a government-wide issue we have to start...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as a government, we have looked at the requirements that we are going to need as we go forward in coming up with the funding levels that are required by departments to either continue with their level of services or try to enhance them, especially when we look at the economy that we have. A heated economy is one that is good, that helps with employment and business and so on. There is also the other side of it where there is an increased cost to provide services, whether it is just normal day-to-day services in the community or the negative side when...