Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the Department of Public Works and Services’ main estimates for the fiscal year 2012-2013.

The department’s main estimates propose an operations expenditure budget of $93.6 million for 2012-2013, an increase of 0.7 percent over the 2011-2012 Main Estimates. This change can be primarily attributed to the following adjustments:

increased maintenance and utility funding associated with new GNWT facilities coming into service;

addition of two positions in support of the ongoing implementation of the government’s new Document Management System; and

a...

Yes, the Member is correct; we have done the survey. We’ve gone out and collected a bunch of data. I do have to say that we had a technical difficulty with the computer system that people could enter their information to and it put a bit of a delay in, two or three weeks, but it has closed. We’ve got the data and the analysis and a report is expected towards early June. Hopefully, we will see something during this sitting.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Originally I committed to providing the list of the infrastructure, but we can actually provide the costs, as well, and make it a little bit easier for you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a change in line items. If you look at TSC chargebacks in previous years, in 2010-11 it was $907,000 and in 2011-12 it was $916,000. You’ll notice that its zero on this line at this point. That’s because this number has been moved up into the new fees and payments and that’s where it is showing now.

There are three training positions in the associate director training positions every year. They change locations on a regular basis, depending on who is recruited into them and where they’re from. Last year there was one in the Deh Cho. There may not be one in the Deh Cho and these numbers suggest that there isn’t necessarily one in the Deh Cho this year. But there also may be. I don’t know which department that particular associate director training person was in. I can confirm to the Members where the current group of associate director trainees are and it could be that there isn’t one in...

I’m guilty of that myself once in awhile. It’s noted and we will make sure that it’s brought up to the committee to make sure we continue to push that initiative.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For some of the specifics on that and the actual costs and the individual numbers, it’s best to go to Mr. Lewis, so I’d like to pass it on to Mr. Lewis.

Yes, please.

I can’t tell you why it swelled up to $103,000 in previous years. The actual uptake was only around $20,000 so we felt it was more appropriate to indicate what the trend has been as opposed to whatever this $103,000 was in previous years. Or last year, sorry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back a little bit, this corporate human resource section is the section that has that health recruitment unit that we were talking about previously. The GNWT Green Team currently has representatives from 12 of 14 departments, including the Housing Corporation sitting on our committee. There is also one outside agency, the Arctic Energy Alliance, who has committed a member to participate on the committee. The committee has initiated conversations and relationships with the federal government Green Team and is participating in their meetings as well.

Our Green...