Glen Abernethy

It sounds like we’re saying roughly the same thing, but I’d like to ask the Minister to commit to actually working with our employees and reduce the number of contracts that are being awarded for work that our staff are more than competent and qualified to do in-house. It will save us money. It will allow us to streamline money to where it can be most effective. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about our employees. Our employees are our most valuable resource. In the budget address, the Minister talked about finding efficiencies and, quite frankly, I think one of the greatest ways to find some efficiencies is to work with our employees. Right now, as I indicated in my Member’s statement, you can go and find bookshelves throughout the government full of reports and analyses that were done by contractors that were managed by our employees. Our employees are smart, intelligent, hardworking, competent people who can do this work...

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 133-16(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2011-2012, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

They are general comments. From my perspective, I just made some general comments. I would like to hear what everybody has to say and have the Minister respond to all of us in general. We will get into the detail when we get into the line-by-line by department. I don’t need to hear from him now, but once everybody has talked, I sure would like to hear what he has to say.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am wondering if the Minister could tell us whether he’s going to have an RFP out so someone can do a review of our contract use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated, I believe our employees are our most valuable asset and, quite frankly, they are involved in the frontline day to day. They see our program delivery. They are involved in our program design, but unfortunately too often -- and this is a pet peeve of mine -- it’s totally easy to see when you look at that report of contracts over $5,000, which is about an inch and a half thick, and you see employees, or ex-employees of the GNWT who have gone away, started consulting businesses and we turn around and we consult with them, and we contract with them, and we contract with them to do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister of Finance for the budget address there today. There is certainly a lot that can and will be discussed from both within the budget itself and from within the budget address. I am looking forward to those discussions.

I would like to start off right now with just a couple of points. First, I am happy to see that the budget is consistent with our fiscal strategy and that the growth is less than 3 percent minus the net compensation. I think that’s important for the future of this government, both the 16th and future governments.

I also...

I know the department has been working on this new act for a long time, well over 10 years. However, the majority of the work on the existing act has been completed since the Assembly passed the Species at Risk Act two years ago. Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important to applaud the Minister and his department for recognizing treaty rights and land claim agreements, and for actively involving the Aboriginal governments throughout the NWT in drafting of this new act. They had a legal requirement to do this and I’m glad that the Minister and his department lived up to this responsibility. However...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Quite frankly, I am in no way, shape or form negating all the hard work that’s been done by this department with respect to the Wildlife Act. I respect the unique approach that they’ve taken with respect to involving the Aboriginal governments. In fact, I applaud it. I think it’s exactly the right thing to do. I am also not getting specifically into detail of the act. We can do that at another time. I’m talking about consultation process. I’m talking about listening to the people of Northwest Territories. I’m talking about hearing what they have to say and assuring them...

For the record, I said earlier that I actually applaud the department and the Minister for the unique process that they put in place. I think it’s important, I think they did the right thing, but we’re still a public government and we still need to make sure that we hear the other half of the population, 50 percent of the population that don’t feel that they’ve been heard, and it’s the consultation process. Hay River had a problem with the consultation process. The Minister’s department went in there, they advertised somewhere, nobody is quite sure because nobody showed up. Turns out there was...