Michael Miltenberger

Thank you. There are unfunded positions. There’s still a gap of about 7 percent on the benefits that the departments are funded with for positions that the departments are required to cover off. There is money that’s used for casuals to offset the vacancies, contracts that are used to offset the vacancies. Some folks may be away on leave. So it’s a very complicated list. It’s not just empty or full. There are many issues to consider.

One of the things I would point out, as well, in the budget address, is we’re devoting $22.6 million, I believe it is, over three years to put housing in small...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2014-2015.” Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in 54 days we will be taking responsibility for the management of our lands, waters and resources. With only 605 days left in the life of the 17th Legislative Assembly, when most governments are taking stock, we are taking on new challenges and embracing new opportunities.

Two years ago this Assembly set out to restore fiscal balance, protect programs and services, and responsibly fund infrastructure investment. We achieved this in the last two budgets by reducing spending growth to half of what it was five years ago. Entering year three of our fiscal plan, we have shown that by...

We talked about if we park the $1 billion request to bump up our borrowing limit to the side which is going to be geared to major economic infrastructure, when we talked about the Heritage Fund, the resource revenue sharing, we talked about debt reduction, paying down the debt and we talked about investing in infrastructure. Those are the three areas and we are working to keep the debt reduced to within $100 million cushion of our $800 million borrowing limit. We’ve talked to people about that. We’ve talked to people about the things we need to do about the Stanton renovation at $350 million...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was an issue of choice and having to make disciplined choices to try to meet all the objectives that we have as a government and as an Assembly, in a way that allows us to be sustainable, stay within our borrowing limit and still move forward.

There was a very diverse range of opinion across the territory. For example, the community of Hay River, they were supportive of the 5 percent when we met there and when we did a wrap-up at the end of the day. In Fort Smith there was a significant debate, 25 percent at the end of the day. Inuvik said they thought it should be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If you used the ballpark figure of, on average, $100,000 per position, the math would be $80 million. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this particular moment, I understand we are recruiting actively for 571 positions.

Where there are no incumbents, that is not an issue of concern. Where we are taking over responsibility with incumbents, there is a two year, I believe it is, guarantee of job certainty in the position in the community where they currently are, which in this case would be Yellowknife. After that, the opportunities for longer-term planning would kick in and potential decentralization opportunities may flow.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Phase 1 was completed last year and we laid it out in the budget last year. Phase 2 speaks to some of the things we are looking at in the more immediate term in terms of devolution and reorganization, the lands, departments being set up in the regional centres and those types of things. Then as we look at our devolution and post-devolution organizational structures and then the longer-term phase 3 is going to be a bit more in-depth as we look at some of the things that are once again impediments to moving positions outside of Yellowknife, which the two main ones would...

Thank you. Once again, this is a short question that would require a very complicated answer if we wanted to cover all the issues. But there are positions, the money is used in some cases to help cover off a gap in benefits, there are casual dollars, there are contract dollars, there are staff that may be on transfer assignments. So there’s a range of reasons why some positions may be empty.

The issue, though, is one of concern to the government that we need to find a way to make sure… We have a couple of competing issues here. We have northern graduates that don’t come home and we have...