Michael Miltenberger

The Member is correct; this individual will be part of a broader water team that exists in the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve invested, over the last five years or so, millions of dollars in setting up community-based water monitoring initiatives and stations and in the Member’s constituency as well. Where the testing is going on, results are being collected. To address some of the issues the Member has talked about, we’re very aware of the concerns of the folks in Good Hope, for example, and this person will be an added resource to work with all the other resources we have...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The borrowing plan, which will be debated and approved in the House, is a key part of the bill that’s currently being reviewed by committee. So that will definitely be there. I’m assuming it will receive the full support of the Legislature. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Ernie Campbell, deputy minister; and Susan Craig, director of finance and administration for ENR. Thank you.

It could be both.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Borrowing Authorization Act, be read for the third time. Thank you.

We have come up with a final supplementary request for the cost of fire season, which is roughly $60 million when you look at all the money including the money we had in the budget. We can account for that. What is being done, the full cost accounting, since the end of fire season is an operational review of how we are structured, how we’ve done business, the final accounting of what our expenditures were, communication issues. We’ve heard any number of suggestions from the communities on the issue of fire smarting, the command and control structure of firefighting, all those types of things.

T...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The short-term borrowing is a borrowing that takes place over the course of one year. Long-term borrowing is borrowing that has a much longer time frame than that.

Mr. Speaker, I seek consent to proceed with third reading of Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Borrowing Authorization Act. Thank you.

---Consent granted

I’d just like to comment on Mr. Dolynny’s final comments about vacancies. I want to acknowledge that it is an area, as we move forward and as we hew to that very tough line of not having our expenditures exceed our revenues, that there is going to be, I would suggest, ongoing scrutiny of the whole area of staffing vacancies. We have over 5,000 employees. We fund a veritable army of casuals and relief workers and it’s roughly an $800 million part of our budget, which is a very, very significant amount of money.

Clearly, as we move forward and look at how we’re doing things and how we account for...

Yes, Madam Chair.