Tom Beaulieu

Had we left the 71 positions in the budget, then you would have seen a huge decrease, so what we did so that we’re able to compare apples to apples, was to remove completely retroactively to those positions left. It has no impact at all. Maybe what I am going to try to do is try to get Ms. Beard to add some of the details on how that had occurred. It is like we are comparing the… I think the department has 119 people, so we’re comparing that all the way along, not the 190 people that were in the department previously. It is as if those 71 people had never existed in the system. I think it is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. No. We will provide. What the Member is asking for is that we do a manual count of the change of all the individuals that came into the public service that were priority 1, 2 or 3. I guess I’m not clear on how far back we go. From the last report to this report coming up or is it from the last report that we have completed to the previous year or this government or this fiscal year? I’m not sure exactly what we’re reporting on.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The energy efficiency act was last amended in September of 2009. We were currently using it up until December 2014. There will be another review of the consolidated energy efficiency act.

Any time there are energy codes or anything, regulations in the act, then the Department of Public Works uses the current energy efficiency act. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the safe disclosure, I will have Ms. Beard talk a bit on that and respond on the budget. I really don’t understand exactly what it is that the Member is saying.

We’ve had forced growth, which means we are forced to grow in the area of collective bargaining and Collective Agreement increases and collective bargaining negotiations and also in the PeopleSoft maintenance, so those are three areas that we grew in. We’ve legally had to provide French language communications and services. We grew in that. There was an increase in devolution and then we had transferred to...

We would have to do a manual count by department, so what happens with our reporting on PeopleSoft is that they give a snapshot in between from one report to the next, so for about a six-month period what it would show would be the change but it wouldn’t show the amount of people going in and out to actually create that change. It would show the new number at this point. In order for us to determine how many southerners we hired or non-priority candidates we were to hire in the GNWT versus priority 1 or priority 2 candidates, we would actually have to do a manual count department by department...

Mr. Chairman, we have found ways within the passive restraint to roll out the program without increasing the budget.

I will try to have the director provide some detail on the increases and whether or not we are in a position to look at savings elsewhere.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it will be. We will be moving gasoline into communities on the winter road. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. We were able to lower the costs by seeing that the fuel that we buy is referred to as fuel at rack prices that came down quite drastically over the last few months. We are anticipating that by the time you get the fuel into the community, it will be at a much lower cost. We are sort of blending at this point and lowering the costs. We do anticipate additional costs for heating fuel when we actually deliver the fuel sometime between the middle of this month and the middle of next month. Thank you.

I do believe that the department feels that they have been assisting with the situation. My understanding is that although the unit that was in jeopardy was moved, the member does not live in that unit so it continues to be in an area where it has flooded or has flooded frequently. We are looking at that now, as I indicated. We do plan to resolve the issue if we can, if we can work in that area and do something with the culvert, as the Member advised. If that is a solution, then we’ll work towards that. Thank you.