Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement yesterday I spoke about the need for this government to reduce expenditures. One area, in my view, that is ripe for picking some funds and removing them is print advertising.

The Minister of Finance yesterday was good enough to advise me that, yes, we do have policies that govern this particular expense. But I have to ask the Minister: has he done a cost benefit analysis of this type of expense, the use of print advertising, and what is the value to this government of print advertising?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to highlight this Sunday, October 5, which is Run for Our Lives. On Sunday hundreds of participants in six of our communities will take part in the CIBC sponsored Run for Our Lives to raise funds for breast cancer.

You may know of the national event Run for the Cure, but Run for Our Lives is an NWT event made in the North for the North, and the dollars stay in the North. Several years ago a dedicated group of volunteers, tired of sending our hard earned NWT fundraised dollars to the South, decided that a breast cancer fundraiser event would better benefit...

I thought I heard the Minister talking about the round table recommendations, and I hope he means that the review of printing reports is part of that consideration of the stuff that came from the round table.

I’d like to ask the Minister, as well, if he can tell me whether or not we have any policies in place that guide the use of print advertising by our department.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m having trouble hearing you over all the raucous noise in the chamber.

In my statement I spoke about suggested ways to reduce expenditures and save money, and I asked a specific question in my statement. I’d like to address the same question to the Finance Minister. Has this government given serious consideration to the implementation of electronic distribution of annual reports for our departments, our boards and our agencies, and if not, why not? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, just one question in regard to the possibility of a fund for unused dollars that are earmarked for fire suppression. Is there anything in our legislation or in our regulations that does not allow us to take unexpended funds from, say, forest management, intended for fire suppression, and put them into a fund as a holdover for another year?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask the Minister and make some comments to item 2 in his opening remarks with regard to the $3.1 million that are costs associated with the collective agreement between the government and the NWTTA — the Northwest Territories Teachers’ Association.

It goes to, I guess, the way we do our budgets and our estimates. I have difficulty in understanding how, when we did our budgets for ’08–09, we didn’t anticipate that there would be some sort of increase for costs associated with this particular agreement between the government and the NWTTA. At that point we would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that very brief answer, Mr. Minister. I wonder if you could tell me what those policies are.

I’m glad to see that occasionally the other side does listen to us, because I believe I made that suggestion some time ago. That came from a constituent, by the way, so I think that is evidence of what I was saying in my statement, that there are a lot of suggestions out there which we would be well advised to listen to.

I’d like to ask the Minister when we can expect to see a conclusion of the review that he says is ongoing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since most of us on this side picked on the Finance Minister yesterday, I figure that it’s my turn today.

I thank you, Minister, for the comments. I do appreciate that there is difficulty in being too transparent. I am not advocating that we be quite that transparent. I do think there ought to be methods, and I am glad to hear that the government is looking into other jurisdictions to find out whether there is a method and that we can’t include expected bargaining expenses in our budget so we have a true picture of what it’s actually costing us in any one year. I personally would say to the Minister that, yes, I am fully in support of including this kind of an expense in our yearly budget.