Alfred Moses

With the response to that question, the room that they put it in, does that follow the right guidelines in terms of dental therapists’ practice, going into the program support teacher’s classroom now? Are those regulations now met or are we contravening some of those regulations by moving the dental therapist and not doing the safety of both the therapist themselves and the students?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few really quick comments here. I know that Cabinet is familiar with the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council leadership meetings and there was a motion passed last year in terms of getting some adult learning centres up in the communities of Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour. There was some response made in terms of renovating some space or creating a new learning centre in either one of those communities and I just wanted to ask the Minister what were his thoughts and plans on the resolution brought forth from the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council specifically to those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do commend the work that Government Operations has taken and the initiatives that they’ve taken since being more trained on public accounts.

With that said, is there any type of training that the Minister in terms of Cabinet has for their own departments on making sure dollars are spent properly with keeping them accountable for the work that they’re doing as well? Thank you.

Thank you. I do appreciate the comments that the Minister has made to committee. On my desk I have two public accounts documents that were tabled in this House on February 18, 2013, when we were actually going through our main estimates at the time in terms of making decisions for the ‘13-14 budget. We are spending those dollars right now as we speak, but once that budget process was done, we didn’t get a chance to look at how other dollars were spent in previous years. I’m assured by the Minister that he is trying to get these documents done as soon as possible, but from the recommendations...

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to welcome a resident from our community of Inuvik, Kyla Larocque, and congratulate her on her studies and the fourth year of nursing. All the fourth year Bachelor of Science nursing students, welcome and good luck in your studies. I look forward to having you as part of the working force of the GNWT in the future. Thank you.

Yes, in the room they are temporarily in now, I know obviously it’s not going to be up to standards, but are we contravening any type of regulations or legislation by not having the dental therapist practice in a room that is not adequate or was not prepared for dentistry?

I look forward to the update. Just one other question with regard to infrastructure and that’s dealing with the E3 School. I brought it up in general comments at the beginning of this budget and it’s dealing with the dental therapist’s office. This would be something that would probably fall under renovations even though it is affecting our operations budget. We do have an individual there hired full time that’s not able to practice any type of oral care, which is a big issue within our youth and our children. I just want to know if there’s going to be any structural renovations within the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a point of saying that we do have three campuses in the Northwest Territories right now, and before looking at planning to build a new, big infrastructure, that we look at how we can utilize all three campuses.

I have brought it up here before and have brought it in terms of operations budget in terms of the programs offered in Inuvik. We have a great campus. We have the Aurora Research Institute there. We have great partnerships with the universities to do work up in that region, and that I don’t feel that throwing more money at a planning study...

Thank you. We have a tough job here as legislators to ensure that dollars are spent and accounted for and that we’re spending dollars in the proper way, and with a budget and increasing our debt wall, we can spend dollars in a more efficient way. But with that said, we’ve got to understand where those dollars are being spent in the previous year and the years before.

Is there any process in place right now from the government’s point of view for any of these boards or agencies that we work with that don’t get their reporting in on time? Are there any penalties or consequences for them not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance some questions on public accounts practices within this government.

Would the Minister of Finance, maybe just for education purposes, let me know what his perspective is for the purpose of having public accounts within this government? Thank you.