Bob Bromley

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that information. I think I understood that and it explains why some of the other divisions are doing so well. Just on the Minister’s comment that these have O and M dollars associated with them, I would assume those dollars would not be reported under compensation and benefits.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one quick follow-up on that. I suppose the biggest recommendation to come out of the exercise from the 16th to me was the realization that we really want everybody to have other coverage and that that could be tapped into to help protect our resources.

What proportion of the NWT residents have additional coverage and what are we doing to make sure that those that don’t somehow get it to the extent that that’s possible? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is where the Minister’s explanation kind of falls apart, given that there are a total of two new positions for the department plus one indeterminate part-time, which makes, again, the increase in compensation and benefits quite high. Thank you.

Sorry, just one more question. As Stanton gets more and more cooped up and people are stumbling on each other and working out of closet space and so on, are we finding that we’re using other facilities more? Are people being sent south more and so on? How are we staying on top of the impacts and trying to mitigate this situation at Stanton Territorial? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple questions here. I mentioned during general remarks that it seems that compensation benefits are going up quickly but I realize that there is forced growth in this area plus some new positions. I’m a little bit concerned about new positions in the directorate. I’m not positive there has been new ones, but it seems like a 20 percent increase over two years is quite a bit if there have not been new positions.

My first question is: Has the directorate been put on notice that a policy of passive restraint is to be implemented for the department in 2014-15...

I know some of that was repetitious. I hadn’t got the full picture on that before. Again, there’s nothing new here. The Minister said himself we were to plan this out of our base levels in the past. We failed in every instance. The Minister says we’ve got the same expectations again, but I haven’t heard anything that tells me how we’re going to do that or that we are. It sounds like we’re just going to ignore it again. We’re obviously not thinking about it. I’m looking for something that says, federal government, we’re hearing you. We’ll do the work and this is how we’re going to do it, or we...

Thanks. That does answer the second part. The first part, I guess, maybe I’ll just leave it with the Minister. If he thinks he could provide more information, that would be great.

The positions specific to these and the question specific to these ’14-15 positions, are any of them representing jobs that will be moved from inactive to active status in any way? That may not be something he can provide off the top, but I think that’s the sort of thing that we’re interested in knowing about. Thank you.

That sounds like good progress to me. I’ll try to score a few minutes to look at that report.

Just on page 33, the non-government organizations residential care programs and services related to addictions, mental health, disabilities and chronic illnesses, quite a decline over the last few years. Does the Minister know why this is happening? I noticed quite a difference between the main estimates and the revised estimate last year or this fiscal year. Is there not an uptake from our community organizations here? If that’s the case, $2.9 million approved, $835,000 in expenditures… This is quite...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A little follow-up here. For this one-time funding, I believe we are responsible, then, for coming up with our own dollars for these services subsequently. What is the plan for that? Obviously the planning would have to take place during 2014-15 if it disappears at the end of that year. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow up a little bit on active positions versus inactive positions and how that might affect active positions. It’s my understanding that departments can shift positions from inactive to active status, unfunded inactive to active and funded and vice versa.

Can the Minister tell me, has that been done with any of the positions listed on this page for this fiscal year, and is there a plan to do that at all during the fiscal year that’s not described here? Mahsi.