Bob Bromley

Thank you very much for that response. Just on the negotiating tables that are active today, has there been a change, or are we still chugging along with roughly the same number? I don’t know if that information is public. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be sure, I’m not sure that this information was included, but in addition to these active positions, are there unreported inactive positions and if so and they’re not funded, is the intent to delete those so that we’re not having to continue to manage those empty and apparently nebulous positions?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Premier stated in his opening remarks that the GNWT is now the lead in land negotiations. I’m wondering if I can get a little more explanation on this. I understand this is a result of devolution.

How has our role changed in negotiations and how is the federal role changed in terms of lands, or generally for the federal government, I suppose? Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I hope the Premier doesn’t think that he thinks for me, but I would like to ask our reluctant Premier my last question here.

There is currently a petition on the Legislative Assembly website. Could the Premier please reassure our employees that they will not face any recriminations if they wish to sign that petition? It’s not criticizing the government; it’s asking the government for action.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is – really I don’t know if this belongs in this section or division or not – the Premier mentioned, in his opening remarks, coordinating the activities of the Intergovernmental Council on Land and Resource Management as part of the rationale for the increased budget.

I guess, to start off, would it be appropriate to ask questions here on that subject within this section or division? Is that the right division for this?

We have roughly 10,000 households in the Northwest Territories and at least 4,000 GNWT employees at any one time given our 10 percent vacancy. This means that potentially almost 40 percent of households could include a person directly employed by GNWT.

Would the Premier agree that GNWT employees and their families make up a significant portion of informed citizens of the NWT?

Thanks for that explanation. That was my impression, and I was perplexed as to why I wasn’t seeing that drop here, and I wonder whether I’ll see an increase in Finance or whether they will just assume that it’s always been there as well. As long as we have some clarity at some point here on the shifts that are happening, but perhaps that’s a Department of Finance question. That’s all I had.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I‘ve talked about the bafflegab of our Minister of Finance with respect to our Heritage Fund contributions and I’m sorry to say it continues. Because of the confusion and obscure ways that he chooses to hide the facts, the Minister has once again left the public with the wrong impression about our planned contributions to the Heritage Fund.

In today’s News/North a reporter noted the Minister’s commitment to contributing 25 percent of our net fiscal benefit to the Heritage Fund. The reporter then quite logically does the calculations: an estimated $60 million in net...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for that response and the additional from the Minister. I’m aware of this Staff Retention Policy and the situation described by the deputy minister. There is, however, some communications that occur before officially deleting positions, and perhaps there needs to be a bit of a clarity with supervisory employees that they should not be saying things that they can’t keep to if the government decides to get rid of positions. So I’ll just leave that as a comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is on the Safe Disclosure Policy. I know there was an intent to move that into some form of whistleblower legislation after sort of vetting it for a year or two. I’m not sure that it’s actually had much experience in the vetting realm, but is the intent still to move that to legislation?