Bob McLeod

Thank you. The government’s objective is to meet last year’s target of 263 summer students and it’s our commitment for the department to achieve the 16 summer students that we hired, the same as last year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member may recall, when legislation was passed establishing the BDIC, that I’m very limited to the kind of direction I can give to the board. I can write them a letter recommending they hire more summer students, and I’m prepared to do so, but you have to also recognize the fact that the BDIC subsidiaries, we have to get FMB approval to subsidize jobs, because we figure that a job that’s not fully paid for is better than no job at all. In most of the subsidiaries we have to subsidize jobs up to a maximum of $25,000 per job, so we’re limited on that basis, as well...

Thank you. To date we’ve hired nine summer students and I’d also like to advise the Members that the Progressive Experience Program is also fully subscribed. Thank you.

Every year we plan on a continuous basis, but for this fiscal year we started in December 2010. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Film and Media Arts Industry: Growing the Sector. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker. In December of last year the department met with the deputy ministers of all the departments and advised them of the process for hiring summer students, the need to register on the public registry and the need to have a continued support to hire summer students. We follow that up with regular updates at deputy minister meetings and also letters to the departments. We also raise them at ministerial meetings. So in every opportunity, we encourage departments to increase the level of hiring of summer students. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the short term we will be doing up a contribution agreement with the Smart Society, and the reason for that is, as everybody knows, there is an election coming up and we can’t commit a future government on future funding, so we will also endeavour to include that in the transition document.

I think it’s very important to note that in the future we’ll be looking at expanding to other initiatives, and long term, hopefully, it could become part of one of the TFC finance projects in the future. But that’s in the long term and we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next government. Thank...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 11, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled 20/20: A Brilliant North Action Plan (2011-2012) and Results Report (2010-2011); and Report on the Staff Retention Policy Year Ending March 31, 2011. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Going back over a number of governments, there have been a number of attempts at decentralization and there have been successful initiatives to decentralize. I can think of the health care cards to Inuvik; I can think of the forestry division to Hay River, amongst others. I think that the last time a government took a serious look at decentralization it only got to a certain point, because you wind up with winners and losers. You have communities that lose jobs and other communities benefitting.

I think the best chance there is for decentralization is with devolution. We have to make sure that...