David Ramsay

Thank you. I'd like to call Committee of the Whole to order and ask what is the wish of the committee. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I request unanimous consent to return to item 15 on the Order Paper.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have mentioned, in the Department of Human Resources there are six managers managing six people. I would like to see somewhere….I know it is not mentioned in the Hackett report, but how can we keep hiring manager-type positions, positions where we are going to have to pay more to have these folks employed at Human Resources? Why do they all have to be management positions? What is the ratio of management positions in Human Resources to actual on-the-ground employees in that department? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask questions today to the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Dent. Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of jobs advertised in the local media. Mr. Speaker, one of my favourites was manager of total rewards. It got me to thinking that perhaps the employees of the government were accumulating points to redeem for some toasters, camcorders or iPods, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Human Resources, a department that has, as I mentioned the other day in the House, six managers managing six people. Of these new...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find it a little hard to believe that MACA doesn’t know the capacity in each and every one of our communities. That is their mandate. They have to know what’s going on there. I know the government, years ago, used to publish community profiles, a booklet, when the Northwest Territories included Nunavut. It published a yearly book on community profiles and it was quite detailed. I am not sure if we are still doing that type of work. From time to time, when we look at communities, somebody gives us something. It’s called community profile and it’s got some...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a few questions regarding funding for two regional resource development impact advisors. It was a few years back where the two positions came in and I believe they came in through supplementary appropriation as well. They were to be sunset after two years. I guess we are reaching the end of the two-year period. We had hired these two individuals to work in the regions on resource development impacts. We don’t have a pipeline yet. So the first question I would have is what did these two individuals do for the past two years and how do we measure performance for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for that. I’m not here today to demoralize anybody. What I’m here to do is my job and ask questions. I hear also from the front-line workers where there’s not enough money and resources, especially for the NGOs. So if we are going to spend $75,000 on a survey and then we’ve got other NGOs saying we’re not doing enough for them, there has to be a balance somewhere and I think we do have to ask some questions. The list of organizations that the Premier had mentioned that were going to be part of this survey, I’m wondering if there’s going to be any...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister of Finance for that explanation. The conference on family violence, I guess it’s nice to give the providers of that service from around the territory an opportunity to get together to share information and coordinate efforts and things like that. It is $120,000. That’s something I can live with, Madam Chair.

The survey, though, is another story. I know the Premier mentioned earlier about baseline data. I mean I’m not an expert in this field by any stretch, Madam Chair, but if you want baseline data, I don’t think you need to look any further...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, will be voting in favour of the motion that is before us today. I think that the program itself needs to be reviewed. I also think, and I’ve made mention of this in the House, that not all communities are paying the same power rates. Those served by NUL are paying lower rates than those serviced by the Power Corporation. We need to get a better understanding of how we can get the best possible power rates into the communities as we can. That should be the onus of any review, how do we give our residents the best value on their power rates? Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m always impressed with the Minister’s responses, especially when we’re talking about something as important as this. I think it’s important that it starts somewhere. I hear the Minister and I hear the Minister say communities and establishing it throughout the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, $26 million, that’s not going to happen right away. What needs to happen right away is this service needs to get started in Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith just for starters. I’d like the Minister to make a commitment today to get his officials at MACA to...