Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to start by congratulating the Minister for a fine budget address yesterday and the presentation of the budget that was conducted yesterday. I know both the Finance Minister and the Premier and the rest of Cabinet have worked very hard over the course of the last year to try to make do with what we have and also to secure some additional funding from the federal government. I applaud their efforts in that and look forward to perhaps working with them going forward to secure more of that funding, especially in terms of the resource revenue sharing, which, as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my underlying theme here is the Government of the Northwest Territories did not have to look at losing millions of dollars. I wonder if the Finance Minister today could make a commitment to try to find out exactly what went wrong with this deal and why the Government of the Northwest Territories is going to be on the hook for millions of dollars in this deal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I find it really difficult to imagine how the world’s largest diamond manufacturer could not meet the standards set out by one of our northern producers. Nobody seems to know what the Leviev Group was asking or what BHP was willing to give up. Nobody really knows. BHP says one thing, Leviev says another, and the Finance Minister can’t say anything. Where are these diamonds coming from? They are coming out of our territory here. I think we have an obligation to try to get to the bottom of this. We are losing millions of dollars, Mr. Speaker. We don’t know what...

No, the producers are in there, but he’s not in there, it’s not in there. He mentioned all producers by name, but did not mention the secondary industry. I hope this omission does not indicate the government's overall view of our secondary diamond industry.

Mr. Speaker, today, later on the order papers, I will have questions for the Minister of Finance with regard to this issue. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the Constitution Act provides that every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of Members of the House of Commons or a Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS eligible residents of the Northwest Territories have the right to exercise their democratic right of franchise;

AND WHEREAS the Legislative Assembly has ensured that all residents have the ability to exercise their constitutional right of franchise by enacting the Elections Act;

AND WHEREAS the Elections Act provides for the appointment of a Chief Electoral Officer who has the responsibility to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister of Finance for his reply. I wouldn’t debate with the Finance Minister that a lot of the new money that the Government of the Northwest Territories has received in the past while has gone to frontline workers, nurses, teachers and things like that. I wouldn’t debate that. It seems to me, in addition to that, when new money comes there are always new positions created or developed. I would like to caution the Finance Minister that to me and many of the residents here in the Northwest Territories, this growth rate in the public service doesn’t go...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to pick up where I left off with my Member’s statement today and that’s in terms of the rapid growth of the public service here in the Northwest Territories and I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board, the Minister of Finance, what plan, if any, the government has to address the rapid growth of the public service here in the Northwest Territories? I stand up here today as a Yellowknife Member. I know the vast majority of the government jobs are located here in Yellowknife and, again, I wouldn’t want to say...

This is cause for alarm and for some reason the government doesn’t seem to be paying attention to this. We have nearly 4,500 employees in a territory with a population of 42,000 individuals. If you do some math and take out the individuals that are under 20 years of age, you come up with one in every 4.5 people who work for the GNWT. The growth goes from 2,750 employees in 1999 to close to 4,500 today. The total costs are up from $251 million in 1999 to close to $400 million today.

During the next few months certainly we’ll be negotiating with the unions for a new collective agreement. I’m not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will keep this short. I guess I have been in this House and a Member of this Legislature for just over a year and over the course of the last year, I have seen a number of examples where the government has an opportunity to look at streamlining and saving some money and maybe putting some resources in other areas. To me, it just doesn’t seem to happen. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance when the government goes through an exercise such as centralizing human resource services and doesn’t take a look at the obvious, that being the human resource component...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The numbers I am working from come from the public service annual reports from 1992 to 2003. In 1999, Mr. Speaker, it shows the GNWT having a workforce of 2,749. Today, obviously, we are knocking on the 4,500 employee mark. That’s where I am getting my numbers.

In addition to that, the total spent on salaries and benefits in 1999 was $251 million and today, a mere six years later, we are at $400 million. It is cause for concern. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance where the additional funds might come from to satisfy a new agreement with the union and the...