Don Stewart

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The main estimates reflect the restatement from various departments, but I can provide for the Member a little detail behind that. Sixty-nine of those positions, of the 88 positions for 2019-2020, are transfers from other departments, so it reflects that consolidation. Eleven positions were existing in finance because the office of CIO was already there. As well, we had a couple of these types of position in the department already. There was one position that was re-profiled from existing resources to create another project management position. There was initiative funding...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe we can provide some additional detail on that, as well, but I will say that I think the Member hit on a couple of big areas. One, the Hay River franchise. They're still going through that process, but there will have to be some borrowing to be done to be able to purchase the assets when the franchise turns over for Hay River. There are two other resource projects that I know they put in a request for proposal. There was a request for proposal to be the power provider for the NICO project, should it proceed. This gives them the capacity, if they were successful in...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Two things on that: there still are training positions that departments can use if they want to hire somebody, and that feeds into the regional recruitment program that I am sure the Member is aware of. Then the other program we started last year is something called the gateway program, where we have provided funding to departments to go out, and we put out calls for applications on this for somebody who maybe doesn't quite have the skills to work in a government position yet and for various things, but it provides departments with funding to have them work part-time and...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I mean, largely, it is a best estimate that we can come up with, knowing past events that have happened and those sorts of things. It's not based on a formula, or anything like that. It's just to give us that room that might be needed. I think anything beyond that, you'd want to be coming back for those borrowing authorizations. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. When there is a competition, the client service manager from our department helps the hiring department with the process, but they also work with the applicant. If somebody wasn't successful, then they would give them the information that they would need to know the steps and point out them to the website for the exact steps they might go through for a staffing appeal.

Also, to explain, we have done some plain language work to be able to explain to folks what is appealable and what isn't appealable about competition, so they would give them all of that information and then...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The way the formula works in terms of the grant from Canada is it does look, as you note, around our own-source revenue and those sorts of things, but, to take out the fluctuation, it uses a moving average of a couple of years of critical data in terms of the escalators that are built into the formula. So sometimes you will see it both going up, and sometimes you will see it going the other way, but it is to smooth it out, and that is part of the reason why you would see the scenario that you are talking about. In terms of the grant itself, it is a three-year moving average...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. There were certainly lots of views, not only from people in the department, but when we released the approach to the public, as to whether there should be more that goes to families, whether it should be income-tested, and a variety of other things. Yes, there were different views, depending, probably, on their own family situation, but also recognizing what we were trying to do, which is really offset the impact of the carbon pricing as opposed to any other objectives that might be out there. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Again, I will confirm these dollar values, but it is on a per-person basis. If you have more people in the household, obviously, the value will be higher. If I recall correctly, the value was $260 annually for people who are 18 and over, and $300 for children under the age of 18, dollars a tonne. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. We can get a table, but I will very quickly just sort of remind the Members of some of the things that we are going to be using that money for. First, obviously, is the cost-of-living offset benefit, which will be delivered to residents to help offset the impacts of the carbon pricing. There is the heating fuel rebate so that both residents and small businesses and others will not have to pay carbon tax on heating fuel. Then there are the rebates related to the large emitters, as well, and for electrical generation, but we will provide a table that provides the detailed...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Part of the process that we are going through and one of the first things that we will be working on is we have a rough sense of what should be in an accountability framework and, certainly, departments are very interested to make sure that they don't lose any of the service that they are getting now. We are trying to look at this on a broader sector basis so that we can include accountability around the other components of information systems, but also that information technology and information management as well to come up with a sector-level set of indicators, but we...