Floyd Roland

We’ve made the offer to committee to work with committee closely on this process of how we proceed and come up with a common practice we can support going ahead. So yes, we’re going to be working with committee before a draft acquisition plan and before committee members. We have quite a number of issues to deal with in that time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, the department has begun this review, a zero-based review, looking at program spending to determine in what areas the spending is occurring, whether it is authorized in the sense of mandated programs or has there been a growth in program delivery in areas we would call expansion of the service delivery, though it may not be directly tied to a mandate. That expectation has come in.

I’ll give you an example, Mr. Chairman. The department, when they initially looked at the area of services provided to people in the Northwest Territories — this is a number of years...

Mr. Chairman, the surplus and deficit policy allows the boards that are in a surplus situation to hold on to 50 per cent of that surplus. At one point all the money used to be returned to the department. Of course, there are a number of health authorities that are doing okay or holding surpluses. There are a few that are into a deficit, and the two major ones are Stanton and the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority.

A serious question we have to address, even going forward, is: what is the expectation? Right now I think a lot of not only authorities but also people of the...

Mr. Speaker, obviously the Member is not hearing what I’m saying, or there’s something not connecting here because I believe I committed to working with the Members on the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan. In fact, it is a concern to us. That is why we’ve put an Infrastructure Cabinet Committee group together and are working with Members on the budget process, looking at timing, looking at how we bundle our projects together, and how they’re presented to the people of the Northwest Territories. We will work with committee on that. So yes, we are working with committee, and we’ll continue to do...

Mr. Chairman, geographic tracking processes are done by the department and the FMBS as well. That breakdown is territorial, regional, community; looking at service delivery, looking at all departments. As Members are aware, although it’s broken down, some of the pots of funding are held either in headquarters, even if it’s for regional dollars, or in the regional centres if it’s broken down for community dollars, depending on how it’s set up. If it’s application based…. If, for example, the jobs are put out but no one is applying, or the qualifications of those applying for jobs don’t meet the...

Mr. Chairman, to my right I have the secretary to the FMB, Ms. Kathleen LeClair, and to my left is Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, director of budgeting and evaluation.

Mr. Chairman, I’m trying to be serious here, I guess, in responding appropriately to the Member.

The fact is, that as we’ve gone through this afternoon, a meeting is being held by the Secretary to the FMB with representatives in the Nunavut government. As well, we’re hosting the Northern Premiers’ meeting, with the three Territories coming up here soon. That will be another opportunity; I can have a side discussion with the Premier of Nunavut.

But the work has been ongoing; it’s not an introductory one. It is, in fact, to talk about establishing a new payment regime. That work was undertaken...

If I understand the question right, assigning responsibilities for delivery in this area to a department…. All of our strategic initiatives involve a number of departments, so we would have a key Minister working with departments and then a committee.

I would be prepared, as well as committee, once we sit down with Members — and we’re hoping to have that before Members head off after session here — to look at how we can structure that. I’m prepared to add that to the list, to see how we can formulate and make this work.

The breakdown…. Because it’s over a number of years and because we fund Health and Social Services authorities by block funding, we do have certain areas that money is allocated to, but there’s flexibility within that.

Part of it could be the different years. They may have had increased use of locum doctors or agency nurses or utilities costs going up. That’s one of the reasons FMBS has become involved in looking at a zero-based review and exactly how the money’s being spent on a day-to-day basis, coming forward with a plan and working with the Department of Health and Social Services on how we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 4, 2007–2008, requests authority for additional appropriations of $28.205 million for operational expenditures for the 2007–2008 fiscal year.

There are two items in this request:

$10.9 million for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to record a grant-in-kind for the costs associated with infrastructure that has been transferred to community governments. There is no outlay of cash as the funds were expensed in previous fiscal years. The impact on government operations is nil as the department will record an offsetting...