Floyd Roland

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

It’s not my intention at this time to be writing a letter to the Senators who are not making the trip. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the area of evergreening…. In fact, when that program first was introduced to the government of the Northwest Territories a number of years ago, the time limit used to be three years. As Members of that Assembly had requested that it be extended, it was done to that limit.

Although we've got a time frame, it is not for every system we have available. Again, because of the resources, it is done department by department. They go around and do the system replacements. In some cases they're still catching up; they're still older than the five-year window that's there. They're still...

Mr. Speaker, we’ll be — later on today, I hope, and throughout the rest of our session — dealing with specifics as we proceed and looking for approvals from this Assembly.

Again, for the specific areas, I need to get the details and actually sit down with the Member and see where things are.

No. We have not set up a meeting as a cabinet or other Ministers. The point of contact will be through Minister McLeod, going on our behalf of when they are sitting on this specific issue that they are travelling on.

Mr. Chairman, we have gone back to all departments, requesting them to look at what is needed to proceed at this juncture and what could be put off. The department has looked at this and put it forward as needing to proceed with this work, to make sure that they do have the storage available for their records. It’s something we've had a problem with within the government for years, in the form of paper and boxes in basements. But with this updated electronic area, with all our new data and equipment, we need to have storage for that type of information and backup.

I can't give much more than...

Mr. Speaker, in our processes, we are beginning our budgeting cycle. Normally, budgets would be brought in place and voted in this House for April 1 and beyond. We’re coming forward with an interim process, and then May-June is the main sitting, as we’ve worked out with Members.

Some departments, as stated in the House yesterday, have come forward with a larger part because of some contracting issues, and those may be incorporated. But without the specifics, I am unable to give a full response.

Mr. Speaker, again, in a consensus-style government, working with Members as to the time frame and meeting the May-June target, we’ve had to track from that point of bringing forward a budget process. The work is going to be done to compile all that information so we can present that to Members. It will be later on this winter and early spring before we will be able to present Members draft documents of where we’re going to meet our timelines and targets for the first budget to be put in place in May-June.

Mr. Chairman, in this area, we've gone to the departments to request what they would need to proceed at this stage. Quite a number of the smaller projects that make up this amount flow into either work that's been started. And that was one of the criteria: if work had been initiated in a previous year and this is a continuation of that, then they find themselves on this plan.

As well, there are a number of other areas we're challenged in. Again, it comes back to our systems and ensuring that we have the required backup components — for example, in TSC — to ensure that if there are any problems...

Mr. Speaker, I see the path this is going down: that as a new government, as Premier, we’ve not shared any information with Members, that we’ve been withholding information. I’ve taken a large number of steps to be as open as possible with Members, to share the direction we’re going in.

In fact, early in January I offered up the opportunity to see where we’ve looked at setting these targets. We’ve shared information. Is it complicated? Is it because the Member just disagrees with where we’re going? I’m not sure.

What we were trying to do is prevent the reverse. When we heard that departments...