Floyd Roland

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...

Mr. Speaker, the way we reviewed this is the Department of Human Resources and the Ministers brought concerns to the table. For example, we had different departments reacting in areas that were shutting down certain hiring positions. So that is not the situation. We are using a consistent approach now, and that is where departments are going out for hiring. Before an actual hiring occurs, it goes back to the deputy minister for review to ensure that it’s aligning with the work that’s starting to happen. We wouldn’t want to hire a position and then six months from now that position is not going...

Mr. Chairman, I’ve been informed that that is one of the areas that’s targeted as a potential migration over to the FIS system. So it is one of a number of areas that we’ve worked with. All the departments in this…. FIS is coming up with a new system that would work with departmental equipment as well as new programs, and this is one of those areas that is targeted for migration into the FIS system. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard the Member in the past talk about the growth of our government and the growth of our employees. I don’t have a handle today on just what positions, what areas of departments, are not going to fit with our initiatives. We’re undertaking that work.

The jobs are still going out there for areas that we need to fill. There hasn’t been a job-hiring freeze. The process still goes, but before a final hire happens, deputies are working on initiatives with their senior staff, bringing them back to our government and seeing how they fit with the cost-saving measures we’re making...

Mr. Chairman, as we highlighted with the interim appropriation, we’re proceeding for the status quo for the first three months. As we review how we need to budget in areas where we can save funding and look at the investments, we’ll follow through on the next phase of our work. Some of that is being looked at. A number of these areas….

The Member asked about combining a couple of secretaries for departments. That is something that can be reviewed when we talk about refocusing-government, as well as looking across departmental initiatives. Again, we look forward to the Members’ work that they’re...

The work is ongoing, looking at what options are being developed by departments. Every department is going to be affected by this process. The decisions we make on what is acceptable to bring forward as well as incorporating what Members would bring to the table through their work is under careful review.

At this point we are unable to put out the detail, as we're putting that together so we can go to committee, have that review, and get some feedback as to what's being presented. We're not at the stage yet where we can lay out: here is where it’s going to happen, and this is how people will...

I move, seconded by the Hon. Member from Deh Cho, that Bill 1, Interim Appropriation Act, 2008-2009, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes the government of the Northwest Territories to make interim appropriations for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, one thing we’ve learned — and we must learn from past history — is if we are going to make decisions, we have to make sure they don’t come back and reinvent themselves because we haven’t quite closed all the loopholes that may be established or end up coming out as we make changes. There’s a substantial amount of work involved in the refocusing-government piece. The boards and agencies are a big piece of that. As I’ve worked with Members, our time frames…. There’s a lot of work being done now. The time frames we have are tight, and that is one of the reasons why it would fall into...

Mr. Speaker, we’re not about reinventing the wheel. If work’s been done by previous governments, that would be a good starting point for us. It is part of the work that’s included. This refocusing-government piece will incorporate a whole number of initiatives, this being one of those.

Mr. Speaker, peer reviews are done on a whole number of initiatives. In fact, as we're doing our work in preparing for the business plan, looking at our fiscal situation, deputy ministers would be sitting down together to review each other’s options that they may be working on. We’ve seen that in a number of initiatives throughout.

For ourselves, though, a peer review on the financial side, when you look at it, is a review of the work that's done. There has been a cost-benefit analysis that is public. Yes, when you look at it, the numbers have changed since the price has gone up.

But if we take...