Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joining me at the witness table is Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, who is the director of Budget Evaluation for the Financial Management Board Secretariat.

Mr. Speaker, the concern is being raised out there about the government’s focus on reduction. There are rumours about the number of positions that may be taken out of the system, and they are just that — rumours.

We are working on putting the information together. We’re looking for input from Members. We’re looking for the method of how we’re going to do this.

More refocusing of government across departments’ initiatives will probably be brought forward and have an impact in ‘09-‘10. Some of the exercises we have to do is going to have an impact on our employee levels because, Mr. Speaker...

Mr. Chairman, as a government we do realize we need to reduce our footprint and the impact we have on the land and the environment around us and look for ways of reducing that. Yes, as it becomes more and more known, and as publications out there highlight the amount of computers that fall into landfills and the adverse impact they have, it is something we do have to consider.

A lot of this — some history here — goes back to, as Members may recall, Y2K. I believe that was the term used. When governments looked at the potential that major system failures could happen as a result of the design of...

Mr. Speaker, we are in fact looking at the whole area of our contracting practices, the timing we let out our contracts, our processes that are incorporated to date. We’ve instructed a committee led by Minister Michael McLeod to review this process and come back with recommendations on the area of contracting and existing practices. Thank you.

For the record, I have a lot of faith in Minister Bob McLeod and his being able to carry our message to this Senate committee.

As for the specifics with our Senator in the Northwest Territories, I haven’t yet been able to get a meeting time or made contact with his office on initiatives that we are looking at.

Mr. Chairman, we will get the information as we continue with this process, to ensure departments have adequate information available.

The other thing to this is, by law, we are required to keep our data and records in place, and that is part of the process as well. It is the Department of Public Works and Services that manages, for many departments, the overall data storage and media storage that we need and require for all departments.

Mr. Speaker, we have not looked at it from a 16th Assembly point of view. In response to the Member the other day, I did commit that we would look at what that potential may be.

I wish to advise Members that the Hon. Jackson Lafferty will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Justice Ministers’ meeting in Ottawa.

Bill 1, Interim Appropriation Act, 2008-2009, requests authority for appropriations of $381.275 million for operational expenditures and $110.291 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

This interim budget provides the necessary resources for the G.N.W.T. to operate for the first three months of the 2008-2009 fiscal year. The 2008-2009 main estimates will be presented during the May-June 2008 sitting of the Legislative Assembly and will include funding for the entire 2008-09 fiscal year.

The interim appropriation provides for only a portion of the full-year...

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