Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have worked with communities, we've heard a message that a lot of communities need to take care of issues in their communities, so we've put a lot of our resources into community efforts and staff in communities to help that first line response. There's also a process established where people can call in and make a call if they feel that they don't want to approach somebody in their community directly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is right and we do, through this whole process, sit down with committee initially to get some input and if there is a request for information, work on getting it together. But we just sat down with committee on Thursday and have requested that information as we do from the appropriate departments. As we heard, the Minister is prepared to sit down with committee and provide that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, more on the serious side of our transition, we can’t turn the clock back to 1997 or 1998 when the decision was made at the time to customize the program to fit our processes as the Government of the Northwest Territories. Hindsight being 20/20, if we could do that again, we would stay with the pure form of the program and we would adopt our processes to fit it which would provide for a much cleaner process. Will that stop absolutely everything from occurring? As those of us who have home computers realize, that’s not necessarily going to be the case....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this issue around the health and social services authority and the workforce there has been one that has come up from time to time as it is in an anomaly in the Northwest Territories health care delivery system. It is something I do believe we need to look at. The fact is, through the department, through the Nurse Practitioner Program, the training initiatives, we're trying to incorporate all authorities into the same training criteria and standards as well as the networking that's available. So we'll continue to push that and work on that. But I think...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this coming forward at a late state, usually, as I stated earlier, we find departments…In this case the department did come forward, it was part of their Tourism 2010 package in request for additional support. At that point, it wasn’t given. With the change in our process and a slightly better change in our fiscal environment, this came back to the table and was supported. Ultimately though, as the Member stated, is it enough? We’ll probably find that the request still in total doesn’t match the original request that was made, but it is a support for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, to my right is secretary to the FMB, Mr. Cleveland; and to my right is Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, director of budget evaluation of FMBS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 17, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 4, 2006-2007, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of a specific budget line that is transferred to the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, but I've been informed by a public administrator down there that they're working with the senior management to encourage the networking that needs to happen throughout our system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I, as well, have touched base with folks from my constituency and those that are involved. This program affects government employees and our programming is internal. A lot of the people outside hear it from those that they talk with in passing about the problems within government, computer programs and so on, but I’ve also heard from those who are involved in this process and feel that once the system is up and running the way it was designed, it will be a much better system. We’re hopeful that we can get there and get there soon, but there are issues...

Mr. Chairman, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2007-2008 requests authority for additional appropriations of $6.004 million for operations expenditures and $3.615 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

Major items included in this request for operations expenditures include:

$2.45 million for the creation and implementation of a Tourism Product Diversification and Marketing Program;

$1.98 million to fund the projected shortfall of the forest fire suppression budget for the 2007 fire season. This amount is net of recoveries through the Mutual Aid...