Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it’s underneath government accounting and within our Financial Administration Manual where we set these guidelines up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the Member that, as she laid it out, the first socioeconomic agreement can be interpreted a number of ways. It's not very tight. We've learned from that. From a GNWT perspective, we have tightened it up to better reflect where we want to go and see things as the secondary industry develops. But at the same time, we, as a government, have to look at the big picture. The resources that are coming out of the ground are resources that belong to the people of the Northwest Territories, if we're going to believe in land rights and that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my understanding of the program is when the Power Corporation was actually a federal entity it was established back then and has been following along the same program as we’ve taken it over. One of the things we’re doing with our review is to look at that, as well, if that’s the right sort of mechanism that we would use. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that work is now part of the human resource service centres that we are working on and the pay and benefits side has been incorporated into that, so that work is proceeding. From the headquarters end, we are looking at amalgamating the pay…I guess it comes down to the ability to write the cheques to one location so we have consistency in that area. That work is, again, part of the process we are in now through the human resource service centres. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member has raised this issue on a number of occasions now and probably won’t be satisfied with the responses he gets today that I have tried to supply information about where we are and the process used. There are a few key things that have impacted where we can go as a Financial Management Board and our involvement. One is the original agreements that were put in place and who would be parties to those discussions. The process, as laid out, is the government was involved on the front end to see if a producer or a company could be looked at satisfactorily and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the policy wording itself isn’t as specific to say Yellowknife base rate, that we can compare it to the rates that are set up by the PUB. We’ve been interpreting it through FMBS as being the Yellowknife rate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Public Service Act that we are going to be going forward with is going to follow on the heels of the human resource service centres' work. Once we have that piece of work done, then we can begin to focus on that. This is one of the high priorities that we hold. As we move forward with that, we are going to need to sit down with committee members to see where we want to see our public service go and how we proceed down the road that is acceptable to Members of the Assembly. It’s early and we need to sit down and have that discussion, but it will...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the first thing we need to do is to calculate the total losses of the situation we’re in right now. Again, a fair bit depends on what the receiver can come together with in the sense of another deal. Once we have those numbers and things proceed, we will be able to calculate the total amount that we will have to come forward to this House and seek approval for. That would come through a supplementary appropriation, as we have not booked that within our budget at this time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the program, as it’s laid out, is based on Yellowknife rates, so those that receive the subsidy would be paying higher than the Yellowknife rate and that is the program and we’ll stay on that. The changes in dealing with the rate rider will work on the same principle. If we find, for example, the Yellowknife base rate goes up, then so will everybody else’s rate go up accordingly, because Yellowknife, again, is used as the base rate and if it goes up then the subsidy will kick in from that rate up. So the rest of the residents of the North will feel, if...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the amount we’ve identified here for going forward with this budget that’s before Members, $174,000 for travel includes, for example, superintendent’s travel to headquarters for the meetings that are required. As well, there is a new human resource assistant deputy minister and the traveling for the staff directly involved in that process. So we know there’s going to be that requirement and that’s why you don’t see the corresponding 25 percent reduction process, because we’ve added further responsibilities to this that were not there before and that’s...