Floyd Roland

Thank you. The work that we do on an annual basis around business planning and budget development takes into consideration our revenue sources, the fluctuation in those revenue sources, whether it’s own source or transfers from the federal government. We’ve had a commitment by the Prime Minister and Minister Flaherty from the federal government that the transfer agreements that have been signed will be honoured. That does not mean that dollars outside of those transfer agreements that are funds that are identified to be sunsetted will be reinvested in and those are the areas that we’re all...

Thank you. The ongoing budget program initiatives of the Government of the Northwest Territories are something that we continue to do. The program review office has taken the initiative to look at those areas that we see the highest growth in as a Government of the Northwest Territories, it is reviewing that information. So the initial work had to be pooling the information together, then looking at it to see what those initiatives had accomplished and from there going forward. The initiatives underway, aside from the one that has been mentioned on the office review, is the work that is going...

Mr. Speaker, I am always prepared to update meetings we have had with federal Ministers on a whole number of issues that we have discussions on. As I said, this will be one of the areas. There is not much time to talk about it, but it is informing him of the steps we have taken. When we talk about what we have tried to do as the Government of the Northwest Territories through the Minister of ENR, his staff, it is to, again, put the conservation of the caribou first and foremost that we have caribou for the first generation. Let’s not lose sight of that. It is important we set up a process...

Mr. Speaker, we have these discussions as we go forward as the Government of the Northwest Territories in the 16th Legislative Assembly. We have shown, and I can show Members, the amount of times we have gone and met with aboriginal leadership across the Northwest Territories.

On the issue of caribou, we have agreements of co-management boards with the aboriginal leadership across the Territories that have settled areas that have co-management boards in place. The one place we don’t have is the area of the Akaitcho. That is an area where the Minister and the department have met with their...

Mr. Speaker, the program review office has not had an impact on this budget that the Finance Minister introduced yesterday. The work that the program review office is doing needs to go through the regular system. That is, once Refocusing Government committee has done their work, it will come to Cabinet. It will go to members of the standing committee. We will have some dialogue on that work and pick areas where we think we can get best results and do a finer focus so to say, Mr. Speaker. The one piece of work that has had an effect has been the general office space review and that work has...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the work that the program review office has identified and will feed through our system, and our system being that of our planning and financial work that we do in preparation for budgets, our program review and development as we look at those areas. So that work will be used by us as Members of the Legislative Assembly to look at how we can, and make sure that the dollars we used are being used most efficiently. The areas, the inventory that was being done have been our health care provisions, looking at our education, adult education and training, as well...

Thank you. I will speak to the Minister of Health and Social Services. With that request, of course that requires us to work with the authority in place as they would have that type of information when it comes to the dollars that are allocated, what was spent and how it was done, but I do know that the hours that the Member talked about was doctor visits in the community. There were, during the breakup seasons of the winter road and community visits by nurses, in the neighbourhood of almost 100 days of nurse time in the community. But I’ll get the appropriate information and see what we can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the concern for the Member. It’s been raised, whether it is in this forum here in the Assembly or to provide services, necessary services in the community of Tsiigehtchic. Thank you.

Thank you. One of the things we do on a daily basis while we’re in session is talk about the issues that have arisen from question period and look at what is required to either get information or deal with the issue. This, the request for the type of information the Member has asked, is not going to be dealt with in a matter of days. It’s going to take some time to get all of that information. As well, the Member has raised there needs to be a comparison done to communities of similar size remote communities as to how we’ve delivered that service. We know, Mr. Speaker, the issue of health care...

Thank you. There definitely is opportunity. The Member himself has raised earlier in his line of questions the meetings that are held with the Beaufort-Delta leaders and the Gwich’in leaders around the services. The Department of Health and Social Services is in attendance along with representatives of the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority and we would work with that leadership to see what can be done. The area board authority is one that this government has tried to address through an initiative of board reform. That met with significant resistance of members in the public...