Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Minister Lee. We’ll go on to Mr. Robert McLeod next.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Minister Roland.

Mr. Chair, I’m now slightly confused. I thought the revenue summary, the grant-in-kind mentioned on page 5-10…. I thought the Minister said that that was the Rockhill grant, whereas on 5-18, the $260,000 is the Rockhill grant. So I’m just a little confused. The number you mentioned before — that $510,000 that disappeared — doesn’t seem consistent with this $260,000. So if you can help me understand that, that’d be great.

Thank you for that information, Mr. Minister. I’m curious, given that…. I may have misunderstood, so just bear with me. With these additional tables, if you’re going to be going for a forced growth in ’09–10, and we’re already…. April, May, June — three months into this fiscal year, and by the time we give the employees their notice, we’ll be halfway through the fiscal year. So they’ll be gone after halfway through the fiscal year is up, and then we’ll be looking at bringing back people to do similar jobs at the beginning of ’09–10. Does laying off the individuals now make much sense if we...

I’m good.

I'm quite happy to hear that the department is willing to work with the sector. I think that's great. It's great that they understand the value and hope to work with, but on the other side, they turn around and say, “But we're not giving you any money.”

The sector actually has gone out and has found some money. I indicated it in my Member's statement. They also have a great relationship with Sport North, which helps them with some infrastructure and whatnot. So they still do require some operating funds from time to time. As an example, the board consists of members from all over the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow-up to my Member's statement on the end of operations of Volunteer NWT.

Given that the voluntary sector is a key player in helping us develop and maintain healthy communities, I was sad to hear that Volunteer NWT, which is a champion for the sector, is shutting down operations due to limited and/or no funding from the GNWT. In the past the GNWT has supported them and has provided some funding. Now it appears that they've cut them completely off.

My question is to the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs. I'm curious...

Can I have that in English, please?

Thank you for clarifying that for me. When is the reorganization and the restructuring of the department going to occur?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In looking at the active position numbers, I see that the department is going down by 11 positions. After hearing the Minister’s comments, I see that there is going to be a whole lot of new negotiating going on in the future. I understand that a number of these positions that are being eliminated are negotiator or negotiator-related type positions. I’m wondering if I can get the Minister to explain to me what processes you used in order to determine which positions to eliminate. Were any of them vacant? Which ones were filled? And, given these new tables that have been...