Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. What will be happening is that, as the review pointed out, we will have an undersized communications staff for the amount of work that there is. We have taken over about $65 million worth of new programs and services in the land, water and resource development area, so there is going to be some restructuring, reorganizing done, better coordination they are going to have to pick up and do as we up our game in relation to all our post-devo activities. We also know we have to do the adjustments that were recommended. This is going to give us some more capacity, allow us to...

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to thank the Members for their comments and, like the previous speakers, I want to acknowledge first the significant amount of work, time and effort that’s been put in over the course of two Assemblies to get this bill to where it is today, before this House and approved. I acknowledge that, like everything we do, this is a very, very good piece of work.

There are things in here clearly, as Mr. Dolynny has identified, that in his opinion need to be carefully scrutinized in the coming years and that hopefully, as he has indicated, things will evolve to even better...

We’ve got $100,000 identified for a communication campaign. There’s $30,000 identified for communication materials for the campaign strategy; $15,000 for website change, revisions and ongoing maintenance; French translation, website and all other materials is $20,000; immigration, legislation and regulatory training is $10,000; travel and transport, NWT and national, is $20,000; and international travel and transportation is $20,000. Thank you.

I understand that fact is a standard reference in all franchise agreements.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a considerable review done on this, which is one of the reasons it took so long. As Mr. Bromley pointed out, the initial report, if it was accepted at full face value, would be coming forward with dozens and dozens of new jobs, which we knew in our day and age of ongoing fiscal restraint was not sustainable, supportable or acceptable, so we’ve worked at how we could address this and do some of the improvements. We’ve taken over, once again, $65 million worth of new programs, hundreds of staff, in addition to the fact that it has been clearly pointed out to us...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The update on the NWT Growth Strategy is on its way to committee. I just signed the letter at the break and we will be tabling it before the end of session by Thursday.

What is contemplated here is to deal with the increased number of seats that we have, spots that we have with the Immigration Program and to be able to ramp up the recruiting and the advertising and getting the required immigrant staff or folks who are interested in coming or immigrating to the Northwest Territories to get them into the system, through the system under the new Express Program that has...

The facts, when you take away all the bavardage and bafflegab, is that there is a 10 cent, 30 percent rate difference between Hay River and Fort Smith and Fort Resolution. The Town of Hay River has made a conscious decision to go out and start a public process to seek providers to distribute power under a franchise agreement. We, the Power Corporation, are going to put a bid in. There is no guarantee that we are going to get it, be successful. Other bidders may be successful, if they choose to bid. That is yet to be seen.

What we do know is there are issues where there are, according to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money that we’ve got into our A-base, $65.3 million, is for specific functions tied to land, water and resource development. We don’t have the latitude to be able to say we’ve decided we’re going to spend half of it now on social programs, for example. We have obligations tied to devolution and agreements we signed to honour that commitment and fund those critical functions tied to land, water and issues related to managing that and the resource development.

In regard to the question about the layout, I’ll defer to the Premier, Mr. Chair, with your concurrence.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can provide that information to committee. Thank you.