Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, plus the Sahtu travel budget was almost nonexistent and it was always funded from taking from other pots. So the folks there didn’t have a lot of ability to do the work they needed to do. So between that and anticipated increased demand because of the oil play is the answer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would have to confirm this, but my assumption is, as we looked where we are doing diesel batteries and solar and putting in the other smart grid technology, it would seem to make sense to be able to monitor that and take advantage of all that. So that’s one place I would suggest be considered, but I don’t think we’ve made our final determination on where the smart grid technology will be applied other than that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member raises a concern that we should be putting more money into social programs, specifically health and social services. When I was Health Minister for five and a half years, I made the comment repeatedly that if you doubled the budget of health care, we’d be back within a year or a year and a half saying we need more to do all things for all people. I don’t think, looking to the fact that other jurisdictions are spending 40 to 45 percent of every dollar on health care, not social services, not housing, not anything else, is a sign of success. The reality is...

The Premier and Cabinet provided direction to the government from two departments to go back to their organizations and look at what could possibly be decentralized, and in a meaningful way that cohesive units or positions that would make sense that could easily function outside of Yellowknife. The BIP office was one of the suggestions brought forward. Some of the other departments were holding off pending the outcome of decentralization, for example. ENR and ITI, for example, are heavily caught up in that they go over land and water and resource development. So those will be looked at later...

Yes, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I’ll get Mr. Aumond. He has the list of the positions. We’ll just take a second to go through the list. Thank you.

This challenge is a game of inches where we look for success in often, sometimes, very small increments. In this case, the Minister of Health and Social Services has struck a panel, a very blue chip panel, made up of Northerners to provide those recommendations.

Yes, we do work together as a government. We work together as a Cabinet, as an Assembly, to try to make the best decisions possible with the resources we have available. We will look, with great interest, at the recommendations of that panel. The Minister of Health and Social Services will be coming back to us with those recommendations...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess a couple of the key issues the Member raises are what type of duplication does going out consulting cause with the role of the MLAs. The MLAs are elected officials. We gather here. Our job is to run the government, it’s to pass the laws, it’s to listen to the feedback we get from the people. Some Members say and we pride ourselves on consultation and empowering the people and being able to get feedback from them, that we could all benefit from that. There should be no sense of somehow feeling threatened by going to the communities that we’re not going to listen...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve been working, as a government and as the Department of Finance, with the Liquor Commission in a number of areas. We try to educate and encourage people, pregnant mothers not to drink, we encourage people to drink responsibly, we encourage people not to drink and drive. We, of course, as a government, work with Health and Social Services. There have been discussions in this House today about Nats’ejee K’eh. We work with the schools. We work with just about all departments of government to try and deal with these particular issues related to addictions and alcohol.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. I will look at his last comment first where he talked about how we have to empower the people. That was one of the goals, I think, of the public consultation process, to take the time to go to each regional centre. Next year we want to improve on that process, but to talk to the people as Northerners about how we manage the money we have, living within our means, the challenges we face, the discussions we have here. Did we get value for money was the question that the Member asked. I would suggest to you that yes, we did, that it...