Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. The harsh assessment by the Member aside, Human Resources performs a very valuable service. They have a lot of very hardworking people. As the Minister pointed out in his statement in the House today, there are a lot of good things at work. We have over 5,000 employees. We’re doing things like negotiating at four separate bargaining tables. I think the Member’s characterization is overly harsh and it’s not an accurate portrayal of all the good work that is done by the many people in human resources. I’m not sure if the Minister wants to comment himself, but for the...

We are well aware of the concerns of the Member. We are well aware of the circumstances of the road. We are well aware that we have far more needs than we have resources. This road is on our red flag list. We have to resolve the borrowing limit issue and look at collectively making those strategic initiatives necessary in critical areas such as Highway No. 7. That is the intent of the government. Thank you.

I appreciate the Member’s comments. As a government we will be making every effort to ensure that coming forward in May/June that we have hopefully an ability to reflect some continued investment, noticeable investment in the area of energy, and our challenge will be to try to get that done.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a number of programs that have sunsetted, which is reflected here in a diminished amount.

There is, if I look at the list before me, a highway and airport maintenance in Fort Liard, $903,000; there’s highway maintenance in Fort Simpson, $1.4 million; winter road construction and maintenance, Zone 6, Wrigley area, $590,000. These specifically speak to the Member’s constituency.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me at the witness table Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Finance and Mr. Olin Lovely, the director of Management Board Secretariat.

Yes, Madam Chair. The interim appropriation requests authority for appropriation of $404.121 million for operations expenditures in the 2012-13 fiscal year.

This interim budget provides the necessary resources for the government to operate in the first three months of the 2012-2013 fiscal year. As discussed with committees previously, the 2012-2013 Main Estimates, or full budget, will be presented during the May/June sitting of the Legislative Assembly.

I will explain the methodology of the interim appropriation development and clarify that the interim provides for only a portion of the full...

The cure for the broken heart the Member is referring to, of course, is to sign the Devolution Agreement, and the authorities and money will flow and he’ll feel much better.

In terms of his specific request on the Liquor Act, the Member is very well aware that the average timeline is about two years for amendments, but before we even get to that point we have to have the fundamental discussion about laws of general application and can we make laws of that nature in the Liquor Act. Can we tailor them region by region when people have broad rights that they have given to them under the Canadian...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m aware of the Member’s concerns and some of the folks in his constituency. The issue of the Liquor Act and changing it away from a law of general application to one of regional application is one that I am prepared to look at as Minister to see what’s possible. I’m prepared to sit down with the Member if he wants to have discussions or he wants to put his fingers to the keyboard and lay out the very specific question that he may be contemplating. We would, of course, give it our full attention.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were operation requirements. The positions weren’t hidden from view. They were reflected in the org charts. The fact that they were funded from within has now been sorted where they moved money, as Mr. Aumond said, from their operational budget into salary dollars. But the fact is they’ve had some other recent changes of staff, so they’ve re-profiled and re-classified some of the positions to do different things and it’s a normal business of government. It’s being shown here. They’ve moved the dollars out of O and M so that it’s going to be funded and it will be...