Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Sandy Kalgutkar, acting deputy minister of Finance, Kelly Bluck from Finance, and Ian Rennie from Justice.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, just to confirm for the record, we’ve noted the Member’s concerns and we will provide that formal feedback to the work done to date and the outcomes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 2-16(6), Report on the Review of the Auditor General’s Report on the NWT Health Programs and Services 2011.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I was referring to was some of the work we’ve done as an Assembly with regard to water, the Water Strategy, getting our thinking clear, the principles -- the policy was developed in full collaboration and support of the Aboriginal governments -- is going to inform a lot of the work going forward on devolution as it pertains to the water issue because we’ve taken the last four years of time to do that. It’s in forming our transboundary negotiations as well. That’s an example of some of the work that’s being done in anticipation of us in the Northwest Territories...

We’ll commit to get that for committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money that is laid out is to do two things: look on the implementation side, which is actual transferring of the infrastructure, the resources, human and otherwise. There’s going to be a significant amount of work in terms of the requirements to meet all policy and legal obligations in our legislation. The broader work, some of which has already started, I would suggest with things like the Water Strategy, in some areas has yet to be completed. The management regime is currently under review by the federal government. They’ve agreed not to have any major changes...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make some brief comments with regard to the implementation piece and then I’ll turn the answers on the other issues over to the Premier, who has the file on this.

There was an extensive study done after the Yukon devolution process was completed and a debrief and review to see what lessons could be learned. One of the main lessons learned and documented extensively is there’s a need to have the negotiation process and implementation process start almost simultaneously because of the time and the complexity of the issues and the need to move those processes, so...

I, once again, appreciate the Member’s comments. The one thing that’s difficult to get an average on, of course, is, while we can do it for the money, is the weather.

If I could just point to British Columbia for the previous two fire seasons where they had a budget in the neighbourhood of $50 million and had these extraordinary weather conditions where they spent nearly $500 million. That’s part of the challenge. But I take the point of the Members that the base budget is too low. We know that come July even just the starting of costs is going to put us close to exhausting our budget. I make...

There is work underway, as we speak, with the territorial government, the Aboriginal Steering Committee, to look at who would be the best people suited for the team, including the Aboriginal representative. Thank you.