Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have that specific piece of information before me. I can commit to get it for the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is work underway. There was a backlog identified as of September 10, 2010, of 1,820 outstanding pay issues. There’s been work to reduce that. As of September 27th, they whittled that number down to 1,400.

There is work underway on all aspects of the Human Resources mandate to address the various problems that have been identified.

Mr. Chairman, I would have to disagree with the Member. I believe, from all my experience, that the quality of health care in the Northwest Territories, in my opinion, is second to none in the country. We have benefits, we have access, we have programs that other jurisdictions could only dream about and wished they had. The issue and the challenge... And there’s not a jurisdiction in this country, there’s not a jurisdiction in the world that is not dealing with the pressure of escalating health care costs. With us, we’re talking Health and Social Services, $300-and-some million. It’s about 30...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it’s part of the conscious decision by the government, in many cases, to fund at the levels that are there, and if there’s an overage, then the department comes back. Over time, the practice has been to avoid giving full budgets based on estimates. There was a concern in terms of accountability and the difficulty in being able to coffer the money and get it back, should those estimates come in under what was voted.

The preference and the practice have been, so that there is greater accountability not only in Health but, for example, ENR and fire budgets, there’s a base budget and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government, as well, has agreed to second this motion and will be supporting the motion and its intent for the reasons listed by the Member for Weledeh. I’d also point out that we’re not alone in our concern. There are governments across the country that have filed their concerns and asked for the federal government to reconsider. I have been, along with many Members on this side of the House, at the federal/provincial table talking about northern concerns and have been told many times that our numbers are so small that we’re not statistically significant, and that...

I appreciate the Member’s comments. This is a step among many others. There’s program work that’s being done. The function here today is to, as I indicated, basically reallocate the funds from Education back to the Housing Corporation to allow that transition and transfer and the program delivery as has been envisioned and supported by the House. There will continue to be other work done through the business planning process, and as the Minister of Housing, for example, indicated extensively yesterday, there are a lot of things underway at the Housing Corporation and this is one part to deal...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, November 1, 2010, I will move that Bill 13, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2011-2012, be read for the first time.

We’ll confirm the particulars as it accounts for the 11 positions, the five new ones. I think there is some ongoing discussion here as to whether we were, in fact, transferring some positions and Education is keeping some as opposed to adding new ones. I’ll commit to the Member and to the Chair that we’ll have that information before the committee by Monday.

Mr. Chairman, the positions that are laid out here are to address some of the costs of the transfer and also recognizing, as I indicated, that in the prior three years there has been some other forced growth pressures that resulted in the need for some continued resources with Education. Thank you.