Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest that on these issues where the territorial government deals with the federal government, that the positions we are trying to make sure are consistent and one and the same so that we don’t send out confusing messages as a government. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will ensure that by this time tomorrow that I am conversant on this issue and able to engage in a meaningful discourse with the Member. Thank you.

The one fund that we’re aware of is there’s a billion dollar Green Fund that the federal government has money for. It’s project-based. Once again, once the criteria is clear, we believe that we have a number of projects that may be eligible. We’ll have to get in line with every other province and territory across the land, but we believe we have two things: we have our share and we have projects that we think would be considered, by the federal terminology, as shovel ready. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the intent of the Biomass Strategy is to do a number of things. One of the key areas we are interested in, of course, is lowering the cost of living in the small communities. We’re looking at heating; generation and distribution of electricity are two main areas. We are of the opinion that there is great potential and there is technology that is currently in existence. We know that the Member’s community of Jean Marie River has been very active in this area. We are very interested, should the budget be approved, to move forward to find a smaller community that could be used as a...

Mr. Speaker, there has been about a decade or so of work: Strength at Two Levels; the Cuff report; the Deloitte Touche report on governance, on boards; the work done by the Boards and Agencies committee; the recommendations for a whole host of different approaches to how we deliver services in the regions. We looked at all that. All that was there. It’s all documented. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars going back to the last century with the Minister of the time -- I believe it was Minister Ng -- started with a $400,000 report. Over the last 10 years I would suggest we probably spent...

Going forward from April those questions would have to be discussed. The whole issue of all the work done to cost out some of the Collective Agreement issues, pension issues, would have to be looked at. The discussion about the concept and if that’s not the right concept what is the plan, there are a number of significant issues that would have to be addressed going forward. April is just one of the first milestone dates. We had given ourselves to 2010-2011 to work through the planning, design, and implementation. After April we will be looking at those decisions and further consultations.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the clientele for housing, education and health are very common. We have small communities where, for example, the predominant form of accommodation in the smaller communities is housing. We know -- I know from personal experience, having worked in Health and Social Services -- that when there are health issues or social service issues there tends to be a related housing issue. If there are troubles in school, if there’s not enough food on the table, if there’s alcohol abuse in the home, if there’s FASD, that these services link. Our intent was to be able to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Education has elected boards for the most part. The one exception I believe exists was the arrangements made in Fort Smith where the DEA patterned itself under the health board arrangement where there were two seats for the band, two for the Metis, and two for the general public. But for the most part education boards are elected and health boards are appointed. And the LHO boards, as well, I believe are appointed.

Mr. Speaker, this process was stretched out with a long timeline to 2010-11, recognizing that there was going to be a lot of work to get us from where we start to where we may end up with the issue of board reform. We are not precluding those types of discussions at this point. We took the first step to say, here’s a model we think has applicability and we have been doing the work to get us to April that will give all the information for us collectively to talk about and look at to decide on next steps. If it is not that model, not that approach, then what approach and if the broader...

We appreciate the work that every board member has contributed over the years, but we also recognize that we have a system that has evolved without a lot of planning over the years, often by program area, by ministry, and we have evolved now where we have 150 boards for 42,000 people for a whole host of different program areas. We have 70 in health and social services, housing, and education alone. We are of the opinion that there are ways to provide enhanced decision-making at the regional community level at the same time as rationalizing some of the board structures.