Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to make a few comments about the budget. Obviously, there are many things in this budget. Some of the things that we are pleased with is obviously the moving of the territorial parks office to the Hay River area, the $1.5 million in support of the commercial fishery, the housing programs in Hay River, and maybe even a million dollars for the Arctic Winter Games for Hay River or Inuvik. Obviously, we’re happy with no new taxes. I think most people are pleased with that.

We are spending $930 million in social programs, a large amount, but yet we still have a lot...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Gwen Robak, a Hay River resident, as well as friends Ruby Simba and Lloyd Lush. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome everybody back to the Assembly for a six-week session. Mr. Speaker, as you are well aware, two regions in the North have been working on bids for the Arctic Winter Games in 2018. The Beau-Delta and the South Slave have been working hard on these proposals. They’re rallying all their volunteers in all their different sports.

These will be exciting games. It has been decades since the Arctic Winter Games have been outside the capital of the Northwest Territories. It will be exciting to have them back in our regional centres.

I would like to thank all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to acknowledge the mover and the seconder as well as Government Operations for their hard work on this motion and the work on the ombudsman implementation. I know I’ve been able to attend several of the meetings.

In my short term as MLA, I’ve seen many situations where an ombudsman would be convenient and useful. There are several opportunities where MLAs can fight the fight to a certain point until they hit a roadblock, whether that’s in the Minister’s office or whether it’s in bureaucracy or whether it’s in the legislation. An ombudsman would be able to take...

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my Member’s statement, I do know about those decentralized positions, and obviously the numbers in Yellowknife have grown as well.

Does the Premier have that type of information of how many jobs were created and devolved into Yellowknife, to prove that we haven’t actually done any decentralization? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do a follow-up to my Member’s statement about decentralization. My questions will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.

This Assembly is going into its last year. Is it a priority to do decentralization? Is the government any closer to solving some of the housing issues and some of the office space issues to do decentralization throughout the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the information that I received from the Premier, phase three is a ‘14-15. When we come back to this Assembly in February, we will be in ’15. So I am looking for the next phase of what is happening in ‘15-16 for decentralization and what is the plan going forward.

Once we hit that two-year mark with the federal government, do we have a plan of how to implement more jobs out into the communities? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, from the perspective on this side of the House, we haven’t seen the plan of where these jobs are going to be.

Is there a plan coming forward? We just completed phase three. Is there a plan to do a phase four and where and when will we see this plan? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we started the 17th Assembly, we set up some priorities, and one of those priorities was decentralization. Yesterday Mr. Bromley referred to decentralizing his position to Hay River.

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Seriously, I know Mr. Bromley works hard in Detah and Ndilo, small communities that need his support.

When we started this journey about decentralization, the government gave us issues that we had: housing issues in small communities, office space requirements and residential issues. The government has indicated to me and given us some stats that they’ve created 158 jobs...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are kind of two strategies that are here. Obviously, there is the Economic Opportunities Strategy and I am pleased with this strategy. Seeing this strategy and seeing some of the implementation, I see it as very conducive to some of the business that is done in the South Slave. I know that they had some public consultation there. In this report, some of the comments are tying the two of them together and I have some difficulties with that because I am obviously supportive of the Economic Opportunities Strategy and a lot of the initiatives that are in there.

The...