Robert Bouchard

If I could get a little bit more detail. When we talk about communication, communication seems to me like consulting. I mean, anything can be communicating. We’re communicating here in this House today.

What exactly does communicating mean? Does that mean we’re communicating with the general public? Is that communication between Cabinet and Regular Members? Is that communication a communication system as far as telecommunications? What does communication mean when we’re talking about these types of positions and what these people will be doing?

So I think I’m getting the picture here. This is funding from the federal government on an ongoing basis. Why would we continue to have these positions if part of these positions are just to assess our communications system now? The Minister indicated we need to assess our communications system and the way we communicate. In my perspective, that would be reviewing something that would only be a short period of time, something we would need as a term, not a full-time position where after the assessment is done, we don’t need that position anymore. Why wouldn’t we do that as a term position or...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro covered a lot of the questions I had, but I will ask some of the questions a bit differently. I have concern with the fact that we’re equating these positions and this funding through our devolution fund reserves that we have, but after the devolution money has been spent, this becomes part of the cost of the GNWT. Obviously, on top of the positions we’ve added to devolution, we’re adding five more positions into Yellowknife. Is there any way we can make these term positions and we look at the assessment and the effectiveness after the devolution money...

I’ve just got a question about the ones that are going down. Is that based on the fact that the cost of living is going down in some communities? I would assume most of them or all of them would have gone up. So what would the differences be and why would there be a negative?

Thank you. I guess, would we have not negotiated these allowances in the process, or would we not have known that number or estimates based on April 1st when we went into budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure the Minister has been briefed about the meeting. At that meeting the fishers asked for the subsidy. The department indicated the price is going to go up. The current fishers are asking for that price to be actually subsidized to that level right now so they can see how the industry will react to that type of price currently.

Is the Minister willing to commit to looking at that type of subsidy to increase the price for fishers on the Great Slave Lake? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister indicated he had a meeting previously with the federal Minister.

Can the Minister indicate to me when the next planned meeting or FPT on this type of situation would be coming up? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I guess we’re being handcuffed and pressured into just approving this $800,000 expenditure, because Cabinet has put it in a supplementary estimate that we have had limited time to review, have had limited time to have that discussion. I mean, we expressed our concerns last week, but with limited input and time to do anything about it. We’re talking about positions and we talked about positions and we talked about the budgets going up every year, and now we’re going to add another five positions to it. Never mind all the discussions I’ve talked about in this House about decentralization...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you are well aware, Hay River has a long history as being the NWT fishing industry capital. It’s exciting to hear that this government is investing $1.3 million through its Economic Opportunities Strategy to this industry.

Last week, along with members of the NWT Fisherman’s Federation, I was glad to hear a plan go forward on how we’re going to revitalize this industry and how we are going to implement a new fishing plant in the community of Hay River. This is a great renewable resource that we have in the Northwest Territories. We need to take full advantage of it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d just like to bring up a couple of other issues. The difficulty that I’m having with this process is the timing of it. Like I indicated, the fact that this communication report was done in November, I guess committee has had some discussion with the department about it, and I think it was brought up on Friday about the supplementary exercises we are going through and some of the short notices we are getting on the reviews and the process and the fact that all of a sudden we hear now this money, these five positions are being added to the budget.

It seems like a very...