Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my right I have Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, who is the deputy secretary to the Financial Management Board. To my left I have David Heffernan, who is our chief information officer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will ask Ms. Young to respond to that. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the funding was a reduction because the program wasn’t fully subscribed to. We also recognize that this is an issue that we have to address. We will do our work and then if we can enhance this program we will come back to this Chamber to seek more funds once we’re in a position to do so. We would like to assist the communities and I think the best way to assist the communities is to ensure that we have people in the communities that are able to be first responders, especially if they get on the scene right away. This is a program that we have been hearing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I think we all share that same passion for the youth. I think we have made that quite clear in the investments we have made into youth. In the last two or three Assemblies, the youth contributions have gone up fairly significantly. We all share that passion. We will continue to ensure that our youth are adequately funded. As I said I will get the exact detail on the $25,000 and share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, actually there was none. The NWTAC, LGANT, and some of the organizations that we make contributions to recognize that there may be some reductions coming, and they were willing to do their part, looking at the bigger picture, understanding that, you know, we were trying to do what we can to free up more money that we can allocate to the community governments as per the formula funding reviews. They were cooperative and, I mean, nobody likes reductions, obviously, but there wasn’t a wholesale complaint to this reduction. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we don’t rely solely on the contributions from the federal government. We use that to enhance programs that we already offer to our communities. As Minister of MACA and being able to get to all 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, I’ve seen the benefits of the money that we invest in the communities and some of the decisions that they’re making as to how best to use their money, on the capital side. It has reaped some benefits and rewards for the community. It’s not a perfect system, pretty close to it, but we’re continuing to try to enhance and...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to present the 20162017 main estimates for the Department of Finance. Overall, the department estimates total $213.9 million. This total includes:

operating contributions of $81.7 million to the NWT Housing Corporation.

$7.5 million to the NWT Hydro Corporation to offset additional diesel costs related to the low water on the Snare Hydro System.

Overall the department’s estimates propose an increase of $2.6 million or 1.2 per cent above the 20152016 Main Estimates.

These estimates continue to support the objectives of limiting expenditure growth in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had eight vacancies as of March 31st. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I take the Member’s point. I mean, there’s a discussion that we should sit down with committee and get some input from committee as to what some of their recommendations are. If there’s a design of the program issue then we’ll have to address that. This is an issue that’s been on people’s radars for a while so I think it would be prudent of us to sit down with committee, get some feedback and go away and maybe come back with a redesigned program working with committee. But I will commit to that process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we agree that our folks in the communities need to understand their roles as well and the responsibilities they have to ensure that they have the proper capacity to deal with the lot of money that they are having to deal with because they do have a lot of responsibility with us giving them all their CPI money and with their O and M. Our role, we see, is to assist these community governments. Through the accountability framework, we believe that, as I said earlier on in the session, that gives us the opportunity to identify any red flags and pick out any issues...