Is the committee agreed?
Agreed.
Okay. With that, we’ll take a short break and begin with the Legislative Assembly.
The Committee of the Whole took a short recess.
I’d like to call the Committee of the Whole back to order. Prior to the adjournment we all agreed that we’ll begin this round with the Legislative Assembly.
With that, I’d like to call on the Speaker to make a presentation in regard to the estimates for the Legislative Assembly. With that, Speaker Delorey.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to present the 2008–2009 estimates for the Legislative Assembly.
As Members know, the Assembly’s Main Estimates are drafted and considered by the Board of Management as opposed to the Financial Management Board. As an independent branch of government, the Legislative Assembly is not bound to implement the fiscal policy of the government with respect to planned expenditure reductions. This being said, it has been the practice of the board in recent years to make every possible effort to implement expenditure reductions for the Assembly when these have been required across government. This year is no exception.
In applying roughly the same methodology to its budget as the Financial Management Board applies to the departments, the board identified a twoyear target expenditure reduction of $675,000. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to report that the Board of Management has fully met this target. The vast majority of the necessary reductions are included in the 2008–2009 estimates before you for consideration.
Mr. Chairman, the 2008–2009 Main Estimates for the Legislative Assembly include a target reduction of $542,000, the largest component being a $200,000 reduction to the constituency work expense budgets for individual MLAs. The board is aware this measure will put added strain on Members, particularly those who use the majority of their budgets to hire constituency assistants. Nevertheless, the board felt, and Members have agreed, that leadership by example is important in the current fiscal environment. This is a small reduction in the larger scheme of things, but an important symbolic measure.
Mr. Chairman, the reductions include the elimination of two vacant staff positions: one at the Legislative Assembly branch library, and a second at Elections NWT. They also include a $102,000 reduction to the budget for the standing committees, reductions to Members’ capital accommodations and telecommunications budgets, the elimination of the Cultural Enhancement Commission, and a reduction in the number of community visits under the Speakers’ outreach program from two to one.
Mr. Chair, the Assembly’s reduction target has been achieved in the face of significant forced-growth pressure in some of our contractor costs, most notably our Hansard contract. Increased utility costs and new initiatives, such as our broadcasting solution, the enhanced Page Program, the Members’ constituency travel fund, and costs associated with the Human Rights Commission and the adjudication panel have also been addressed.
Mr. Chair, this year marks the first time we have sought direct input from our statutory board and agencies on their budgets. We reviewed written and in-person presentations from the Chief Electoral Officer, the Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Adjudication Panel, the office of the Languages Commissioner, and the Information and Privacy Commissioner regarding their budgetary needs. I feel this direct input will allow a higher level of responsiveness to budgetary needs of our statutory officers without impacting their independence.
Mr. Chair, it’s not often I get to speak to issues in this House, so I want to take a moment while I have the floor to focus attention on a few important initiatives we have implemented in recent years.
Mr. Chair, as we speak, the proceedings of this Assembly are being broadcast and rebroadcast in 25 of our 33 communities, both live and throughout the evening.
By the end of the summer, an additional four communities will be added to the system, with a target of all 33 communities by next summer. In October of this year we will begin community-specific broadcasts and rebroadcasts in all of our official languages. Phase 2 of the broadcast solution involves expanding our programming to include standing committee meetings and other public affairs programming of interest to Northerners.
I want to recognize the efforts of Brian Thagard, Patricia Russell, Danielle O’Neill and Ella Mawdsley for their outstanding work in testing, implementing and monitoring this complex and exciting initiative.
Applause.
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to report that no reductions will be made to our popular and well-attended Youth Parliament. This year’s Youth Parliament focused on language-preservation issues, and as always, our youth did us proud in this Chamber. We will be rebroadcasting their proceedings throughout the summer.
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to report that I will continue to travel to at least one small community a year with our Mace to allow youth and residents who do not normally get to visit the capital to get a sense of the work we do in this Chamber.
Last year, Mr. Chair, the Commissioner and I, the Clerk, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, the public affairs and communications coordinator and the Speaker’s assistant visited the community of Sachs Harbour. Mr. Chair, this was the first time our Mace has travelled north of the Arctic Circle and across the Arctic Ocean to Banks Island. It was an honour and a privilege to be part of this historic occasion. Watching the looks on the faces of the youth, elders and residents of Sachs Harbour as they were observing our Mace up close confirms to me the value of this initiative. Mayor Robert Eldridge and the elders of Sachs Harbour played great hosts to us, and the youth played a great volleyball game against us. This year we hope to visit a community in the Nahendeh riding.
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to announce that our self-guided tour system is now operational and available in nine of our official languages. Residents and visitors can now take a tour of this impressive and symbolic institution, in the language and timing of their choice, using iPod nano technology.
Finally, Mr. Chair, Members should have already taken notice of an increased number of pages serving us from constituencies throughout the Northwest Territories. This year marks the beginning of a new initiative that will see the Legislative Assembly sponsor up to four pages a year from each Member’s constituency to travel to Yellowknife to serve us in the House. The quality of the service we have received from these pages thus far has been excellent, and I wish to thank them for their assistance.
Applause.
I also want to thank Brian Thagard, Donna Friesen, Lynda Comerford, Derek Edjericon and Bryn Herbert for coordinating and implementing this great new initiative.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I will now be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time I’d like to ask the Speaker if he will be bringing in witnesses. Mr. Speaker.
Yes, I would, Mr. Chair.
Is it agreed the Minister bring in witnesses? Agreed?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in. For the record, Mr. Speaker, can you introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today I have, to my left, Olin Lovely, director of corporate services; and to my right, Mr. Tim Mercer, Clerk of the Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Welcome, witnesses. I’ll allow for general comments. General comments? Detail?
With that, we can move to page 17, Legislative Assembly, Department Summary: $15.364 million, which we will defer until the end of our discussions.
Moving on to 1-8, Legislative Assembly, information items, Active Positions — By Region.
Legislative Assembly, Department Summary, Active Positions — By Region, information item, approved.
Information item, page 19, Active Positions, Community Allocations.
Legislative Assembly, Department Summary, Active Positions — Community Allocations, information item, approved.
Page 1-10, Revenue Summary, information item. Mr. Abernethy.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m just curious what “Gain on Investments” is. I see in 2006–2007 it’s $1.971 million, but then in ’07–08 and ’08–09 it completely disappears. Why is there nothing budgeted for ’08–09? If someone could help me understand what that is, that would be great.
Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The gain on investments is related to the investment portfolio in the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Fund. It’s calculated as the difference between the value of assets of the fund on March 31, 2006, and at March 31, 2007. It’s totally due to investment performance.
Why is it zero on ’08–09?
We have not got the numbers for the performance of the fund to put in for ’08–09 yet, so we’re depending on past years.
Page 1-10, Revenue Summary, information item.
Legislative Assembly, Department Summary, Revenue Summary, information item, approved.
Page 1-13, Activity Summary, Office of the Clerk, Operations Expenditure Summary: $7.826 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I note that our utilities are steadily increasing. I’m concerned that the price of oil has gone up over 60 per cent since I became an MLA eight months ago; that we are heating this building on the basis of oil; that there is proven technology, in town and operating right now, for much less money; that there’s a proven source of fuel such as pellets available for long-term contracts — very cheap. In fact, the cost of the pellets are going down.
I have to admit to a conflict of interest, because I’m a carbon-neutral MLA, which means I have to offset the costs of fossil fuels used to heat my office and that of my constituency assistant. I’m partly speaking up on my own behalf to cut those costs down, but I’m talking full costs here, both the environmental and the monetary costs.
I know it’s been brought up, but I don’t know that I’m seeing the rigour and the commitment I’d like to here.
My question to the Speaker: is there a chance this could be aggressively pursued, and we could get off fossil fuel heat and onto biomass for this building?
Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is an issue we have been dealing with for some time now: trying to reduce the energy costs for the Assembly and keeping in mind, as well, the environment.
We have introduced some initiatives here to cut down on costs, such as lighting. Specifically to the fuel, there has been a proposal put forward for pellet heat for the building. We are looking into some of the costs involved in that, and not only that but location for the ability to put in a hopper that would serve that type of system. It’s actively being looked at to try and come up with some costs and to find where we would put the equipment to handle that. It is one we’re very interested in doing, and we’re pursuing it as we speak, actually.
Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I think it would be great, as leaders for the territory, to be able to point the finger at ourselves as leading in all ways. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
We’re on page 1-13. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I like to consistently bring this up each year: it’s the matter of the parking in the Legislative Assembly and the grounds for persons in the public and the accessibility that creates.
I know it’s been looked at and considered in previous years. There even was money budgeted in past years. I was wondering if I could have an update on that situation.
Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, this issue has been brought up a number of times, and it’s one we continue to struggle with.
There had been a proposal a few years ago to put in an extra 21 parking stalls out front. We had budgeted approximately $140,000 to do that. When we got an estimate to do those parking stalls, it was considerably higher than that, plus the fact that it was late in the fall when the bids came in.
At the same time, there was talk about a courthouse building being built on the precinct here. We wanted to make sure, when we did it, that it was going to be compatible with whatever was happening at the courthouse, so we delayed doing it.
However, we’re at a point now where we have to look at that situation again. We know the roadway out front and parking, as well, are problems for us. We manage to keep security out front to try to control vehicles when there’s an event going on here, but it’s a constant struggle for us. That is something I’m quite sure Members can expect to see coming forward in the business plans this fall — something we’re going to have to do to address our parking and roadway out front.
I appreciate the answer from the Speaker on that. The money that was allocated to it in previous years allowed the Speaker’s Office to go out for tender on this project. Has that money lapsed or been set aside for later use?
It was money we were going to use from within anyway, and that money has lapsed. We do have a fund of $75,000 that we use for minor repairs out front just to try to keep up with the situation of our roadway and parking lot. Quite obviously, we’re going to have to get approval for a bigger expenditure if we want to do it half-decently out there.
Mr. Chairman, has the Speaker’s Office, vis-à-vis through the board, ever considered winding the loop on the roadway? You could be seen as updating the road to somewhat better conditions. Furthermore, we could widen it for safety reasons, and that could help facilitate parking around the loop on one side when we do have these occasional big bursts of capacity being overtaken during special events here. Has that ever been considered or seriously examined? We could help avoid maybe blasting more rocks or carving into some other area, which seems a little unfeasible at this time.
As Members know, the area out front that we’re talking about, for the road going around the loop and even the parking lot for that matter…. When it was built, they did it to disturb as little of the environment out there as they possibly could. The road is really narrow. We’re still dealing with the swamp area out there regardless of what we do. The engineers have actually suggested we may widen that area, but it would be more or less for road stabilization — to try to maintain a half-decent road out there. We still want to be very conscious. I don’t think the mentality on what we do out front has changed an awful lot as far as not wanting to disturb the environment around that area any more than we absolutely have to. One thing we will be looking at is basically widening it for road stability.
Mr. Chairman, taking advantage of widening it due to road stability may be the opportunity to save on requirements for future parking. Again, it’s the spillover problem that has people parking there anyway, and this would just help clean it up a little bit. I would seek some thoughts from the Speaker to see if they can include that in the review when they do the study to widen the road based on stability. My assumption would be that it would only be a few extra feet wide in order both to accommodate the stability and to ensure there is safe passage of vehicles. We parked on one side of that during occasions that required…. There aren’t really that many occasions, yet you get people parking there anyway. So it would go a long way.
Again, we can look at that. Our main concern is to have some stability in the roadway out there and address the parking problem that we have, probably through adding some extra parking to the lot. That’s certainly one thing we could look at — whether just widening the base out there would help us out with parking when there is a major event here. So we will look at that.
Thank you. I look forward to any future discussion on that. I hope the Speaker would keep me informed. This is an issue I brought to the Speaker’s Office. Since I’ve been here as a Member, it’s been an issue raised to me on a number of occasions by constituents who’ve come here and there’s no parking because the parking lot is full. I don’t think creating a new parking lot specific to parking would be the right way to go. I think we could meet a couple of these problems head-on by widening the road. I look forward to seeing some details and also further encourage the Speaker to keep my office informed on this matter, because as he knows, I think I even wrote him as of November regarding this matter. Again, it continues to be an issue, so I’ll take that as a commitment to keep me informed.
Yes, we will. Of course, all these issues are considered at the Board of Management level and through the Clerk’s Office. We will keep the Member informed as to where we plan on going with this.
Okay, we’re on page 1-13, Activity Summary, Office of the Clerk, Operations Expenditure Summary: 7.826 million.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Clerk, Operations Expenditure Summary: $7.826 million, approved.
Page 1-14, information item, Office of the Clerk, Active Positions. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a question. The Speaker indicated we are eliminating two positions, and I believe one of them is a vacant library tech position. But there’s no change in the number of positions from ’07–08 to ’08–09. So if I could have an explanation, please.
Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we’re eliminating one position. However, we’re adding a new finance administration clerk position, so that offsets the position. That’s why the total employees is the same.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Clerk, Active Positions, information item (page 1-14), approved.
We’ll continue on page 1-15, information item, Office of the Clerk, Active Position.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Clerk, Active Positions, information item (page 1-15), approved.
Moving on to page 1-17, Active Summary, Office of the Speaker, Operations Expenditure Summary: $253,000.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Speaker, Operations Expenditure Summary: $253,000, approved.
Page 1-18, information item, Office of the Speaker, Active Positions.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Speaker, Active Positions, information item (page 1-18), approved.
We’ll continue on page 1-19, information item, Office of the Speaker, Active Position.
Legislative Assembly, Activity Summary, Office of the Speaker, Active Positions, information item (page 1-19), approved.
