Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After such a great and vigorous debate, I feel we need to move a motion now. Therefore, I move that this committee now concludes consideration of the Department of Public Works and Services department summary and all related activities and information items contained in Tabled Document 22-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2014-2015.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Just give us a second here. We’re just going to circulate that motion.
Committee, the motion is in order and the motion is not debatable. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Does committee agree that consideration of the Department of Public Works and Services is completed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank Ms. Gault, Mr. Guy and Mr. Lewis for joining us this evening, and thanks to the Minister. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.
Committee, we’re going to continue on here with the main estimates. With that, we have the Department of Executive. We’ll turn it over to the Premier if he has any opening comments. Premier McLeod.
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2014-2015 Main Estimates for the Department of Executive.
The proposed budget for the Department of Executive in 2014-15 is $11.563 million. This represents a reduction of $8.901 million, or 43 percent, from the department’s 2013-14 budget. The department’s staff complement will also be reduced from 71 to 66.
As Members know, the department has had responsibility for devolution negotiations and implementation planning, coordinating the efforts of participating departments and providing overall leadership and project management for this complex endeavour.
With the successful conclusion of devolution negotiations and the signing of the final agreement earlier this year, and with full implementation of devolution on April 1, 2014, the devolution negotiation and devolution implementation planning functions that have been housed in Executive will no longer be required.
In 2014-2015 the department will contribute to this government’s commitment to decentralization, by expanding the number of single window service centres to three additional communities. As Members know, the department’s government service officers provide services directly to residents in their communities, including in their homes and in their Aboriginal language. These positions provide local employment and make it easier for community residents to access many government programs, including those provided by Canada.
We are proposing to add three new government service officers in the communities of Fort McPherson, Deline and Behchoko. This will increase the number of government service offices in small communities from 15 to 18. In addition, we are also proposing the establishment of a single window service centre coordinator position in Inuvik and a regional administration assistant in the North Slave.
It should be noted that these additional positions will be established through a re-profiling of existing resources within the department.
There are some additional changes that are being proposed to the department’s structure and functions in 2014-2015.
The main estimates reflect the decision made earlier this year to transfer the program review office and Bureau of Statistics to the Department of Finance, to better align with that department’s existing responsibilities for government-wide business planning.
The senior advisor for the Status of Women position will also transfer to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, as that position liaises with both the Northwest Territories and national Native Women’s Associations and with the Northwest Territories and federal and provincial Status of Women Councils and thus aligns well with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations’ mandate.
In summary, the department proposes to reorganize its remaining functions to create a smaller senior management team, with increased small community presence and a more integrated organizational structure.
I am now prepared to answer any questions from the committee about the Department of Executive’s 2014-2015 Main Estimates.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Premier McLeod, do you have witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Premier. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Premier McLeod, if you can introduce your witnesses for the Chamber this evening.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left I have Penny Ballantyne, secretary to Cabinet and deputy minister of the Executive. To my right I have Lisa Turner, manager of corporate services.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. Ms. Turner, Ms. Ballantyne, welcome to the House again.
With that, we’ll go to general comments, and with that, we’ll start with Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was very pleased to hear the opening remarks by the Premier, the Minister of this department. I’d like to first of all say congratulations, because we now have government service officers in our communities, and I’ve been hearing some very good reports back from people in the Sahtu, and I’m very pleased to see that Fort McPherson, Deline and Behchoko will be getting these government service officers. It’s a good thing for us and it’s a good thing that the Department of Executive is listening to the small communities. With our unique challenges and our languages, it makes a lot of good for our older people who are in need of this office. Specifically, from the lady, the person, the officer in Fort Good Hope, she was saying that she really loves her job and she loves helping people. I just wanted to say thank you to the Executive for listening and doing this for our people. This is a good legacy to leave in our communities.
I wanted to also talk about the Status of Women’s position and the moving to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. I know the Premier has been working closely with this position. One of my concerns is the Northwest Territories’ position and stance on the Aboriginal missing women’s action that has been happening across Canada where we had some also here in the Northwest Territories. I’m not too sure what type of action plans we’re doing to help this great issue with our Aboriginal women who have gone missing, and helping our women. There are some in my region that also fit in this category. What type of support we are giving to the families as to the missing women in Canada and also in the Northwest Territories?
I believe, some time ago, the Premier did mention something, but I don’t know quite what was said and maybe we could be reminded. I think the Premier did support the initiatives on that. I’m not too sure, as a government, what type of things we’re doing for some of the families here in the Northwest Territories for Aboriginal women that are missing. Some of them haven’t yet found out what exactly happened, so I wanted to say that.
In my closing remarks, I want to ask the Premier, and I’ve already had some discussion with the Department of Transportation, so I’m going to use every opportunity to raise the issue of decentralization in small communities, and of course, I am talking about the Department of Transportation looking at when there could be some serious discussions about decentralizing. The activity in the Sahtu is getting quite busy, even to look at six months or something that would see more of the presence of Transportation into the Sahtu for decision-making in real time and support there.
I think we need to now move away from the old thinking of doing business. I remember the Premier talking one time about the Sahtu now wanting to have a stand-alone region and how we can now with devolution and how we evolve, as he calls it devolution and evolving. The territory is changing and evolving. The Sahtu is coming to a place where we want to have our own stand-alone region. We have other government departments that have decentralized into the Sahtu; still, we don’t have the full package yet. I would like to see that. That would be the Sahtu devolution. We’re having a community vote in Deline where they’re actually going to propose their own community self-government, so we are evolving and things are changing.
I would like to know that this discussion could be had and opening, within the life of this government, we could start seeing some movement where we could see decentralization. I would like to start seeing that. Sahtu can be recognized as a stand-alone region in this government. We still have the old system where we are somewhat still part of the Inuvik region or the Simpson region. You know how geographically it’s made out in the books here and that has to change, just like we’re going through changes with Ottawa and devolution. Those things are changing. We’re no different. We want the same type of opportunity to have that discussion.
I wanted to, lastly, congratulate the devolution team and the Members, Premier. There’s a lot of hard work and lots of opportunities, lots of challenges for us, but it’s good that we’re moving to this next phase of our Northwest Territories. I guess the last sort of ticket to this devolution, while it would be in the future, will be a constitutional reform discussion coming to a full partner with the rest of the Confederation of Canada. There are many unique approaches to that. It doesn’t have to be the old conventional type of… It could be a very unique type of constitutional discussion, but that’s later down the line. I’m prepared to have those types of discussions. I think that’s where we need to be. That’s it for my opening comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Actually, we are going to let Premier McLeod respond to each general comment here. So, we’ll go to Premier McLeod and I will come back to general comments for each one. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I have the luxury of just choosing an answer to one of them. No. I will answer all of the points that the Member raised because they are all very important points.
On the matter of general service officers, we now have 18. If this budget is approved, we’ll have 18 of them. We found that we benefited significantly by having them very active in the community. Also, it has helped us with decentralization because we’ve had to go to communities, we’ve had to find office space, we’ve had to work with them on accommodations, so I think we found a winner in this program. Every opportunity we have to add officers to the communities, we would strive to do so.
On the Status of Women, I guess I should explain a couple of initiatives. We’ve started to take a very prominent national leadership role with not only native women or the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group or the Status of Women’s Council, we are chairing Aboriginal Affairs Working Group and we are hosting the Status of Women FPT program this summer. We have strongly joined the call for a national inquiry on missing and murdered women and we will continue to do so.
On decentralization, I think it’s always been our understanding that after devolution’s transfer date of April 1st that we would take a very strategic and well planned approach to decentralization. We have identified funding for market housing and also for office space. It’s our expectation that, over the next 18 months, we will have a very well-thought-out plan, including the potential of looking at the regional structures to decentralize a significant number of positions. That is our objective.
I think that devolution was a very big job. I am very pleased that our devolution team, along with the federal government team, were able to forge a very strong partnership and relationship to make it happen with a transfer date on April 1st. It is unfortunate that all good things come to an end and the team will essentially move on, but that’s the way life goes in the government.
On constitutional reform, I think that we’re getting closer and closer to having all the land claims and self-government agreements negotiated. I guess at some point government will have to make a call as to whether they want to go into another, hopefully, final round of constitutional reform, but I guess that’s a judgment call for government sometime soon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. General comments. I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments that I want to make. I want to start off, as did Mr. Yakeleya, by commenting on the increase in the number of single window service centres. I think it is an excellent program. The fact that we are expanding to cover 18 of our communities is excellent progress. I think we will have succeeded when we can get a single window service centre in every one of our communities.
I would also like to mention, in terms of devolution, I think kudos need to go to the staff who have worked above and beyond, I think, in the last probably year, but I noted, particularly over the summer when the rest of us were able to enjoy some time off so to speak, I don’t think there were a lot of staff working on devolution who had any time off. My heart went out to them and I want to congratulate them on the hard work that they did do.
I have a number of concerns, one of which is the transfer of the Status of Women advisor to Aboriginal Affairs and I can understand the rationale that we have been given and the fact that we are taking on a bit of a bigger role nationally and so on, but I am concerned that we are going to lose some focus on increasing, sort of highlighting women and increasing the role of women in our communities and in our territory and also increasing the leadership of women in our communities and territory by having that person within DAAIR as opposed to within the Executive. I would suggest to the Minister that perhaps we ought to be considering maybe half a PY but somebody who puts a bigger focus on women within the territory alone, if we are going to be focusing more on national sort of work, so to speak. I would have preferred that that position stay within the Executive, but there we are, it’s done and it is over with.
The other move that was made that I do disagree with is moving the program review office into the Department of Finance. Now, I think the Minister has heard this already. Certainly the committee made some comments several months ago, I think we run the danger of having the program review office become too much of a budgeting tool and not enough of a fully functioning review office. I think there is a danger that the focus will narrow to just look at money and the review office should not just be about money. It should be about efficiency, which maybe generates into money, but efficiency in terms of providing better services and programs, which doesn’t always relate to money. Sometimes we get better services and programs and simply provide a better product but we don’t necessarily save money.
I put that out there as hoping that Finance is listening and that, you know, there will be some consideration for the focus of the program review office as it settles into its new position.
Lastly, I spoke yesterday about family violence and I asked some questions of the Minister of Justice on what is in the works for the Coalition on Family Violence and I didn’t get a good sense that it sits within the Department of Justice. It has been previously in with the Department of Executive and I don’t see anything in the budget, I didn’t see anything in the Premier’s remarks which talked to the Coalition on Family Violence. I don’t get a sense that there is any money in this budget to assist the coalition with the 19 recommendations that came forward I think in 2012. So that’s my one question. Who liaises and where does a connection to the Coalition on Family Violence sit in the 2014-15 budget? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments on the single window offices. As I said earlier, it is been a real benefit.
On devolution, we had a very hardworking team for the past two or three years and we will be showing our appreciation for our devolution workers, we are going to have a bit of an event before the end of the fiscal year to recognize their efforts and their hard work.
The Status of Women advisor, we will make sure that its importance is recognized and that it continues to be elevated. The biggest issue that we saw was the need for administrative support and for events and functions. We are now well positioned by the fact that Aboriginal Affairs is poised, their expertise is in working on intergovernmental forums and I think they will be able to provide the needed administration so that this important function continues to be high on our priorities.
The program review office, I think our expectations are the same as the Member. I had discussions with the Minister of Finance. In addition to efficiencies and evaluations, it also plays an important role on risk management and capacity building throughout the government. That will continue to be a large part of its presence.
Family violence, the Coalition Against Family Violence, I interact with the Status of Women Council. They have come up with a report card and I know the funding is interspersed throughout the social program departments. I will be meeting with the Status of Women Council this week and I will be able to discuss this in more detail and if we can also provide some information on the 19 recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I did forget one item and that’s the NGO Stabilization Fund. I think the Minister is well aware, as well, that committee felt that that fund needed to be increased in value. I believe last year we had, I don’t remember I think it was thirty or more, it might have been closer to fifty applications and I think the total amount of money applied for was somewhere near a million dollars and we have $350,000 in that fund.
It is obvious that it’s not enough money. Committee has been writing to the Minister for quite some time, trying to get that fund increased and trying to maybe change the criteria of the fund. There’s a need, as well, for emerging NGOs to get some sort of funding and the fund, the way it’s written right now, does not allow for that at all. So I just wanted to put that out there one more time. It needs to be more than $350,000 for NGOs who do work on our behalf and the criteria needs to be changed a little bit so that it allows for emerging NGOs to get a bit of a leg up. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I certainly agree that this is an area that could benefit from additional funding. In 2013-14 we had 16 applications and 11 organizations received a grant from the NGO Stabilization Fund and for this fiscal year, the funding we had, we put into GSOs, but in future years we will look at putting it into NGO stabilization. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Premier McLeod. General comments. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After that detailed and thorough review of the department, I will now move a motion.
