Thank you. Mr. Mercer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we are budgeting in a transition year, we have to make assumptions about how many Members will not be returning, and our assumptions have consistently been a turnover of about a third of Members in any given election. We always hope it is going to be less than that, but that is what we budget for. The transition allowance payments that we budget for assume that two first-term Members will not be returning, that two two-term Members will not be returning, and that two three-term Members or two Ministers will not be returning. So, if the turnover tends to be more than six Members or if it is six Members who have long service, the budgeted amount will not be enough and we will need to find the funding, as we did in 2015, from other sources or through supplementary appropriation. If the turnover is less than six or if all that turnover occurs for Members who have served only four years, then that amount will be underspent. It is essentially a set of assumptions we have to work on, and we need to wait until the election date to see how it plays out. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you to the witnesses for their responses. Nothing further.
Thank you. Further to this activity? Seeing none, I will call the page. Legislative Assembly, expenditures on behalf of Members, operations expenditure summary, total activity, $9,404,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please turn to the next activity on page 11, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer. Comments or questions? Seeing none, I will call this activity. Legislative Assembly, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, operations expenditures summary, activity total, $1,655,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please turn to the next activity, Office of the Clerk. Comments or questions? Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. There is a significant increase from 2018-2019 to 2019-2020 in research, information and library services. Can one of our guests here explain that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Ouellette.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. What is being proposed for library services for the upcoming year is a one-time initiative for a digitization system. This is a move to modernize the way that the library does business in terms of digitizing all of their information, being able to connect with other agencies and networks. The estimated cost for that is $100,000, and there is an additional $21,000 or $22,000 for a summer student to assist with that digitization work during the summer period.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I know that, over at the archives, there are actually copies of the minutes for the Northwest Territories Council going back to 1921, and they are the only record of those minutes anywhere in the world, as I understand it. Do you know if that sort of information is part of this project? There are research requests, and I have had reason to go back to the 1950s recently on this, but is that going to be part of this project? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Ouellette.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can't confirm that. In talking with the librarian, I know that they are meeting with various groups to flesh out a plan in terms of how they are going to approach digitization, but I know that there are several groups that are involved with that.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I might go and have a chat with some folks in the library as well, because they provide great service to us, and it would be great to have that sort of archival information available online for research purposes as well. I want to thank our witnesses. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Anything further? Seeing nothing, I will call the activity. Legislative Assembly, Office of the Clerk, operations expenditures summary, total activity, $8,300,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please turn to the next activity, Office of the Speaker. The summary is on page 18. Comments or questions? Seeing none, I will call the activity. Legislative Assembly, Office of the Speaker, operations expenditures summary, $531,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please turn to statutory offices on page 21. Comments or questions? Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In his opening remarks, the Speaker said that the budget for languages was going to be tripled. I am not sure if that is this page where the Language Commissioner is, or where it is going to be, but maybe he could point to that, please? Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Masi, Mr. Chair. The funding allocation is not geared towards the Language Commissioner's budget, but it is overall to offset how we can enhance language development in the Legislative Assembly with regard to reporting and promoting more language. It is a generic contribution to the Legislative Assembly and would capture the Language Commissioner's area of recommendations, so we can work towards that as well. If I may, maybe Mr. Mercer will have more detailed information pertaining to this, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Mercer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to follow up on what the Speaker said, the tripling of the Assembly's languages budget would not be found under this activity; it would be found under a number of line items under Office of the Clerk. For example, the Clerk's Office item under program detail has a substantial increase of about $100,000. That would account for some of it. The remainder would be in the committee's budget. That increase is spread out over a number of items within the activity of Office of the Clerk on page 14, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I noticed here that the budgets for a couple of the statutory officers have actually decreased. For the Information and Privacy Commissioner, there is $28,000 less for 2019-2020, and for the Languages Commissioner, I am not going to attempt to do the math in my head; $38,000, my friend tells me. Can someone explain to me why these reductions are being made? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Masi, Mr. Chair. It is part of shared services that we have assistants to these officers. As you know, we have a few of them, and we do have a clerk or receptionist who assists them. There has been a reallocation of that position. We did talk about that during our deliberation of how we can deal with those positions, so I will get Mr. Ouellette to explain more in detail. Masi.
Thank you. Mr. Ouellette.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, so the planning going forward was looking at the store-front location for the statutory officers at the Lang 1 building. Currently, on one side of that, there are three statutory officers that are being supported by 1.5 staff, and the Commissioner is also bringing on a full-time assistant commissioner.
With the implementation of the Ombud's office, the plan is to increase the half-time position to a full-time position, and then we reallocated some of those budgets to the Ombud budget, and that took it out of the Language Commissioner's budget and also took a portion of the office managers' salaries out of the Information and Privacy Commissioner's budget. That is why the reductions would be seen there, but there is no impact to their operational expenses.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the explanation. Just to be crystal clear here, there is no change in the funding that is provided to the Information and Privacy Commissioner or the Language Commissioner. There is no reduction in their ability to carry out the programs and services that they do, other than the fact that the resources are being reduced to provide for a shared support person in the office. Is that correct? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Chair, yes, those are areas that we have discussed how we can manage, and that is correct, what the Member has alluded to.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Nothing further from Mr. O'Reilly. Seeing nothing further, I will call this page. Legislative Assembly, statutory offices, operations expenditures summary, total, $2,553,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. There is an information item on the last page. Rather, that was part of that last item, so let's return to the departmental summary on page 5. Any final comments or questions? Seeing none, I will call the total. Legislative Assembly, total department, $22,443,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, you may escort the witnesses from the Chamber. Does committee agree that this concludes our consideration of the Legislative Assembly?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Tabled Document 322-18(3), Main Estimates 2019-2020?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Mr. Beaulieu.
