Mr. Speaker, what we’ve done in the strategic initiatives is work from the goals and the visions and priorities set by this Legislative Assembly. We can align those and show what area is used in an important piece of investment. Early childhood: is that an investment we should make? Are the Members trying to say that’s not an area? The increased investment we’re putting into health care and social services in the Northwest Territories: is that something we shouldn’t invest in? We can align those with the vision and goals.
Now, some of the strategic initiatives, yes, have been driven by a number of factors. For example, the Building Canada Fund has set criteria set by the federal government. We’ve plugged into that system, and that has some impact on that. But for making changes, for example, again the normal process works. We have letters go to the departments for forced growth, new initiatives, infrastructure. It’s reviewed by Cabinet, some decisions are made, draft business plans are set forward and brought to committee. The committee takes those recommendations back, and some changes can be made. That’s the same process we’ve used this time around.
Mr. Speaker, to me it’s not a matter of.... We all know what’s important to the residents we all represent here. We know that health care is important; we know education is important; we know we need to be spending some more money in certain areas. My point is that the government has taken it upon themselves to identify areas where they’re going to spend millions of dollars. In effect, they’re taking away my constituents’ voice at the table, and that of every other Regular Member who’s on this side of the House when we don’t have any input into where those millions of dollars are being reinvested. That, to me, is a fundamental flaw in the process.
I’d also ask the Premier: where were Regular Members when the decision was made to reduce positions by 135? Where were we in that discussion? We found out three weeks after the fact that that had happened. That’s inexcusable.
Let’s go back a little bit. When we first got elected, we sat down. I went to committee and said, Here’s the fiscal picture that we’re looking at; we’re going to need to reduce. I gave a target to Members, and based on that, we made the announcement.
Now, I heard from a lot of Members say that if there’s going to be an impact, you need to limit it on employees. If there’s going to be an impact, notify them early. In fact, the UNW.... I had meetings with the president, and he said that if there’s going to be impact, let the people know early.
We did make a mistake in the sense of the timing. The package of materials should have been brought to Members before that announcement and the calls went to employees for setting up appointments. That’s been clarified. That won’t happen again in that process. That’s a glitch, for sure. I went to Members, and I apologized for that. We fixed that situation. The fact is the initiatives, the goal, the revenue, the big picture — we went and sat down with Members.
The Member, from what I see, would like to be beside me making some of those decisions. You elected a Cabinet that had to pull some of this stuff together. We fully realize there’s going to be some good and bad to it. I encourage Members.... Let’s do things differently here, and let’s extend it so that we can come up with a full plan with more input to meet the goals. What Members told me is to get a full budget in place by May–June.
I believe this budget sets the course for where we want to go. The rest of the year the business plans coming up will fall back into a scenario of an improved system in the sense of not just your typical business plan. That’s the pattern this one is based on. It is that more interactive approach I went to Members with. We’ll have more input when we sit down and talk about the business-plan process coming up.
I thank the Premier for that. I think it’s a discussion that needs to happen. I think, even outside of this building, the public wants a chance to have a discussion about the goals, the aspirations and the opportunities that are going to present themselves over the next three-and-a-half years. I think maybe we can get to some of that here in the next three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half weeks, but I think we should also look at having a public debate where people can come and ask questions of the Ministers and we can have a full disclosure on how decisions were arrived at.
The Premier also said early on in the process that cuts would be a last resort. That’s why I’m a bit surprised that had happened. I’m also surprised that when Regular Members make suggestions to Cabinet, they’re dismissed. They say they need more analysis. We need to look at them a little bit further. But when it comes to decisions that are made by Cabinet, they’re put forward. There’s no analysis there. There’s no groundwork done. How is the Premier going to engage Regular Members going forward so we have meaningful input and our constituents have meaningful input into this process?
Let’s look at the facts. The record would speak for itself. The Members of this Assembly, and the Member himself, has talked about the fact that the government has grown substantially. It has grown too big. We can pull that out of Hansard. When we target these areas for reduction, and there’s unfortunately some impact there on individuals in jobs and positions, now it’s “Don’t do it.” And if you’re going to have to do it, notify them early. So we did that, but we did it wrong, so — no good. I don’t know what environment I’m in.
We’ve listened to Members. The Member himself raised the issue of a bypass road here in Yellowknife. That wasn’t in the capital plan. We listened. It is now presented as part of the package. Is that not listening? For one of the schools, St. Joe’s here in Yellowknife, the cost came in higher than was budgeted. A process became available; we put it in the system. Is that not listening? Reduce the amount on the Mackenzie Gas Project area. Members made that recommendation, and we met them halfway on that. Is that not listening?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, today I have questions for the Premier or the Minister responsible for reducing the cost of living — the cost of living for communities in the Tu Nedhe in the area of food, fuel, power and gasoline. The cost of living is extremely high in those areas. An example is that in order to reduce the costs themselves, the people would supplement their food by hunting. However, the cost of gasoline is so high that people are unable to do that.
I’d like to ask the Minister if there is a plan to address the problem on a short-term basis. A lot of the costs of living are laid out. The reduction to costs of living is laid out. Awareness of energy, hydro strategy and so forth are all items that are in this year’s budget but have long-term implications. I want to know if there are any plans that have short-term impacts on the cost of living in the smaller communities.
The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
The area of energy is, as we hear in our communities, having a huge impact on the lives of individuals, holding people back from their potential. The cost of goods in our small stores in the communities is huge. I shared, for example, a trip to Paulatuk. One tomato in that Northern Store in Paulatuk was four dollars and some cents. I’m sure it would be similar in Lutselk’e. We see it, for example, when the ice crossings go out. The stores automatically bump up their prices, because the transportation costs are there.
One of the things we’re doing, that is ongoing, is, for example, the Territorial Power Support Program — helping the cost of living that way. Ongoing on an annual basis for those families who are on income support or use it from time to time, the food basket is adjusted for cost of living and set-up — I believe if not by the community, then by a regional process. What we do have to look at, and there are other activities.... For example, within ITI, for those who go out hunting, we set up a fund that, once matched by the band or the hunters’ and trappers’ organization or the regional body, they can draw down that funding to help their constituents in that area. There are some dollars left in that for communities that haven’t drawn that down. That was one-time funding that’s stretched over quite a number of years since it was introduced. There’s some funding still left in there.
The MLA from Nunakput advised me that a tomato has doubled in price since then.
Interjection
And it’s the same one, yes.
Laughter.
I would like to ask the Premier if he could give me an idea of the time frame they’re looking at to have some sort of impact on the hydro strategy and the energy programs.
There’s the overall hydro initiative across the Northwest Territories and trying to bring that to either investment or industry, as well as communities. The three mini-hydro projects, we’re looking at continuing investment in this year to see if they can be put in place. For example, Lutselk’e was a community that has been identified in that area. We’re looking to continue that work in this upcoming year.
The bigger picture, as the Members have said earlier, is correct. Some of these large initiatives are going to take quite a number of years for ourselves as government. We’re going to have to find partners to build the larger hydro development potential in the North to bring the cost of living down once and for all in our communities — or, for example, a gas pipeline to get natural gas in the communities to convert from diesel to natural gas to give a more stable source. Those are a number of areas.
The cost-of-living initiative: as I said earlier, we’ve instructed Ministers who are lead on this file to set up times for committees to start getting some of that dialogue and input to see if there are other ideas we can bring to the table.
The other one is the Food Mail Program, which is supposed to help reduce the cost of transportation of food to the communities. We’re starting to work at trying to get that back and to propose some changes to it. It is administered through Canada Post, I believe. We’re going to have a look at it. We are quite concerned. There’s a substantial amount of money from the federal government for the program, but we see little benefit for the North. We need to have that re-addressed.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Premier if they’ve examined any sort of subsidies that other jurisdictions might be using to reduce the cost of living.
We as a government have looked at our subsidy programs, and there are quite a number of them. When you look at the overall public housing package, the Territorial Power Support Program, the Seniors’ Fuel Subsidy, Income Support and some of these other investments, we haven’t had an updated review in comparison to other jurisdictions. We know that on a lot of fronts we do have a better program than quite a number of jurisdictions in Canada. But, again, we’d be willing to sit down with committee members to go through that and have a look at that initiative.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve just a short question. Would the Premier look at other jurisdictions, specifically for the reduction of food costs, where they have communities where there is fly-in?
We would be willing to do that. We’re aware, for example, that the Food Mail Program affects quite a number of other jurisdictions in high-cost areas, and we’re going to plug into that to see how it works, to see if they’re feeling the same impact or have the same concerns we have. So we would be prepared to look at that type of initiative, yes.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
My question is for the Minister of Finance, and it’s an attempt to once again bring clarity to an issue that keeps bubbling away out there. I was astounded to hear this morning on CBC radio — I believe it was Mr. Lee Selleck talking about hearing Mr. Abernethy, who said that there would be a reinvestment of $70 million along with cuts of $135 million. Mr. Selleck wondered if it was actually a leak of information. I was equally astounded the other day to talk to the author of a Parkland Institute report, an excellent researcher and so on, who knew nothing about it.
We’ve raised the issue of communications before, but this is such a fundamental issue. It’s still clouding the public understanding and ability to bring analysis to the government’s moves. Just for the public record and for absolute clarity, was the original intent of this government to find $135 million in cuts and during a similar period to reinvest about $75 million in areas of priority, for a net reduction of $60 million roughly over two years?
The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
As the Member has laid it out, that is the scenario. The overall target is $135 million; $75 million of that $135 million was targeted for reinvestment in priorities of the Legislative Assembly. That number is affected by the fact that if we can achieve our reduction scenario.... And that’s somewhat limited. We were hoping to do that, and part of the discussion we had earlier on was that it is $135 million, but we want to reinvest the $75 million. It wouldn’t be $75 million up front in one year. We realize that it takes, as we pointed out, two years to actually see the net impact of some of our reduction scenarios. The original amount we were hoping to reinvest would have been $25 million this year. That is investing in new priorities. There was, as I said, work done in the previous government under some initiatives that were sitting there. We reviewed those, and that’s part of the package you see today.
Thank you for that clarity. I hope that word gets out. I cannot believe that we’re at this stage and there’s still confusion out there on such a fundamental fact. Just for further clarification on the Minister’s later remarks: how far are we down that road toward the $135 million and the reinvestment of $75 million with this budget today?
Mr. Speaker, with the package we’ve met so far, there are a couple of things we have to consider. I mentioned earlier in my Budget Address the sunsetting of programs. Those were already on the list to be ended. Whether a department came forward for three-year money or one-year money or it was federal transfers that only lasted a couple of years, sunsetted money meant those programs were to end on that year. So we’ve had about $30 million of those sunsetted dollars identified in this budget. We’ve had a further $35 million, if I don’t have my numbers reversed, in meeting our reduction targets, which has limited us. We’re not able to reinvest the $25 million.
Again, when we talk about the budget and all the reinvestments and capital and so on, there are some initiatives from the previous work that was done that have been carried through. But the targets we’ve set up, we’ve not met, and we’re going to have to look at refocusing government initiatives. As I discussed earlier, the rest of that work will follow through the business plan, where we will sit down with Members, through these strategic initiatives and then right through departments as well.
Again, thank you for those remarks. Does the federal program that we’ve now learned about — the Building Canada Fund, somewhere between $27 million and $35 million a year — contribute and allow us to cut less to achieve our budget goal?
Just to add to that, if I can. Am I correct, from the Minister’s remarks, if I said we were about a third of the way on the cuts? A quarter?
Mr. Speaker, first the question about the Building Canada Fund. The Building Canada Fund is capital dollars. It’s not O&M dollars. In a sense, it does help us, for example, to flow through more capital, because it’s cost-shared dollars. For example, the Kakisa River Bridge: it’s allowing us to invest in that area. The Yellowknife bypass road: cost-sharing with the City of Yellowknife and flowing through those dollars to meet theirs helps that project that wouldn’t have been on there before. There are a number of areas where it does save us some investment so that we can spread the capital out to other projects. So it does save us that way, but it’s capital dollars. It’s not O&M dollars, so it doesn’t help us to reduce our targets in that fashion.
The other questions about the percentage of targets that we’ve met.... If you look at this budget and we take the $35 million that has been met, if we can match that during the next budget cycle we go through, then we’ve met the hard dealing with our fiscal growth pattern. The rest of it we could deal with through managing the growth of departments, through forced growth and new initiatives pieces. If we don’t meet those, that means less reinvestment.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. A final short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Again, Mr. Speaker, thank you for those remarks. One final one on the cuts. I believe layoffs were something we had discussed early on as part of the cuts. They were intended to be based on a thoughtful, comprehensive program review, possibly even a zero-based review. Were those reviews done as a basis for those cuts, and if not, should those cuts have been delayed?
Mr. Speaker, the fact that we’ve had the impact of reductions in personnel…. I’ve said on a number of occasions in this House, in the media — and I know Members were not happy with that, even when I said it at that time — there would be some impact there. When half of your budget deals with compensation and benefits of your workforce, and even if you reduced just program areas, there are people attached to those programs and delivery of them; so there was that impact. We’ve minimized that as much as possible. In fact, some of those who are affected have been contacted for potential redeployment, getting them into the new initiative pieces we will be delivering. So we’re lessening that impact, as well, on that side of it.
When you look it, the scenario was that we went to departments — of the $135 million total reinvestment and direct reductions — based on the size of their budgets. So the larger your budget, the larger portion of the percentage you got from the overall target. That was different from previous years. In previous years a department was just given a flat percentage. We didn’t go that route, and they were told to come and meet their target. A number of departments did not meet their targets. We knew they didn’t align themselves with the priorities of this Assembly. So we’ve not proceeded on quite a number of fronts, but we’ve put more work into the Refocusing Government piece. Again, Hon. Michael Miltenberger will be ready to meet with Members as we prepare for the next stage of our work in budget planning.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that this budget process has eroded public confidence. Unfortunately, people out there in the public don’t always differentiate between that side of the House and this side of the House. To them we are all the government. So I am feeling, as well, like we have been not fully brought into this whole process.
I did sit beside the Premier when we announced that we need to live within our means and we need to have affordable, sustainable government, and I believed in all that. But when it came down to the decisions on how we were going to attain that, then we weren’t part of the discussion.
I know the Premier has already said, Mr. Speaker, that he is sorry that Members weren’t notified before the 135 letters went out to potentially affected employees to set up interviews to discuss their options with them. But I want to stress, I guess, that I didn’t get here yesterday. I’ve been here a long time, and I know what normal practice is. I don’t have any motivation to just be crabby for the sake of being crabby. I don’t. I mean, if things are good, I say things are good. If things are screwed up, I say things are screwed up. And this budget process has not been what it should have been.
On the recruitment and retention reference in the Budget Address, we stand up and say that we’re not the employer of choice. Well, I guess not. I mean, here we are out here trying to spend money on recruitment and retention, yet we’re laying off 135 — with vacant positions maybe 200 — positions in the public service. I want to ask the Premier: what efforts were made to redeploy, reassign or come up with reasonable circumstances for those members of the public service we have had working for us, who have skills, who have possibly transferable skills, who we have invested in and who have invested their work careers in us as a territorial government. What efforts were made?
The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
Mr. Speaker, I as well have not just come into this environment. As I stated earlier, I’m very familiar with the process as a Regular Member, as a Minister and as Finance Minister in a previous government. That process has been followed. There’s always a glitch with the first budget of the Legislative Assembly. You can decide to either go ahead with the work that was done by a previous government, with some tinkering, or you can take control of it early on. We’ve decided to take control.
We’ve tried to mitigate the impact on employees. Again, I’ve heard from Members. Members said early on that to minimize that to the least extent possible, if it has to be done, you notify early. We’ve done that, and it was a mistake in not providing Members the information as that was happening. So we’ve dealt with that, and that won’t be occurring again.
The other side is that we’ve gone through our staff retention policy, and the Minister of Human Resources has been keeping us up to date on the number of employees who have been interviewed for potential redeployment within government, taking on new assignments. We’ve had some individuals in the system say, “We’re not ready to talk just yet until we see that the budget actually passes.” Then they’ll be sitting down with us.
We have quite a large number who have talked about retirement. They’ve hit a threshold where they’re considering doing that. We’re looking at our options to deal with that and pension issues. So we’re looking at a number of options to mitigate the final impact on individuals within the Government of Northwest Territories.
I had a situation in my constituency where someone received notification of being a potentially affected employee. Someone else in the same organization, with a similar skill set, doing a similar type of work, wanted to embark on voluntary separation, thinking that if he did that, the person who received notification for layoff would not have to go through that. The voluntary separation was denied, so it goes back to the person they want to remove. It makes you wonder about the motive. Was this really entirely a job reduction for saving money, or was this some kind of a housecleaning exercise that gave managers a prerogative to have people affected who maybe they’d had an issue with or crossed swords with? It doesn’t make sense. I can give you another example.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. I’ll allow the Premier to answer that question.
Mr. Speaker, I know early on that notifications went out to potentially affected employees and that there were some issues about the retirement options. I’ve even heard of an example up in my community. I would say, through that process, that we should be willing to look at that. We should be flexible enough in our environment to do that. I think, as we proceed with this and have further discussion, that is being considered at this point. We have tools — for example, direct appointments. If we have somebody who wants to retire and they have somebody who’s in line with them — they’re ready to move up — there is the potential we could be looking at that. We’ve had some discussion about that, and we’re ready to sit down more on that. Again, the Minister of Human Resources has been looking at these options. He’s been coming to the table, and we’ve been putting some of these suggestions out as well.
Mr. Speaker, reductions and layoffs are never a pleasant experience. However, there are ways of mitigating the impact and making it at least professional, businesslike and somewhat humane.
I’ll give you another example of a situation where we’re going to reduce positions. There are four people in one shop, all doing basically the same activity. Now the government says they only want three people. So rather than going to the person in that shop who’s got 28 years’ experience and suggesting maybe coming up with some arrangement, like a normal employer would do.... Why would you send notification to all four employees and ask them all to apply for the job, knowing for months that one of them at the end of the day isn’t going to have their job? That is another example of a very unprofessional way of approaching these job reductions. I resent that, and I ask the Premier if he would respond to that kind of treatment of our respected members of the public service.
Mr. Speaker, that issue has come up. I’ve also asked some questions about that and about looking at, as a government, our interpretation of our obligations under our contracts, with the unions as well. Sometimes it’s just our direct interpretation of things. There are a number of cases where there are staff who work in the same area within the same department where one position was targeted; three positions became potentially affected. So we’ve got to look at that.
Again, this scenario has played out in a way where we definitely don’t want to be using the same processes and where we get a clear understanding right off the bat, before we jump to that next stage of notifying employees. That was a concern. As I stated, we should have got all that information together. We need it as well; we’re feeling the pressure. There was talk out there. Whether it was the union itself sending the message, the fear factor was that there are 700 to 800 people who are going to lose their jobs. That came out earlier. We needed to dispel that by going out as soon as we could and trying to reassure the rest of our public service that there was not going to be that type of impact. And trying to move ahead at a rapid pace has caused us some of these other problems in interpretation.
I would be looking to have that discussion with the Minister and say that I believe we need to have a different look at that and see if that interpretation is something that can be reviewed once again.
Final supplementary, Ms. Groenewegen.
On the same topic, when someone is applying for a job and they don’t feel they’re treated fairly, there’s an appeal process. When somebody’s in their job and they feel they’re not being treated fairly, there’s a union — an appeal — process. There’s a grievance process.
When somebody gets notification that they’re being laid off, and they’re a potentially affected employee because of reduction, there really is no recourse for them. Like, to whom do they appeal? They could go through the staff retention exercise. But you know, it doesn’t necessarily work out if it’s in a different community or if they’re in a very specialized area of employment.
So here’s my problem: when the department, when the deputy ministers…. You know, the Ministers went to the deputies; the deputies went to the managers; and they tagged or flagged what they wanted to offer up as the reductions. And they tagged an employee and said, “Okay, that’s the employee; that’ll save this much money.”
Now, somebody else in the organization offers to take voluntary separation. They’ll step up, and they’ll take that, thinking the other person will get the job. But you know who approved that? The same manager who tagged them in the first place is the person you go back to, to say, “Can this person vacate this position so this affected employee doesn’t…?” It’s the same person you go back and ask. It’s a problem.
I’d like to ask the Premier: what recourse do we have for employees who are potentially affected if they feel they are being treated unfairly?
Mr. Speaker, as we’ve heard — and we’ve heard from a number of sources — this is a concern. The Minister of Human Resources has been working on the files to try to bring some clarity to it. We’ve had our discussions. We will continue to have those to look at some of that interpretation — the rules.
What we’ve come down to is, if we decide as a government — like the staff retention policy — a policy in place can be amended. And if we feel we should use our discretion to say…. Why not direct appoint some of these individuals into places where they do fit? We’re not going to take people who, as the Member stated, don’t have the training and put them in a place where they’re bound to fail.
We’re going to do as much of that realignment as possible through our normal processes we have in place. And if we have to review that — the number of tools we do have available — there should be enough flexibility in that to make some of these adjustments.
Very early on, when we made the announcement, I had an e-mail from a constituent back home that said, Pick me. He was looking at moving on and retiring. I think we need to be open to those types of initiatives.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, it’s been known for some time that the Department of Justice is proposing to close down the Arctic Tern Facility in Inuvik.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice what the rationale was for proposing to close Arctic Tern down. If they do close it, who made the ultimate decision to close the facility down?
Minister of Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Speaker, there’s been considerable discussion on this particular subject: the closing down of the Arctic Tern that’s been proposed.
Part of their reasoning behind it is the operation cost: having two or no inmates in the facility, having 20 staff plus seven relief staff to look after a facility, and $2.5 million to operate the facility. Also, Mr. Speaker, just to maintain the building…. It’s roughly $500,000 a year to have an upgrade of the facility annually.
It’s just not feasible to operate the facility that way. That was part of the reason we decided to go with that Arctic Tern Facility in Inuvik as part of the cuts we are faced with. Mahsi.
The time for question period has expired; however, I’m going to allow the Member supplementary questions. I’d also like to remind Members we’ve only had seven Members ask questions. Obviously, we are going to have to shorten our questions, and answers as well, if we are going to give all Members the ability to ask questions.
