Thank you. I want to go back to the Member from Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's the only question I had at this point in time on that particular page there. Mahsi.
I'm going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I'm sure I'll be corrected if it's not. I guess you could look at page 72 in the business plan or you could look at page 126 in the main estimates but, again, I talked a little earlier about having the right people in the right place doing the right work. Can the department speak to what it's doing with the regional director position that's been vacant for four years in Inuvik and where that sits now?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you. We do have a plan for that position. It has not been reduced. And we're just holding off pending the approval of this budget. We don't know how things are going to go with the negotiations with Members, whether or not we're going to need to find additional money and where we might need to find that money. So I look forward to staffing that position once we are through this process, if we make it through successfully. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you. No, and I'm certainly happy to hear that, and I'm happy to hear that it hasn't been part of the reductions. Again, I can't stress enough how important that position is for our region and I'm sure as positions in other regions are as well, and just want to reiterate that that something I hear on a regular basis, certainly from constituents, and from other government departments and Indigenous governments as well. So I look forward to again, this thing has been it's been vacant for a while, and it's unfortunate. I'm disappointed it hasn't been filled prior to this point, but I'm happy to hear that the department will be moving forward on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Is there any other Members? Okay, I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my question specifically related to Cabinet support here. Is how much money is allocated for Cabinet communications? I don't see a specific line item there. I wondered if the Minister could clarify.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you. We are just looking for that information right now. We should have it it's under Executive Council offices I'm being told. Thank you.
(audio).
Okay. We'll just hang tough here until we can find it. We're good? I'll go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you. So I believe that's in the next section so we can address that once we get there. Thank you.
Thank you. I want to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll wait until we get to that section to expand.
is there any further questions from Members before I move on? Okay, thank you. I'm going to move on to the next no further questions, please turn to page 128. The Executive and Indigenous Affairs, Cabinet support, operations expenditures summary, 20242025 Main Statements, $2,260,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to the corporate communications beginning on page 130 with information items on page 132. Are there any questions? Yes, I'm going to go to the Member sorry, I just want to make sure I get this right Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in EIA's business plan under departmental highlights page 87, there is a piece around the communications functional review. So the description of this review is almost identical to the last one done in 2014, which was known as the likely report. And I'm going to argue here today that, you know, the reason that communications doesn't get better is no one really wants to fully implement the recommendations that are in that report, and departments want to continue to do what they are doing, namely, preferring to keep control of their message. And so we continue to ask, we continue to review, we continue to ask, you know, will it get better, hoping we'll get different answers that we like. So I'm really going to urge the Minister and his department to scrap this and save yourself some money.
To the Member from Yellowknife North's points, you know, it is $2.7 million or 11 percent of the budget. The reason that communications started to centralize didn't fully realize the recommendations of the 2014 report is because it was asked to centralize and sort of control that messaging, one government, one voice. So that's why you've seen the general growth of comm staff in the central agency. I would argue it's clarity of decisionmaking, not communications that are the is the real problem. Our communicators in the government are world class. I consider a lot of them very awesome and excellent people doing the best they can with what they have. But, yeah, I'll let the Minister speak to that. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you for that, those comments. You know, comms, there's never enough communications, there's never enough information out there, and even when it's out there, people can't find it. So this is a it's been a nowin situation I found in my time here. There were discussions about centralizing in the last government. As the Minister of a department, a line department as they're called, I was not supportive of that given that there's the bread and butter communications that departments have to do. And, you know, I was a student when I was first elected and so I know that ECE did a lot of communications on SFA, and they were very targeted to me as a student, and I really appreciated that. And so I wanted to make sure that the departments were still able to do that. But we have needed to improve our I guess our political communications to get the word out there. And I appreciate the Member's comments about world class communicators because, you know, some of the people I work with, I know that they are that they're good at their job. So I will have a discussion with the department about the scope of this review. And I will leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'd be happy to talk to the Minister more fulsomely about this with suggestions. I hope he comes to committee and chats with us about it. But I really, really, really stress that, you know, in the scoping of how you want to go out on an RFP for this that you really take a really careful look at that report, talk to your communicators, find out what's working first before you spend a whole heck ton of money and time on something that will probably give you the same results. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to continue on. I'm going to go to Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to build on the comments which I I very much appreciate from Member for Great Slave, going back to the last communications functional review, which I understand was done around 2014, 2015, can the Minister explain whether any of the recommendations from the last review were actually implemented?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you. So I understand that some of the recommendations were implemented, but the report was ten years ago and I don't have a good handle on what's happened in the last ten years in relation to that report. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Next I wanted I want to talk about the OneGov project, which is listed in the business plans as one of the key highlights of this department. Where is the budget for OneGov; where does it fall? I'm assuming it might fall under corporate communications, but perhaps the Minister can clarify and also tell us what is the budget for OneGov both for 20242025 and if there's any budget plan for future years. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA
Thank you. I believe it's in the procurement process. So we don't necessarily put the budget out before it has been approved. We want to make sure that the contractors are not bidding to the budget. They're bidding to the project. But the project itself is to create a website that is essentially a one window to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Right now, we have a number of different websites. We have a number of and the platform that's being used is actually quite old and not robust enough for today's modern internet. So just like physical infrastructure needs to be replaced, technological infrastructure needs to be replaced as well. And at some point in the future, if not now, it will not be functional and will have to be replaced. There are many, many orphaned web pages. I come across them myself where information's clearly outdated. It's very difficult to manage it, and so the idea is to create something that is much more user friendly for the users as well as for the people on the other end who are actually putting the content up. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to Yellowknife North Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm going to ask this again because I didn't get clarification. Does the government know what the cost of OneGov is at least for 20242025; have we budgeted for it? And if so, where is it in this budget?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
Thank you. Yes, there is a budget for it. I believe the budget has been shared with Members, and if not I can do that. And it is under corporate communications. But I would like to hand it to the director for more information. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Yes, the budget for OneGov has been established. It will be a cost shared budget amongst all nine departments. The budget consists of website development, website hosting, project manager. There's an amount for 20242025 of $830,000. For 20252026, $530,000. And we're assuming an ongoing hosting fee after that of $90,000. And it is a cost shared amongst nine departments. Therefore, it is not a separate capital expenditure item for this budget.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Do those numbers include internal staff costs of implementing this project, or is this all just costs that would go towards a contractor? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
So basically we have one position one project manager. They're designated for the project.
I'll get the director to repeat that so it's clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The project cost includes a project manager. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And it's included within the budget of overall budget cost.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister tell us well, just confirm whether the RFP process has closed, and if so, were any proposals received from NWTbased businesses on this contract? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of EIA.
The proposal the process is not yet closed, no. It's midstream. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
