Debates of February 25, 2005 (day 44)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to once again register my concern with the fact that the division of RWED will result in the creation of 28 new jobs at a cost of $2.8 million every year. Mr. Speaker, I understand that the department needed to streamline and separate their mandates between exploring resources to protecting the environment. But that didn’t give the government the right to reproduce themselves 28 more little positions in offices. Mr. Speaker, I don’t accept the Minister’s position that this had to be done in order to better respond to the work of preparing for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, for example. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, there just has to be more prudent things to do to prepare, than to create more government jobs.

Mr. Speaker, this was an $80 million department that split into two, and surely they could have done this from within. Mr. Speaker, people out there are asking where the resources are for all the people up and down the valley who want a forum to speak about their worries and concerns about the pipeline development. There are other priority items that have been chronically under-funded within the mandate of this department, Mr. Speaker. That is, I have to wonder what the tourism industry could have done with $2.7 million in extra funding on a yearly basis.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think the Members and Cabinet know how frustrating it is for the Members on this side to hear the government saying over and over that they can’t pay for this and that, and they have to cut funding to social agencies. They can’t fund indoor facilities in Nahanni Butte or Kakisa…

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…or many, many places.

Yet when they want to reproduce themselves, it’s no problem. Three million dollars every year in perpetuity. Mr. Speaker, I don’t think the Minister and Cabinet have their priorities straight and I need to state that again very clearly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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