Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is for the Minister of refocusing government. What’s the benefit from doing this if there’s no cost savings? Why? Was there any time on this and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The lead Minister for refocusing government, the Honourable Michael Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, I’d be more than happy to let my colleague...(inaudible)...
---Laughter
Mr. Speaker, this issue is trying to improve the governance, improve how we deliver the service which would improve the service, we believe, to individual community members. At one time or another every program area has struggled with the governance structure, with deficits, with other issues, with rental arrears, with cost overruns, with those types of things. To say if the system is not broke, why would we want to fix it? The constant concerns we get about health, housing, education are the top three in this government and have been in the 14 years that I’ve been here, usually with housing at the top followed a close second by health and then education. We have to look at all these particular factors and how we’re spending our money. As just a finance context here, we are moving in, we are in one of the most difficult times financially since the Great Depression, and things are continuing to get worse daily. We are going to be charged to be as effective, as efficient as we can. For those factors is why we thought we wanted to move on this and it’s been identified as an initiative of the 16th Assembly. Thank you.
Mr. Minister, how will this benefit my constituents of Nunakput other than getting headaches worrying? Let the different boards take care of themselves and let us take care of our own people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the intent is to facilitate the things we’ve been talking about in this House with case planning, the ability to better coordinate the decision-making, to thin out the financial admin overhead in the governance, to put as much money possible at the program level recognizing that we are always going to be challenged with more needs than our resources. It’s for those reasons that we believe that this board reform will, if done right, improve how services are delivered at the community level. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
