Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do a follow-up to my Member’s statement about decentralization. My questions will be for the Premier of the Northwest Territories.
This Assembly is going into its last year. Is it a priority to do decentralization? Is the government any closer to solving some of the housing issues and some of the office space issues to do decentralization throughout the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honorable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are. We have identified $21 million over the next three years, and we’ll be, as well, investing in the housing market in the communities, so our expectation is we will have approximately 178 new houses in the small communities that are predominantly identified for decentralized positions. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, from the perspective on this side of the House, we haven’t seen the plan of where these jobs are going to be.
Is there a plan coming forward? We just completed phase three. Is there a plan to do a phase four and where and when will we see this plan? Thank you.
The Member will be very pleased to hear that we have just started phase three and we have decentralized 141 positions in this 17th Assembly. This is the most positions that have ever been decentralized in the history of this government and we are just starting phase three. So the plan will be, when we roll out the business plans for 2015-16, they will be very clear and I am sure that the Member will be very appreciative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my Member’s statement, I do know about those decentralized positions, and obviously the numbers in Yellowknife have grown as well.
Does the Premier have that type of information of how many jobs were created and devolved into Yellowknife, to prove that we haven’t actually done any decentralization? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The jobs that were devolved from the federal government, there were 135 positions that were filled that were transferred to the Government of the Northwest Territories. I would say approximately 80 to 90 of them were in Yellowknife. One of the conditions for devolution of those positions was that we could not move them within two years, so we would have to wait at least two years to even consider doing anything with those positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the information that I received from the Premier, phase three is a ‘14-15. When we come back to this Assembly in February, we will be in ’15. So I am looking for the next phase of what is happening in ‘15-16 for decentralization and what is the plan going forward.
Once we hit that two-year mark with the federal government, do we have a plan of how to implement more jobs out into the communities? Thank you.
As I indicated, the business plans for 2015-16 will be rolled out early in the new year. It’s very difficult for us to be prescriptive to the next government, and certainly as part of the transitional planning, we will continue to identify decentralization as a priority and we will lay out our thinking on decentralization, but it will be up to the 18th Assembly to make those decisions subsequent to 2015-16. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
