Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the short time that I have been here, two years, the time has flown by so fast. One of the practices that we do within one of our committees is that of public accounts. The NWT doesn’t actually have a public accounts committee, and that responsibility goes to the Government Operations committee of the Northwest Territories.
In March of 2013, this past year, we had the opportunity of having a public accounts practice with the Comptroller General of the NWT, where we sit down and we go through the consolidated and non-consolidated reports for the GNWT, where it really comes down to the financial accountability of the Northwest Territories and how dollars are spent within this government. It was almost a practice that was done backwards, where we did the public accounts practice after we approved a main estimates budget and operations budget for the GNWT. That needs to be addressed on a better situation within this government.
Members of the Government Operations committee had the opportunity over the last year and a half since we have been elected into this House, to go and get some training, to go to these conferences and meet with public accounts committee members whose sole job is to keep the government accountable. It was an eye-opener for me as a new legislator, and I’m sure it was an eye-opener for a lot of members from the Government Operations committee who were able to attend this conference.
What it comes down to is we have to do things better within this government. It talks about being accountable for the dollars that this government spends, but doing it in a practice where we get the reports before we make the decisions on how these dollars are spent. Usually, like I said, what we’ve seen is that it has kind of been a backwards practice after we have approved the dollars. Sometimes you go and say, well wait, this department didn’t spend their dollars properly. What we’ve also got to do is, in the future, not only question the Comptroller General, but we’ve got to start looking at bringing more witnesses to the table. I know this government has contribution agreements with district education authorities, health authorities, Aurora College, all these organizations, where we give them millions and millions of dollars without seeing the programs and how those dollars are spent.
I commend the work that the Government Operations committee has done, and continue to support the work that they do in bringing all departments and witnesses forward to make sure that our dollars are spent wisely. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
