Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I spoke about the need to look at placing some GNWT positions into smaller communities to address the employment rates in these communities. I have questions for the Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I understand a committee was formed in either the 13th or the 14th Assembly to look at decentralization. Can the Premier tell me what the mandate of that committee was and if there was any final report from that committee?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d have to get more details to do a full response to the Member, which I will commit to doing, but I believe it was the 14th Assembly. And if we’re on the same path here, the 14th Assembly was doing some work in regard to federal decentralization of positions out of Ottawa to the North. Thank you.
Can the Premier tell me if this government has a strategy to close the employment rate gap that exists between larger communities and smaller communities? Thank you.
There’s a number of initiatives that we’ve undertaken during the 16th Assembly when it comes to looking at program delivery or the way we deliver our programs in our communities across the North. Looking at that scenario and having to come back to Members to see if we will change the way we do our delivery could have an impact on the level of delivery and the level of services in our community. So that work is ongoing now, as a Legislative Assembly, along with the cost of living scenario where we’re looking at a number of fronts, looking at what we need to do differently as a government as well. Thank you.
Speaking specifically about decentralization, would the Premier commit to having discussions with the departments, through the Ministers, of course, to discuss, examine and develop some sort of strategy for transferring GNWT positions into the smaller communities? Thank you.
As this work is being done about how we deliver our programs and services in our communities and in light of the question from the Member, I’d be happy to, once we pull this information together, sit down with Members and go through what options may be presented as to how we deliver those services, and that could have an impact to the levels of services and employment in communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Premier commit to giving direction to departments through the Minister to take a serious look at what functions can be delegated to the smaller communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
A practice that we’ve had as this Assembly, and because I’m familiar with previous exercises, as well, whenever we go through our business planning process we do look at the level of services and how we carry out business across government, whether it is in growth or when we tighten our belts, so to speak. So getting direction and myself setting direction for this Assembly I would, again, go back to the Members and in line with this questioning the work we’re doing already on program service delivery in our communities is to sit down with Members to look at that information to see if we would set up an additional piece of work to look at what steps would follow on that work we’re doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
