Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, my Member’s statement spoke to multi-year funding for NGOs and the need for this government to go in that direction and to enter into multi-year funding agreements with our NGO partners. I mentioned that I had discovered that some organizations are funded for five-year agreements. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the Executive why we can do that for some organizations but we can’t do that for our NGO partners. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for the Executive, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a number of layers of agreements that are put in place and there are a number of multi-year agreements in place. It is department by department. The issue becomes, one, if a program is under review, then there’s a hesitancy to get into multi-year agreements. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I guess I would have to wonder why the Minister would say a program is under review when we’ve had the Seniors’ Society required to do a single-year agreement since 1999 for the same program. It seems like it’s not under review for 16 years.
The Program Manager’s Guide for NGOs has been developed and distributed and I’d like to commend the departments of the Executive and Finance for doing that. One of the suggestions in that document, and I think it’s an extremely good one, is to have one program manager for each NGO that would deal with all the contracts and all the agreements that an NGO has, whether it be one or four.
I’d like to ask the Minister when we might be able to see some progress in that direction, one program manager for each NGO. Thank you.
In the recommendations that have been laid out, that would have to occur within the life of the next government as our processes and budget have been passed. Changes in that pattern and the way of doing business would need to be carried on through the transition work. Thank you.
One of the other things that I spoke about in my statement was the need to provide for increases to funding to our NGO partners that takes care of cost of living increases. Again, one of the NGOs has not had an increase to the… The Seniors’ Society hasn’t had any increase in the funding for the 1-800 line in 16 years. I’d like to know what policy exists to provide for cost of living increases for contributions that we make to our NGO partners for programs.
We started our work early in the life of this Assembly with issues around stabilizing funds to NGOs and we categorized a number of groups that would fit into core programs that we deliver, that made sense as to looking at some growth in expenditures in those areas, and some adjustments were made. As we review the work that’s done in our contracts, some of the things we have to look at is the use of those programs and increase in forced growth as we would categorize it is how that might fit into our business planning cycle. It is, in a sense, by department and by area of responsibility and demand for programs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister. I guess the issue for forced growth is exactly where I’m going, and there is no opportunity for forced growth increases in the contribution agreements that NGOs have to deal with. I’ve totally lost my thought… You stressed me out, Mr. Minister. I’ll go to my other question.
One of the things that’s in the new Program Manager’s Guide is a statement that if the government requires an audit, the government will pay for it. That hasn’t been past practice. I’d like to ask the Minister when that will change. Thank you.
I must say that it’s rare that a Minister has a chance and an opportunity to stump a Member...(inaudible)...questions. Maybe it’s just the seniors' questions about funding that we all face on a day-to-day basis.
The issue of funding and the forced growth nature is, as I was saying, some of the earlier work we did in the 16th Assembly as Members raised the issue around funding stabilization and previous Assemblies, was the third-party accountability framework that we worked on to identify areas of accountability and dealing with some of those forced-growth pressures. In some categories there was agreement for changes and others did not fit based on that work. We use that work to establish how departments would work with NGOs and how funding could be looked at. Again, not all parties were able to qualify in that area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
