Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today you heard from my Member's statement about the topic of change. As I said in my statement, I have some questions of the Premier to help clear up some confusion and hopefully help the residents of the NWT have a clear understanding what is happening here in this Assembly. Mr. Speaker, Cabinet decided that it was important to freeze excluded employee salaries increases and potential bonuses as part of the government's reduction plan. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please explain to us in the public why Cabinet froze the excluded employee salary and at the same time the government continues to advertise in the paper for recruiting future workers and government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What the government announced is that there would be no economic adjustments for excluded employees and this was publicly announced by the Finance Minister in February. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Premier answered part of the question, but I'll move onto my next one. Mr. Speaker, there has been conversation and rumours out in the public service and on the streets of communities that the NWT are about to potentially realign some of the departments. Can the Premier please confirm that this option has been looked at and discussed?
No decisions have been made as of yet. Possibly there could be changes. It depends on the outcomes of zero-base reviews. If there is a business case to support any amalgamations, those proposals will be reflected in the 2017-18 business plans and we'll reviewed with committees this fall, and I hope the committee will support changes that would be proposed, if any, at that time.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I know for one I will give my hand out and am willing to work with you if it's exchanged back and forth, so I thank the Premier for that statement. Mr. Speaker, with these potential alignments of departments, will the Premier look at reducing the Cabinet size from seven to six as part of the reduction process? Thank you.
Our experience is that workload from Ministers does not significantly decrease when departments are amalgamated, and I'm not saying we're going to do that, but if we do I don’t expect there will be any changes to the number of Cabinet Ministers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I understand and appreciate how the Premier answered the question, but can he please explain what the difference is between Cabinet positions and public servant positions when we're doing reductions. If the government wants the public service to reduce their numbers, why can't we do that to show leadership on our end? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for clarifying the position. If the business case shows that there's opportunities for increased effectiveness and efficiencies, that's where the difference comes in, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
