Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll follow up from my Member’s statement and I have questions for the Premier of the Northwest Territories about decentralization.
My first question would be: What is the general plan going forward with decentralization? I know we’ve done the first, second and third phase, what is the general plan going forward from… How do we decentralize these positions into the regions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to report to the Member that we have decentralized 150 positions from Yellowknife to the regions, and it has been spread out over a variety of positions.
We have a plan. We’re continuing to work towards fulfilling our plan. We’ve invested $21 million over three years to build 100 houses. We’re now entering our second year of building houses. We are spending $750,000 to have another 100 market houses built in the communities. We are investing $300,000 so that we can use that money for coming up with a plan to acquire office space so that we can no longer use the excuse of not having housing or office space to prevent against decentralization. Of course, we have introduced a Regional Recruitment Strategy so that we can start filling these hard-to-staff positions and also fill those positions that are being decentralized to the regions and to the small communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I understand a lot of the information that’s there that the Premier just provided me, but there is no plan out there. There’s no long-term plan that the Cabinet has been sharing. This is information that Cabinet has, Cabinet’s keeping close to their chest. We’re moving these positions, we’ll be moving these positions eventually here, but we don’t know all those plans. The public doesn’t know those plans.
Is there a plan that the government will be presenting to the public?
We have a plan. We’ve been sharing it. We have a Refocusing Government Cabinet committee and one of its primary focuses is decentralization. The Minister of Finance is the lead Minister on decentralization, and I’m proud to say that Hay River has the second highest number of decentralized positions in this 17th Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I didn’t look for the report and I already indicated in my statement that Hay River is appreciative of the positions we’ve had decentralized. We were looking for the plan, a public document to be presented to the public of the Northwest Territories. Is the government presenting that going forward? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have laid out the three phases repeatedly. Also, as part of the 2015-16 business planning process, that’s part of phase three where all of the departments, with the exception of those new departments that came through devolution, those three departments will have to come up with their plans for decentralization. So we have a plan. We have been filling and decentralizing positions in this 17th Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand the Premier is giving me all the history and all the information that’s there.
My question is: Is there a one-page document advertising that we can share with the general public that there will be jobs in Fort Res, Tsiigehtchic in the third, fourth year? Is there a document out there? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Fort Resolution has 53 jobs. Tsiigehtchic has 11 jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
