Whitehorse, Yukon

Monday, December 16, 1996 - 1:30 p.m.

Speaker: I will now call the House to order.

We will proceed at this time with prayers.

Prayers

DAILY ROUTINE

Speaker: We will proceed with the Order Paper.

Tributes.

Introduction of visitors.

Are there any returns or documents for tabling?

TABLING RETURNS AND DOCUMENTS

Hon. Mr. Keenan: In this case, it is the Minister of Community and Transportation Services, and it gives me pleasure to be able to table the annual report of the Yukon Lottery Commission, 1995-96.

Hon. Mr. Fairclough: I have for tabling the annual report for the Yukon Liquor Corporation, 1995-96.

Speaker: Petitions.

PETITIONS

Petition No. 1 - received

Clerk: Mr. Speaker and hon. Members of the Assembly, I have had the honour to review a petition, being Petition No. 1 of the first session of the Twenty-Ninth Legislative Assembly, as presented by the Hon. Member for Kluane. This petition meets the requirements as to form of the Standing Orders of the Yukon Legislative Assembly.

Speaker: Petition No. 1, accordingly, is deemed to be read and received.

Speaker: Are there any petitions to be presented?

Are there any bills to be introduced?

Notices of motion.

NOTICES OF MOTION

Mr. Ostashek: I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Land Claims Secretariat staff are to be commended for all of their hard work, professionalism and dedication to duty in helping to settle seven of the 14 Yukon First Nation claims over the course of the last four years; and

THAT this House urges the Government of Yukon to recognize in an appropriate fashion that the Land Claims Secretariat staff performed their jobs in an exemplary fashion above and beyond the call of duty in these very challenging negotiations.

Speaker: Are there any statements by Ministers?

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Caribou recovery program in Aishihik/Kluane

Hon. Mr. Fairclough: On Friday, the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and the Alsek Renewable Resources Council released their recommendations on the Aishihik/Kluane caribou recovery program.

The recommendations call for the recovery program to continue as originally planned, including the evaluation that is scheduled to begin in the winter of 1997 at the end of the fifth year of the program.

The board and council also requested that the Department of Renewable Resources fully implement the wolf conservation and management plan of 1992. They identified three priorities that they wanted the government to address. First, they want the government to bring in legislation to protect wildlife habitat. Second, they want greater emphasis placed on non-consumptive wildlife programs. Third, they wanted the government to implement respectful regulations on the hunting of wolves.

Chapter 16 of the Yukon First Nations umbrella final agreement recognizes the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and local renewable resource councils as primary instruments of fish and wildlife management. The agreement also spells out the obligations of the territorial and First Nations governments as well as the board to maintain wildlife populations at levels sufficient to meet the basic needs level of First Nations harvesters and others.

During the election campaign this fall, this government made a commitment to place a moratorium on this program, to review it, and we have now reviewed the program and sought comments from First Nations and interested parties.

Following a public meeting in Haines Junction on November 25, we sought the specific advice of the Alsek Renewable Resource Council and the Fish and Wildlife Management Board.

I would like to assure this Assembly that the decision of whether or not to continue this program was a very difficult one for me and my colleagues. However, recognizing our legal obligations under the umbrella final agreement, I am announcing today that I am prepared to lift the moratorium and complete the Aishihik caribou recovery program, including the removal and sterilization of a limited number of wolves.

In doing so, I would like to stress that the reduction and sterilization portion of this program will not continue beyond this winter, and the scheduled five-year evaluation will begin this winter and will conclude in the fall of 1998.

In addition, following the five-year evaluation, this government will work with First Nations and interested parties to identify an independent scientific expert to conduct an impartial technical review of this program.

This government also intends to move to implement neglected aspects of the 1992 wolf conservation management plan. Pre-eminent among these is recommendation 7.1, which states: "Future management of caribou, moose and sheep and their habitat in the Yukon must have the objective that populations are not allowed to reach levels where wolf reduction might be considered necessary."

We also respect the three particular elements of the plan that the board and Alsek Renewable Resource Council have identified as priorities and will take steps to implement effective habitat protection in consultation with affected interests; enhance and emphasize non-consumptive wildlife programs, such as wildlife viewing; treat wolves with the same respect as that afforded other big game animals.

It is my intention as Minister of Renewable Resources to work very closely with First Nations, local renewable resources councils and the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board to develop precautionary approaches to manage wildlife. This will involve ongoing consultation and effective planning throughout the territory.

With this approach I am confident that we can deliver programs that will the ensure long-term well-being of Yukon wildlife.

Mr. Ostashek: I would like to commend the Minister for continuing with this very important program, which needs to be completed in the Yukon.

It is unfortunate that politics becomes involved in programs such as this, and it is also unfortunate that the Minister has to jump through hoops to cover the butt of one of his colleagues who made a statement during the last election - without consultation with anybody I might add - that he was going to bring an end to this program - a moratorium; not a two-week moratorium and a review - and then come back to this Legislature with a program that is identical to what has been going on for the past four years.

What the Minister found out was that he was told by the groups to keep his nose out of this, let it run its course and let the review follow as was told to the government four years ago: five years, and then do a review. It is a very important program and I do commend the Minister for having the good sense to continue with it until it is finished.

I want to add that there is absolutely nothing new in the Minister's program. When he talks about having an impartial, independent technical expert review conducted, that review was conducted on the program before it was ever put into place.

That is only a natural follow-through. Many experts looked at the program in an unbiased fashion before it was implemented and passed judgment on it before the previous government went ahead with it. The only thing I have to add to that is that all three political parties in the 1992 election campaign made a commitment to go through with such a program.

Ms. Duncan: I would like to respond to the Minister's announcement with respect to the Aishihik/Kluane caribou recovery program.

The Minister noted that the party now in government pledged, if elected, to place an immediate moratorium on the wolf kill program. In fact, some of the descriptions of the program by Members opposite noted that the economic, social and moral costs of the program were too high and referred to the program as "distasteful".

The immediate moratorium that the government instituted did not fulfill the other part of its election commitment: to consult or to respect the land claim agreement, in particular section 16 recognizing the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and renewable resource councils as having primary responsibility for wildlife policy.

I would invite the Minister, given that he has noted the term "legal obligations", to indicate whether, in fact, a moratorium was appropriate, given the provisions of the umbrella final agreement.

I would also like to say that I am pleased that the government is prepared to accept the advice recommended by the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and the Alsek Renewable Resource Council.

The full implementation of the wolf conservation and management plan is important. My review of the plan tells me there are many aspects of it upon which the government could improve the work done to date.

It is also important that the board identified priorities for the Minister. The recommendations to implement effective habitat protection have implications in many areas, and the enhancement to the wildlife viewing program has budget and priority implications for the Department of Renewable Resources. I note that the wildlife viewing program is responsible for such innovations as Swan Haven and I would advise the Minister that we will be watching very, very carefully his progress and direction to the department in this respect.

The government has chosen the best way by recognizing and following the recommendations of the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and the Alsek Renewable Resources Council. We believe that the recommendations are sound and commend the government for acting upon them.

Hon. Mr. Fairclough: As I said earlier, this decision was a very hard one for us to make. We had a lot of people calling for us to have a close look at what this program was all about, where it was going and where it could go after four years.

The meeting we had in Haines Junction was very successful. People did comment on the fact that we brought many groups together for the first time in four years, sharing ideas and looking at where all the organizations stand in relation to each other. Through it all, we made a decision that was against a lot of our feelings. We put into this decision a way of managing wildlife for the future that is different from the one we are using right now. We have taken into consideration the wolf management plan that was put in place in 1992 and we are looking at implementing the whole program with some reviews built in and also implementing parts of it immediately, which will affect the way the rest of the Aishihik program continues.

With the comments that were made to us, the independent review will be done after the program's completion. After it has been evaluated, an unbiased opinion will be brought in, so that people can have a look at it. With the wolf management program and management of other big game, we must stress that we have proper habitat protection in the Yukon, so that we do not get into the same situation and end up in another wolf control situation like the one we are now doing.

Recreation Act regulations: amendments to

Hon. Mr. Keenan: It gives me pleasure to announce that the Yukon government has approved an order-in-council amending the Recreation Act regulations to first, recognize the emerging communities of Mount Lorne and Upper Liard as local recreation authorities under the Recreation Act, and to allocate appropriate funding to both communities; and second, to revise the recreation funding formula for existing local recreation authorities as outlined in the Towards 2000 report and the branch's 1996-97 operation and maintenance budget.

These amendments address important issues and concerns that were raised as part of an extensive and ongoing sport and recreation program review initiated in the early 1990s.

The sport and recreation branch's Towards 2000 program review, completed in March 1996, has resulted in comprehensive recommendations for improvements to the way in which the branch funds local recreation authorities within unincorporated communities.

The proposed revisions address the unique differences between Yukon unincorporated communities and provide specific recommendations to help balance the existing community recreation funding budget in a more fair and equitable way.

It is important to address the emergence of new unincorporated communities that meet the necessary requirements for funding under the Recreation Act. The communities of Mount Lorne and Upper Liard are advanced in terms of being ready to operate as local authorities for recreation.

These communities are substantially larger than several of the communities presently recognized under the Recreation Act regulations, yet they do not receive any recreation funding.

Because both the communities of Mount Lorne and Upper Liard are near Whitehorse and Watson Lake respectively, their residents benefit from some of the programs and services offered within these larger communities. The Towards 2000 report therefore recommends that the community recreation funding provided to these two emerging communities be less than the funding provided to more isolated local authorities.

Therefore, the government has agreed that Mount Lorne would be eligible for a phased-in maximum funding of $5,310 this year, increasing to $10,620 in 1997-98 and future years. Upper Liard would be eligible for $3,608 this year, increasing to $7,215 in 1997-98 and future years.

These above amounts have already been absorbed within the branch's 1996-97 operations and maintenance budget.

The Towards 2000 sport and recreation program review has also resulted in comprehensive recommendations for improvements to the way in which the sport and recreation branch currently funds local recreation authorities.

The existing funding formula has not been amended in over nine years. Over this period of time, the needs of the unincorporated communities have changed. The current funding formula tends to treat all communities the same, regardless of population, size, and existing recreation infrastructure, programs and services. The smaller communities may receive a disproportionately higher amount of funding per capita than communities with more population, facilities and services.

The proposed revisions to the funding formula to unincorporated communities in the Towards 2000 report address these differences among communities. These revisions help balance the existing community recreation funding budget in a more fair and equitable way among all Yukon unincorporated communities.

Most existing local recreation authorities will have their funding increased. However, funding to Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay will decrease. These decreases will be offset by the discretionary community recreation funding available through the Yukon Lottery Commission. However, to ensure that there is no negative impact on these communities, the decrease in Government of Yukon funding will be phased in 50 percent in 1997-98 and the remainder in the next year.

Further additional amendments to the Recreation Act regulations will be considered in the near future to amend the Yukon Recreation Advisory Committee funding criteria for Yukon sport and recreation groups in accordance with the Sport and Recreation - Towards 2000 report. In addition, the branch will be working closely with the Department of Tourism's arts branch to review changes to the Recreation Act itself, resulting from the separation of the arts branch in April 1992.

As Minister responsible for sport and recreation, I am committed to the growth of Yukon people and communities through the promotion and development of recreation and sport in the Yukon. These amendments to the Recreation Act regulations are an important step in achieving that goal.

Mr. Jenkins: We welcome these additional funds that will be flowing into rural Yukon but, in the scope of things, we are just taking the pie and carving it into smaller slices so the amount of funds flowing through to the respective communities will eventually be reduced. I think the Minister has missed the point. The area that requires attention is the formula that dictates how these monies and funds will be distributed.

Hon. Mr. Keenan: I certainly appreciate the comments made by the Member opposite. I am not so sure that it will be a smaller slice of the pie. If it is, it will be done in full consultation with the communities, as will everything we will be doing.

Speaker: This then brings us to the Question Period.

QUESTION PERIOD

Question re: Alberta Power, management contract

Mr. Ostashek: My question is for the Minister responsible for the Yukon Energy Corporation. As the Minister and most Yukoners are aware, we have a management contract with Alberta Power and the government must give notice by December 31 of this year as to whether the contract is going to be extended, amended or cancelled. I would like to ask the Minister if he could tell this House today what decision has been made by his government on the management contract.

Hon. Mr. Harding: The Member points to a very important decision with regard to how the utility is managed. I know from previous discussions with him , as the former Minister, that he had some concerns about the existing contract. His comments, as the former Minister, are being taken into consideration, as are the comments regarding the consultations that were undertaken this summer, as well as other information we have received from the public and from our own experience with regard to the relationship. A decision has not been finalized yet. The former Minister points out that there are some time lines that have to be respected regarding this contract and the extension or the declaration of annulment. Also, the previous Minister was one who was involved in the extension for another year of the particular contract. We hope to be making a decision very quickly and giving Yukon Electrical the proper indication as to what our intentions are.

Mr. Ostashek: I thank the Minister for that, and I appreciate how difficult a decision this is. The Member is right. I did have some concerns about the present management contract. If we had not had concerns about it, we would not have gone to public consultation to see what the public had to say about it.

I do believe that the Minister has a substantial amount of information on the management contract and should be in a position to make the decision. Do I understand the Minister correctly that a decision will be made prior to December 31, and that there will not be a further extension of the date?

Hon. Mr. Harding: I believe that, to extend the date, would be a decision, just as it was when the previous government made a decision to extend the contract for another year. The Member is quite right. We will be in a position fairly shortly to make the decision. We do have some time lines to respect.

Mr. Ostashek: I thank the Member but he is not being very clear. Are negotiations in fact going on with Alberta Power to extend the date for when the decision has to be made on the new management agreement? Yes or no?

Hon. Mr. Harding: I thank the Member for the question once again. We are exploring options within the confines of government. We are reviewing the consultations undertaken by the previous Minister and, as of right now, we do not have negotiations underway with YECL to negotiate an extension of the current contract. So I guess the answer is no.

Question re: Alberta Power, management contract

Mr. Ostashek: I am very, very concerned. This is a very important piece of business that this new government has to deal with. The decision on this was extended because of an election coming up, and we did come to an agreement with our managers that December 31 would be an adequate date to make this decision so that everybody would know where we were going. December 31 is 15 days away, and I believe Yukoners have a right to know what this government intends to do. Could the Minister tell us, please?

Hon. Mr. Harding: I thank the Member for the question again. Quite a bit has been going on since October 19. There are a lot of things on all of our plates, as Ministers and as policymakers within the commissions, and we have been working in all those areas. I give the Member our assurances that we are also working to come up with some good positioning with regard to the management contract with YECL.

I would also point out that there are other time-line considerations for March 31. The Member ought not worry. There is a December 31 time line for giving some indication as to what our intentions may be for the contract, but all is not lost. We are certainly more than prepared to develop a position and give it to YECL by December 31.

Mr. Ostashek: I am very disappointed in this Minister. It is a major priority for Yukoners. I appreciate that he has a lot on his plate and that there are a lot of decisions that will be ongoing. He will continue to have a lot on his plate. I do not think that is a good enough answer. This should have been a priority item with the Minister and he should be fully aware of what has transpired and what position the government will be taking going into this - whether it is going to renew the contract, cancel it or if it will be looking for amendments for the contract. I am very disappointed that the Minister has not given this a higher priority. Can he tell me why?

Hon. Mr. Harding: I want to point out to the Member - the former Minister - that he took one year to make this decision and did not make it. He has given us roughly six weeks to make this decision and now he is acting like it would be imprudent for us to take our time in terms of deliberating about the matter. I do not think that is fair, but I have been given to expect that from the former Minister.

It is a priority for us to address some of the concerns within the management arrangement. Some of them have been indicated to us by the former Minister himself. We will be making a decision. It is a priority for us. We do want to address some of the concerns with regard to it.

Mr. Ostashek: I find the Minister's comments very interesting. I can just hear the uproar from the Members opposite if we had made such a major decision prior to an election. What we did was do the public consultation so that the incoming government could deal with the issue in a timely manner.

The Minister knows full well that, based on that consultation, on which numerous people commented - not so much in the public meetings, but there were a couple of hundred written responses, I believe - the consensus seemed to be that the people of the Yukon were not so much concerned with who owned or managed the utility as long as energy was reasonably priced. It ought not to be a difficult decision for the Minister to make. It is a political decision that has to be made. I urge the Minister to make that decision and not extend that deadline once again.

Can we have a commitment from the Minister that there will be a decision made before December 31?

Hon. Mr. Harding: The Member stands up and says that it ought not to be a difficult decision. Yet, given the choice, he extended the contract for a year because he said he did not want to make a decision in an election year, even though the decision was initiated some eight months before the election.

We do want to make a decision about this and we do not think that we are going to defer the decision like the former Minister did, but that is an option. I want to say that we are giving this matter priority and we are going to be looking at the consultation that was provided to us.

With regard to the contract, we are going to be taking the former Minister's concerns into consideration during our deliberations. We will be making a decision on that as soon as possible.

Question re: Land tax, mill rates

Mrs. Edelman: My question is for the Minister of Community and Transportation Services.

In A Better Way, it says that the

NDP government, led by Piers McDonald, promised that it would freeze territorial taxes.

There are a lot of frightened people in the Yukon who are worried that the taxes on their land will be going up considerably in this coming year. Is the Minister prepared to honour the promise made during the election campaign?

Hon. Mr. Keenan: We certainly are willing to honour all promises made during the election campaign.

Mrs. Edelman: I am really pleased to hear the Minister say that.

Under the previous government, the lands branch started to reassess the value of land in the Yukon. Apparently, this reassessment is bringing the value of Yukon land closer to market value.

While assessing land closer to its market value is good for people who need to borrow money against their property, it is not good for people on fixed incomes who have no intention of selling their land. For these people, bringing the value of their property up to market value means that they have to pay taxes on the land far beyond what they are able to absorb.

This reassessment means that taxes will be increasing dramatically during the next year. Is the Minister prepared to drop the mill rate in order to reduce the taxes payable next year?

Hon. Mr. Keenan: I thank the Member for the question as to whether or not this government is prepared to drop the mill rate. That is a question that is peripheral to this matter. We will be looking at this matter and analyzing the tax rate. As the Member knows, this must be done by April 15.

This government is very interested in having people express their concerns so that, by way of the review process, we might be able to consider those concerns by April 15, and then we can set what the mill rate or tax rate will be at that point in time.

We are going to take all of the information that we can possibly get, including - I encourage people who are affected by these assessments to come to the meetings that we have set up - the government has set up two information meetings. The government is very willing, on a consultative basis, to sit down and listen to the concerns so that when we do go to set the tax rate those concerns will be brought forward and incorporated into it.

Mrs. Edelman: I am really pleased to hear that as well.

The cost of proceedings before the Assessment Appeal Board, which is where people lay their complaints, may be borne by the persons affected by the appeal.

If a significant number of complaints are received in any one area of the Yukon, will the Minister consider bearing the cost of the proceedings, including the possible cost of reassessment of land value?

Hon. Mr. Keenan: We are certainly open to ensuring that people are able to come forth with their ideas.

I am not so sure that I can answer the question about funding them and bearing the costs at this point. I will certainly take it into consideration and try to work out a process that is good for government and is also good for all people. I do not want our government to be perceived as the grinch who stole Christmas, but it is certainly unfortunate that this has to come up at Christmastime. It is a matter of ongoing government business, and I would just like to show that this government is a people's government, elected by the people, and we will be listening and working with the people in all these major decisions.

Thank you very much for your question - my first question in the Legislature.

Question re: Yukon excellence awards

Ms. Duncan: My question is for the Minister of Education.

The Yukon Teachers Association asked all of the parties prior to the election call to respond to a series of questions. It printed the responses to these questions in their newsletter. The NDP response to a question on the Yukon excellence awards was that there is nothing fair nor sensible about this special award of money. That was a position put forward by the now Government Leader on behalf of the NDP.

Is this still the position of the government?

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: The position of the government is to stand by the commitments that the Government Leader and the candidates made during the election campaign. On the question of the Yukon excellence awards, the Department of Education is providing information on those awards as on all funding to students across the Yukon for our consideration.

Ms. Duncan: I thank the Minister for that answer. It sounds to me as though there is an analysis being done of this program.

Is the Minister prepared to table the results in order for us to be able to effectively assess the program and look at it when we are debating the budget?

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: I would like to point out to the Member that the candidate for the Liberal Party in Porter Creek North took virtually the same position as we took with regard to the Yukon excellence awards.

There is not a specific review of those awards that is different from any other. It is simply a fact that I am looking at all of the things that the ministry does, and I will review them. Certainly, if there are going to be any changes, the public will be informed. It will not be something dropped without notice.

Ms. Duncan: The Liberal Party platform is not at issue here. We were not elected to government yet.

The Minister still has not stated whether or not she is prepared to end this program and indeed, what she has stated is that she sees that there is nothing fair or sensible in it. I would think that she would have already done the review. Is the Minister prepared to end the program?

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: The program creates some inequities, which is a matter of concern to us. We have not made a decision on either ending or continuing the program and so, the Member will have to stand by the answers that she has been given. We will certainly look at it and we will make our decisions known to the people in advance.

Question re: Physicians, rural communities

Mr. Jenkins: My question today is for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

One of the most formidable tasks faced by rural Yukon is the attraction and retention of medical physicians to our respective communities. The recruitment, relocation, the benefit packages, doctors' privileges and medical facilities are all costs being borne by some communities, unlike Whitehorse, which does not have to address these costs.

Can the Minister advise the House if his government would be adopting a policy to recruit and relocate rural physicians and compensate them reasonably with a wage and benefit package that encourages them to remain for a period of time in rural Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: As the Member opposite is aware, we have taken some steps in recruitment of physicians for certain communities. With regard to a benefit package, I am not prepared to stand up in this chamber and negotiate with physicians, when that is the proper role of the Yukon Medical Association and the department. Certainly, we are interested in providing incentives for physicians to remain in rural communities and in many cases we do. We provide a variety of incentives; I cannot get into the specifics right now.

Mr. Jenkins: I am not asking the Minister to advise us about negotiations. We are asking him for his policy on this matter. Could he please advise the House how this program relates to the position he outlined for the recruitment of a salaried doctor in Faro versus a fee-for-service doctor arrangement? How is that working?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: We are presently at the point of doing another evaluation of the two respective methodologies.

I have had discussions with rural physicians on some issues that they see as being important. There are some questions involved in the Faro situation. We are trying to make sure that we provide as equitable an arrangement as possible. As well, we are also trying to address the need and desire of the community to have two physicians.

Mr. Jenkins: The fee-for-service arrangement for the payment of doctors is the principal way in which doctors are compensated. Can the Minister advise the House what direction his government has taken in order to address fee-for-service compensation for rural doctors who spend weekends and holidays on call and do not see a patient? How will his government be paying for standby time for these physicians?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: It looks like rural physicians have a negotiator in the House here. As I said before, this is an issue that is going to be dealt with by the YMA and the Department of Health and Social Services. We have heard several options brought forward by the rural physicians. They have put forward one option. We are looking for the best delivery of service and that we will be discussing with the YMA when we get into negotiations.

Question re: Young Offenders Act

Mr. Cable: I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services about the Young Offenders Act and on young offenders.

As the Minister is aware, there has been some considerable public discussion in Canada and here, in the Yukon, on the Young Offenders Act and its operations, such as the movement of children to adult court, the publication of names and parental involvement in the process. This led to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs travelling the country to take submissions.

A few weeks back, the Minister met with that committee and, I believe, put forward his government's position on the various issues.

Will this Minister commit to tabling his government's position on the various issues that were raised in relation to the Young Offenders Act?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: I can provide for the Member opposite some of our reaction to the standing committee. In terms of the committee itself, we met with it basically to hear some of its concerns and see if some of the issues that we had heard with regard to the Young Offenders Act in the territory were consistent or congruent with what it was hearing in its travels around the country. In fact, it was. In many cases, there was general consensus. There were a couple of particular issues. For example, the idea of not publishing names of young offenders seemed to be held in common both by ourselves and by the standing committee.

I should note, however, that within the standing committee - as probably the Member is aware - there was considerable discord among themselves that has apparently just broken out to semi-open warfare.

Mr. Cable: After the standing committee arrived here in town, the Minister was quoted as saying that he did not want to talk about crime crack-downs, but rather he wanted to focus on other issues. He said his department would be taking a new approach in dealing with young offenders. He had talked about early intervention and diversions earlier in the quote. Would the Minister describe what the new approach is that he is proposing to bring to the Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: In general, I can tell the Member that we are still looking at the idea of young offenders being contained within the Health and Social Services portfolio, and that we see it as a restorative, rather than a punitive, kind of program. As I mentioned last week in my ministerial statement, we want to focus on the idea of doing early intervention, the use of family group conferencing in order to prevent some of these young people from getting involved in the justice system - initiatives along those lines.

Mr. Cable: I share the Minister's view with respect to diversion and many of the recommendations that he just talked about. When does the Minister expect to have a comprehensive package in place that deals with young offenders?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: We will be reviewing a number of the options throughout the winter and hope to be able to present something for review by Yukoners in the spring. I am not anticipating that there will be major revisions. We are also hoping to get some feedback from the standing committee, for example, which will be making its own recommendations on such matters as age of adult court, and things of that nature. There are a variety of things that it will probably be bringing forward.

Question re: Gambling

Mr. Ostashek: My question is for the Minister of Justice. This morning there was a radio report of a very ambitious economic development program that was coming forward in Carcross. One of the elements of that program was legalized gambling. The Minister was part of the Opposition in the previous Legislature that was very vocal and outspoken against expansion of gambling in the Yukon. Can the Minister tell the House today what the government's position is on this very important issue to all Yukoners?

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: I thank the Member for the question. I have not yet seen the proposal that was discussed on the radio this morning. Before commenting on it, I would like to take the time to read and review it, and discuss it with my colleagues.

Mr. Ostashek: I was not asking the Member to comment on the proposal. I was asking her to comment on her government's position on further legalized gambling in the Yukon. I wonder if she could put that position on the record.

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: I do not think that it will be much of a surprise to the Member to hear me say that we will not be coming forward and promoting an increase of legalized gambling in the Yukon.

Mr. Ostashek: It is certainly obvious how that party's position changes once it is on the government side of the House. I did not ask the Member if the party would be promoting legalized gambling; I asked her what the government's position was on it. It seems now that the party likes to sit on the fence.

There is one proposal for a gas station that was going to sell tax-free gasoline. Does the Minister of Justice support that?

Hon. Ms. Moorcroft: The Member is popping up there and throwing his questions fast and furious. I am going to let him know that I am going to give serious consideration to any ideas of that nature, whether it is to increase legalized gambling or sell tax-free gas. I am not going to stand here and say "Yea" or "Nay" to him based on a question without full information.

Question re: Porter Creek High School, expansion project

Ms. Duncan: My question is for the Minister of Government Services regarding a specific project at Porter Creek High School.

Would the Minister of Government Services advise us if the construction, in light of the late start given to the school, is on time?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: Yes. The Member has some interesting points. Apparently, the contractor does have some concerns about meeting the deadline, primarily with regards to the space designated for the gym. Right now, they are anticipating that they will be able to meet the goal with regards to the classrooms. However, the gym may be somewhat delayed, similar to the French first-language school. It was available for occupancy after the classrooms were completed.

Ms. Duncan: I would ask the Minister of Government Services to be more definitive as to what sort of a delay he anticipates for this project.

Hon. Mr. Sloan: At the last meeting I had with Government Services on this, I gathered that the contractor involved had had some problems with the fabricated steel beams. They are delayed or somehow late arriving, and this may, in turn, delay completion of the gym.

Ms. Duncan: The Minister still has not stated just how long the delay is going to be. It has a huge impact on the start of the school year and on grade reorganization. In light of an non-answer about the specific amount of delay, is the Minister prepared to delay grade reorganization in view of the fact that the school may not be open in time?

Hon. Mr. Sloan: It is a relatively hypothetical question in many ways because, right now, the completion date for the entire project is left at August 15, but it may go as late as November 15. As to a delay in grade reorganization, I certainly could not answer a question on grade reorganization. That is a matter for the Minister of Education. However, we are trying to work with the contractor to get these problems resolved.

Our goal will be to get the classrooms completed first, and the gym can follow.

Question re: Yukon Energy Corporation, rate relief

Mr. Jenkins: I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Yukon Energy Corporation. In his ministerial statement on rate relief last Thursday, the Minister mentioned small business consumers. The Minister's exact words were, "With regards to the concerns about the commercial rates, we have only made some fairly minor changes to the program and they are all indicated in the statement." The Minister's commitment was to extend rate relief for consumers from 1,000 kilowatt hours to 1,500 kilowatt hours. In view of the fact that small business consumers, through the Yukon Utilities Board, already receive a break on the first 2,000 kilowatt hours, can the Minister advise the House if Cabinet intends to direct the Yukon Utilities Board by order-in-council to reduce this threshold amount for small business consumers from 2,000 kilowatt hours to 1,500 kilowatt hours?

Hon. Mr. Harding: As I said in my response to the ministerial statement and the comments of the Opposition last week, the changes that we undertook were outlined in the ministerial statement. With regard to the commercial rates, they were set by the Yukon Utilities Board at a time when the previous government was in power.

Mr. Jenkins: Can the Minister advise the House, in relation to residential consumers, how he is going to promote energy conservation by raising the rate relief threshold from 1,000 to 1,500 kilowatt hours of subsidized energy?

Hon. Mr. Harding: As I indicated last week, there are two ways. Firstly, there was virtually no upper end on residential consumers of electricity with regard to rate relief on the WAF grid. With regard to the other aspect of our response to conservation, we are looking at ways where we can perhaps build in some small incentives with regard to the 650 to 1,000 kilowatt hour range consumers.

Mr. Jenkins: Why was the Minister not made aware of the fact that the rate relief program of the previous government was the same for all communities for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours of residential consumed energy, whether the community was on the grid or on diesel? Why was the Minister not aware of that?

Hon. Mr. Harding: The Minister was not aware of it, because it is not the case. It is quite clear that there were inequities within the rate relief program between the diesel-serviced communities and those served by the Whitehorse-Aishihik-Faro power grid. What we have done with the new rate relief program is make some minor changes that are directed at conservation and at restoring the inequity within the rate relief program.

We fully intend, within the next year, to have the energy commission look at the entire program to see if there are ways to target it more to low-income families, senior citizens and people who most need help from our publicly owned utility. We will incorporate all of those concerns and those of the Member opposite in that full review, with regard to the rate relief issue and its possible reincarnation in another year.

Speaker: The time for Question Period has now elapsed. We will proceed to Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Mr. Harding: I move that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and that the House resolve into Committee of the Whole.

Motion agreed to

Speaker leaves the Chair

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

Chair: I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. At this time, we will take a break.

Recess

Chair: I will now call Committee of the Whole to order.

Bill No. 3 - Second Appropriation Act, 1996-97 - continued

Executive Council Office - continued

Speaker: We are on Bill No. 3, Executive Council Office. Is there any further general debate?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I have some comments from last week and I also have some information that I would like to provide to Members, and I will pass that information out in due course.

It was requested that I provide an organization chart for the Land Claims Secretariat and I have that information here. It is the same organization as that which existed with the previous government and nothing has changed, but there will be changes in the next little while and I can explain our thinking on that point.

I was asked for Cabinet commission mandates. I have the generic mandate to hand out to Members. I also have a specific mandate for the development assessment process commission.

The amount identified in the budget is not an increase in operation and maintenance spending in the sense that it does not reflect change in the surplus/deficit situation. Can the Member explain what he is referring to so that I can answer the question better?

Mr. Ostashek: We will explain as we go along, because that is exactly what we are talking about. The Minister has taken a position that this is not going to cost taxpayers any more money and we wholeheartedly disagree with that and we expect to point out why we believe that in Committee debate today. We are also going to have some questions - and we will start on those shortly - as to why the Minister chose the vehicles that he chose to carry on with consultation and development policy. Before I get into that, the Minister was going to check with officials to see if he could table certain documents relating to the dismissal of some deputy ministers. Could I ask the Minister if he has sought clarification of that and is he prepared to table those documents?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I am puzzled as to the Member's thinking on this point because about 95 percent of this budget is directly the responsibility of the Yukon Party. The quote on CBC's special report in the morning indicated that the NDP has increased the spending on the operation and maintenance of government quite substantially for the next three months that they are going to be in power. What does he mean that the NDP has increased the spending? Is he saying that five percent of this supplementary - just the supplementary, they are not responsible for any of the main estimates, of course - is that the growth in O&M spending that he is referring to and that the 95 percent of the $30 million supplementary is not a concern to him? The only concern to him is the five percent of expenditures for the community projects initiative and a few other items. Those are the things that are of concern to him in terms of growth, but none of the other $30 million or so is of concern to him. If he could clarify that, I would appreciate it.

These I will hand out.

That gives us some idea of what the specific mandates look like.

When we last left this line item, the Leader of the Official Opposition and I were discussing a few matters that appeared to be mildly significant to the debate. I am trying to get some clarity, though, on some of the issues the Member raised.

Last week, on Thursday, he indicated that the stage had been set for the future of the Yukon and that the amount of spending this supplementary budget represents is a concern. Prior to that, on December 10, he indicated that the NDP has increased spending on the O&M of government quite substantially for the next three months. I am not certain I understand the Member's critique. As I have indicated, this supplementary mainly covers decisions made by the previous government, with Management Board minutes, et cetera, attached. Is there some element of this spending that he does not particularly like? Can he clarify for us what portion of the budget is involved? He indicated that the spending had increased substantially, yet I have only been able to detect probably three or four percent of the supplementary budget that is the responsibility of the new government.

As I indicated before, on the subject of deputy ministers and the cost of commissions, my position is this: because I understand there are communications between these people's lawyers and this government, if the Member can get an authorization from the affected personnel for me to release this information, I will release all the information.

Mr. Ostashek: I would draw the Member's attention to the fact that it is not my responsibility. It is the responsibility of that Member who stood in this House and said he was going to do this, that he was going to table these documents.

I just want to know if he is going to carry through and, if he is not, that is fine because we will get to the bottom of it anyhow. It was he who stated quite clearly that there was some special arrangement made by me with two deputy ministers over which he had no control and that he had to pay them out because of that arrangement. I just say that that is false. There was no such arrangement made where the Government Leader was forced to pay out anybody. That is all I want to clarify, and that it was he who was going to table the documents. But if he does not want to table them, that is fine. We will get to it.

As far as spending goes, I said that I believe that the O&M is going to be increased dramatically, by at least $1 million in the new year for the commissions, not by the amount of money that is being spent on them now. I do not care if it comes from existing budgets or not.

It is a taxpayers' expense. If it was not spent on the commissions, it could be put to something more useful, I believe. That is what we are going to point out in this Legislature. The next main estimates that the Member tables in this Legislature will tell whether the overall operations and maintenance cost of government has gone up. We already see several new hirings in the civil service. Other jurisdictions all over Canada are curtailing the increase in the civil service, and in fact, are trying to amalgamate departments. We have a new government that comes in and starts the process of setting up four commissions that we believe will be very, very expensive to the taxpayers. We believe that there are other vehicles that the Government Leader could have used to accomplish the same thing.

These are some of the areas that we are going to question the Government Leader on today to see what his rationale was and why he did not feel those other vehicles, which have proven to be cost effective in the past, were not used. He has gone to this new method, for which we do not even have any legislative authority that I am aware of. He now wants to change the rules of the Legislature to give recognition to these commissions in the Legislature. I have some reluctance to go along with that. Unless I can get some satisfaction during Committee debate, I am going to have difficulty supporting that.

That is what I was getting at when I was saying "more spending by this government". Let me tell the Government Leader that it is not only me who is saying it. Many Yukoners have been raising this concern with us in the last two months.

We will have more on that, but I want to get back to these so-called contracts that the Government Leader says I had with two deputy ministers and which basically, he says, forced him to pay out a severance package that he did not like to pay out. In my opinion, the letters of comfort that were given to those two deputy ministers were very similar to what has transpired in the process of government here over the years. I will draw to the attention of the Member opposite exactly what transpired. I think he is fully aware of it and is just playing politics with this.

Because of the positions and the tasks these two deputy ministers were asked to assume on behalf of this government, they were given letters of comfort stating that, once that task was completed, they would be transferred by mutual consent to another deputy minister position. The issue here is that the positions being offered by the Government Leader were not - in the minds of those deputy ministers - deputy minister positions. That is where the debate is and yet I understand those severance packages are going to be paid out. In fact, they are in the supplementary budget. At least one of those letters contained a clause that said that the deputy minister was dismissed without cause and that the deputy minister severance package would kick in.

I ask the Member opposite: what is the difference between those two letters of comfort and what was done with Judge Barry Stuart when he was taken off the bench, assigned a job of heading up the land claims on behalf of the previous government, promised a year's sabbatical and then a return to the bench? That is a simple agreement, and I think it is a valid agreement. The agreement that I had with these two deputy ministers was no different. What is the difference between the agreement - the letters of comfort - I had with these two deputy ministers, and the judge who was removed to do the fuel price inquiry on behalf of the previous administration? Once it was completed, he went back to his job in Justice. There is nothing wrong with that. I do not see anything wrong with it, and I do not think it is a special deal.

As the Member opposite pointed out, it is no different from some deputy ministers being given educational leave under the previous NDP administration and then come back as a deputy minister. That was the agreement that was made and I do not think those were special deals at all.

Those are considerations that are given to certain deputy ministers because they are doing a job on behalf of the government. I do not want to leave the impression in the public's mind that I believe the Government Leader tried to leave - or did leave with some people - the impression that he did not have any choice in the matter, because it was those individuals' choice as to what position they took and if they did not take it, then the Government Leader's hands were tied. That is simply not the truth and that is not what was contained in the letters, and that is why I would like to see those letters tabled in this Legislature.

There are three examples of what I see as very similar to what was happening with these two deputy ministers, and had they been offered jobs that were at a deputy minister level, I do not think the Government Leader would have had any difficulty with them accepting the positions.

As to me making the arrangements, well, Heaven forbid, here is a 21-year employee of the Yukon government who served as a Cabinet secretary to both administrations and who served both administrations well over the years. Never did I imagine, in my wildest dreams, that any new administration would dismiss, or want to dismiss this deputy minister. Re-assign, yes, there is nothing wrong with that, but in dismissing this person I think we have lost a very talented deputy minister who was very dedicated to the Yukon and certainly was not political by any means.

The same goes for the chief land claims negotiator who, as the Minister knows, after a period of time in that job, is starting to face burnout. He was given a similar letter that stated that, once a few more of the land claims were finalized and we were in a position to begin winding down the Land Claims Secretariat, he would be offered another deputy minister position. Why would these people take these jobs, such as the position of Deputy Minister of Executive Council Office, which is seen by some to be very political - it is not seen by me to be that political, but is by some - and jeopardize their public service for a short period of time if there was no satisfaction on the other side that they would be rewarded for the tasks they were doing on behalf of the government? I believe it is unfair criticism on the part of the Government Leader.

One agreement that was made by the previous administration, which I think was unfair, was made with a deputy minister who had served this government for a period of about six years. This person was able to convince the government of the day to make a very lucrative severance agreement with him three months prior to the 1992 election. I think that was an unfair agreement, if the Member opposite wants to know.

I would like to ask the Member opposite how he feels the agreement that I made with these deputy ministers differs from the three examples I have given.

Hon. Mr. McDonald: We are going to have trouble this afternoon. We have bounced around from issue to issue. I believe that we have covered about eight or 10 issues. If we ever want to bring closure to any of these, we might just want to stick to one issue and follow it through to completion. Otherwise, this will seem like a very rag-tag discussion here. I have responses to everything the Member has stated, but I will have to backtrack years and then bring it forward to the present. I will follow my notes here, as I scribbled down the Member's allegations, comments and suggestions.

I would like to point out to the Member, in the spirit of Christmas, that I do not think that everything that the Member has ever said has no value or merit. As a matter of fact, there are a number of things on which we agree and some on which we do not. I will express some opinions on both.

First of all, the Member indicated that the government should be doing what other governments have done, which is to downsize and reduce the public service. I suppose that moving from 2,700 employees to 3,023 employees last year, between the years 1992 and 1995, is the Yukon Party's example of downsizing.

I would not say that the assignment of personnel for the commissions is a reflection of either increasing or downsizing.

Most of the staff of the commissions are going to be seconded from various departments. The only positions that we have identified as being different are the deputy commissioners. I will talk a little bit more about that in a minute.

On the subject of the documents on the deputy ministers, I did indicate that I would check with the Public Service Commission. I checked with the Public Service Commission, and it indicated that there are discussions going on between the lawyers to finalize arrangements. I am being appropriately cautious. However, I am more than happy to table all of that information if the employees themselves say, "Table it." Out of respect to them, it will be tabled. Everything will be tabled. Every piece of correspondence will be tabled.

I am not trying to play politics with these arrangements that the former Government Leader has identified respecting those two deputy ministers and his administration. In fact, I was not trying to play politics with any of this. I am responding to the political charges and accusations made by others. I have seriously avoided trying to mention names of people in the House. I have studiously tried to de-politicize the whole affair, but without much success. If any other Member of the House suggests that I should do my best to not play politics with this, I could certainly understand it. However, from the primary accuser and person who makes the most severe political accusations, I find the criticism to be a little hard to take.

The Member himself identified this arrangement last week in Hansard. I suppose that part of it is on the record. He indicated that two deputy ministers had the special arrangement that they would be offered other deputy minister positions by mutual agreement. Certainly, I believe that he would be prepared to stand by that commitment as long as he is Government Leader. It so happens that those are the only two deputy ministers having such an agreement. No other deputy minister was made such an offer. However, I can assure the Member that the two people he has cited were indeed offered assignments at the deputy minister level by this government. The agreements are real. They were considered by the Public Service Commission and Department of Justice to be binding. They were considered to be real and binding by me.

I point out that they were not managing any department.

Not all deputy ministers did manage departments. The Government Leader will remember that he had three deputy ministers in Executive Council Office all at once. Only one was managing the department; the other two were presumably doing something else of value and importance to the government. I had offered the two deputy ministers, whom he cites, real, valuable work for our government at the deputy minister level - not managing departments, but significant work at the deputy minister level. They chose not to accept that work.

I have not indicated that I am opposed to such arrangements; I have only indicated that they existed. Yes, indeed they were special - special only because they were not given to anyone else. Being special does not necessarily mean that it is wrong; it means that it is special. What I have indicated was that because those arrangements were struck and because there was some motion that there had to be new assignments by mutual consent and because they did not accept the two assignments that were provided to them, as other deputy ministers had done, those deputy ministers were not only offered assignments, but were offered transferred assignments and they took them. These two individuals chose not to, but they could not be offered an assignment that they wanted.

In my view, they chose to resign, but, technically, because of their arrangement with the previous Government Leader and because of the mutual-consent clause, we felt that we would have to pay out severance. I felt, and do feel, that they were offered a very real and important assignment by our government. In one case, the assignment is being undertaken by a person at the deputy minister level and, in another case, there is recruitment going on. They are real jobs; there is no doubt about that. They were real jobs and there was a real offer.

The Member and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this point, because I certainly do not believe that the people in question were fired - quite the contrary.

He indicates that he wants to express himself more clearly on the subject of the commissions. He asks rhetorically what the legislative authority is for the commissions. Presumably he means that, if there is no legislative authority, they have no right to exist.

I do not agree with that at all. Is the Member aware that most departments of the government do not have legislative authority? Is he aware that most departments get their authority to operate through budget estimates?

First of all, these commissions are not departments and do not require legislative authority. These commissions are interdepartmental policy working groups. Such creatures, in various incarnations, have existed for years. There is an innovation here, and that is that the team leader reports to a private Member, whom we call a commissioner, to clarify and distinguish them from private Members and from Ministers.

The Member says he does not think these expenditures for the commissions is a good idea or a valuable expenditure, and he wants to prove it. All right. If he thinks the priorities ought to be different, that is for him to say, and he can say so. I would point out to him that, unlike most of the expenditures in the supplementary, the funding for the commissions is not changing the surplus/deficit situation of our government. We are spending more in certain areas and less in others. So it is a reflection of our priorities that we believe this is good policy work and needs to be done.

I say that knowing that, in some cases, we will actually be spending less than the previous government did in certain specific policy areas, and I will point to two. In forestry, as I mentioned last week, the government had almost three full-time people working for the last two years on forest policy. The Department of Economic Development was going to hire a fourth. On top of that, the government was prepared to hire an American mediator to do some mediation work around policy development. On top of that, the government was going to give operating subsidies to loggers. I think it capped at a million dollars, or something like that. Perhaps the Member could clarify it for me.

What we have indicated we want to do is that, instead of taking those four positions, working in different departments on forest policy, we would like to take three positions in a commission, report to the Member for Watson Lake, and do the policy in a more coordinated way. I say that that is cost effective. Not only does it spend less in this area than the previous government did, but also it identifies a way in which the issue can get more care and attention. We believe this is an appropriate way of responding and expressing ourselves in this particular area. We believe it makes good use of the time of the Member for Watson Lake. We believe it allows for better coordination among the interdepartmental working group, and we believe that we will be able to respond more adeptly to changing circumstances and also keep our eye on the long term.

As I pointed out, the commissioners themselves, the private Members, are receiving no additional remuneration for this work. They are going to be doing this on top of their normal MLA duties, and that is a tremendous commitment on their part.

As the Members will know, the one-time costs for furniture and equipment for the commissioners is, indeed, $93,000. I will only point out that the Executive Council Office this year alone is spending over $100,000 in office furniture and equipment, and the government itself is spending something like $6,500,000 on office furniture and equipment. So I think this is a very reasonable expenditure for this particular purpose. We are taking four significant policy areas, focusing our attention, adding the care and attention of four capable elected Members of our group, and putting them to work.

The Member may not like that innovation, but I think it is a good innovation. This is an idea whose time has come. We should be encouraging private Members to do something.

Last week, the Member indicated that we had downplayed these issues by giving them to a private Member. Whatever that Member thinks of his own private Members, I have a lot of respect for my colleagues who are private Members, and I think they are capable of doing these tasks that they have chosen to undertake and have been assigned by our caucus. They are capable people and I have faith in them.

Any one of these people could easily have sat in any Cabinet that I have ever seen in this Legislature in the last 15 years. So, to say that they are incapable of guiding policy work and doing political work on behalf of this Legislature, simply because they are private Members, I cannot accept. I do think that these four areas are extremely important. I think forestry, the development assessment process, energy policy and local hire are key areas of concern for the public. I believe that this is a cost-effective way of doing things. The Member opposite will say, "Okay, what if you add in the development assessment process and the amount of money that has been spent on that?" Well, the Member may know that $100,000 was set aside by his government each year, for the last two years, to do work on the development assessment process, including public consultation which has not yet been started. On top of that, the same government had budgeted work in Renewable Resources and, on top of that, had budgeted work in Economic Development.

What we have done is essentially roll up the full-time, dedicated work that everyone is doing in the departments into the work done by the commission itself. They will, of course, be liaising through a Cabinet subcommittee with their colleagues and will be phoning other members of the public service for advice, as everyone does in their daily routine. However, the focus of the work - the dedication, time and energy - will be done by the commission staff - a few people. I would argue that we are not spending any more on this subject than the previous government did, but we are spending it better, I think. The Member says that we would be spending more, presumably in, say, local hire, for example - nobody was doing work in that area before and, consequently, anything we do now is increased expenditure in this area. Well, of course, the Member would be right. It is an increased expenditure in this area. It is not an increased expenditure overall to government. We are not changing the surplus/deficit situation, and we are not asking for more money, like so much of the supplementary here. It is a reallocation. But we are spending more money in this area because there simply has not been any work of significance done in this area, and we have to reallocate in order to do work in this area. Once again, I would argue that this is valuable work. This is important work. This is work that has some social utility to it and that ought to be done.

Would the Member have taken exception to it if we had said that we were going to hire a couple of policy analysts, or reorient a couple of policy analysts in a couple of the departments to work on this full time? Well, maybe he would have, if he thought that would have been a more legitimate way of spending money. The only innovation here is that they are coming to work and reporting to a private Member of the Legislature. Why these four areas? Because these are areas that are considered to be critical and important to the public, and we feel that these matters can best be handled in this manner.

Is there an opportunity for us to consider other commissions and other commission work in the future? Yes, there certainly is. Why not? If we want to coordinate our activities in such a way and it proves effective, we should do so, but we should not be locked into the old way of doing things simply because this is new.

I still have not received much information that can help me with the overall spending of this government. The Member mentioned that the spending pattern - the amount of spending in the supplementary budget - is a concern and the trend that is being set here is somehow of significant concern.

The Member stated that the New Democrats have come in and spent five percent of the supplementary budget, and that is something that the critic for the Department of Finance suggests is a significant concern, yet 95 percent of the supplementary is something that he thinks is no problem.

I have a hard time accepting that notion and I hope the Member can see the inherent contradictions of that particular situation. Certainly, they have crossed my mind.

I have a lot more that I could talk about from last week, but I will let the Member decide where we go from here.

Mr. Ostashek: I thank the Member for that information and we will certainly get into that as we go along, but as the Member said, if we are going to get through this we have to bring closure to these items, one issue at a time.

I want to talk about the deputy ministers and try to get a clear understanding of what transpired and what is going to transpire in the future.

The Minister says that these individuals were offered other jobs, but the fact remains that one person has stated publicly that he was dismissed from his position and then offered a job.

The Minister says they were offered legitimate work at what he believes to be the deputy minister level. I would say to the Member that if he was confident that these positions were at the deputy minister level, then there would have been absolutely no reason for the severance package to kick in.

The reason this severance package would kick in is because they were not at a deputy minister's level. Even if the Government Leader thought they were, I am sure that his Department of Justice people would have told him that he would probably end up in court if he maintained that position. That is why they were dismissed without cause. That is exactly what one clause in one of the letters said - they were dismissed without cause, and a severance package would apply.

I want to ask the Government Leader a question for the record today. My understanding was that one deputy minister was offered a position in Ottawa that is non-existent. What is the Government Leader planning to do in the Ottawa office? What new position is he creating there?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I would point out that the offers of assignments were made in the same way - in a format that I understood is standard - to all deputy ministers: a position, or transfer, is offered. If the person chooses not to accept it, and there is no other position available, then the person is released. I have to say "without cause", because I have not been evaluating these particular employees in the technical sense. I did indeed offer positions at the deputy minister level, in writing, to both individuals. I did the same with many other deputy ministers, all of whom are working.

With respect to the Ottawa office, there is a position in the Ottawa office because - the Member probably does not know this, based on the substance of his question - the person currently staffing that office has chosen to take a full-time position with Finance in the Ottawa office. This person will replace Raghu Raghunathan, who is slowly departing into a kind of retirement. He will be spending most of his time doing useful work as a Sanskrit scholar, but he will be spending a little bit of time in the Ottawa office. In any case his position is now being assumed by Mr. Grant, who is moving over as we speak into that position and leaving the Ottawa office position vacant.

Mr. Ostashek: I guess that is exactly my point; there has never been a deputy minister position in Ottawa. It was a director position. It was not at the deputy minister level. I guess this Government Leader is going to increase the deputy minister level. The question that I must ask is: why?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: First of all, there are a number of positions in the Executive Council Office, as I have mentioned before, which were filled by people who were deputy ministers. That is not a new occurrence - not even with his government - but certainly there was the case that three deputy ministers were in his department when we assumed office. Only one of those positions was actually managing the department. One was in the Land Claims Secretariat and the other was doing special project work. All were deputy ministers. That is not a new occurrence. I do know that there has been a case of a deputy minister who went from Justice into the Executive Council Office and then back into a department. That has happened, too. The position of this government is that one does not necessarily have to be managing a department in order to be a deputy minister.

With respect to the Ottawa office, I do have some plans for the Ottawa office that are important. I want to have better communication with the federal government than we have had. I want to reorganize the office and ensure that we do more work making direct contact with the senior levels of the public service on key issues facing our government. Certainly it is very, very important work for us. It is something that we do want to ensure is handled properly. It is something that is going to require some good talent; there is no doubt about that. It is certainly a very important job with our government. I would think that most people who are public servants would enjoy that kind of work. Obviously, the one person who was offered the assignment - unbeknownst to me, because the person had done the job and had worked out of the Ottawa office in the past - decided he did not like the job and said so publicly.

That is his choice. It was a serious offer. It is a serious job. It will be doing important work, and anybody who likes that kind of project work, I would think, would be happy to have that kind of job. It is an important job.

Mr. Ostashek: First of all, again it is a matter of increased costs. We are going to increase the salary range from a director to a deputy minister in the Ottawa office. The Member opposite says it was a legitimate offer to the gentleman in question, but he is also fully aware that the gentleman's wife is employed with the Government of Yukon here and it would have been impossible for him to go down there and for her to have to leave her job here, so it seems to me that it was not a very legitimate offer. It was a case for constructive dismissal - and an after-the-fact case.

I want to talk about the chief land claim negotiator now, who was offered a job of a deputy commissioner and who also felt that that was not a deputy minister level job or I believe he would have accepted it. Nevertheless, he has left and, to my understanding, is going to be paid out as well under the deputy ministers' severance package for dismissal without cause.

I do not care how the Government Leader wants to cut it. He is paying out four deputy ministers on the transition of government. He is not paying out just two, with two leaving of their own volition. Whether he says they left of their own volition or not, he is going to be paying out four deputy ministers' severance packages, and, as we said earlier, that amounts to somewhere in the neighbourhood of three-quarters of a million dollars for the four of them.

I want to ask what is going to happen to the position of chief land claims negotiator because there have been so many mixed messages from the Government Leader and his deputy over the past month as to what is happening at the Land Claims Secretariat. Now I get an organization chart that has not changed one iota from when we were in government - not one bit - and tremendous havoc has been caused over there by different statements that have been made by the Government Leader and by his previous deputy minister or interim deputy minister of the Executive Council Office.

Can the Government Leader tell us what is happening with the chief land claim negotiator position at the Land Claims Secretariat?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Once again I am going to have to take exception to the Member's comments and indicate to him that I disagree with him absolutely and completely. With all my heart I disagree with the Member. I think that he is completely wrong. It is a territory I think he knows quite well.

With respect to the issue of spouses and whether or not spouses should be offered jobs, it is not a policy of which I am aware. Perhaps the Member could help me on that. I am not aware of a policy where, when a person is either transferred to a job in the Yukon or transferred out of the Yukon, that we must consider the job prospects for the spouse. If the person is working for the government, presumably the Member is suggesting that we must find work in Ottawa for the spouse. If the person was working in the private sector - or working at all - presumably we would be obligated to find employment for the spouse. Otherwise, it would be considered constructive dismissal.

I cannot agree with the Member. I have never heard of such a policy. I would not endorse such a policy. It has not been a consideration, to my knowledge, ever. Certainly if some accommodation can be made within the rules, perhaps they can, but people are not given jobs simply because they happen to be the spouse of a person transferred from one job to another.

I know that with transfers made within the Yukon, that was very definitely not a consideration when the government recentralized a number of positions over the course of the last three or four years. What the spouse was doing was hardly a consideration at all - that was patently obvious.

I thank the Member for his opinion on what should be policy. I will keep it in mind.

I will again take issue and disagree - I will not admit to any such thing - with the idea that the government fired four deputy ministers, as he did when he came to office. I will not admit to that, because it did not happen. Two deputy ministers were not offered assignments at the deputy minister level; two deputy ministers were offered assignments at the deputy minister level - assignments they chose not to take. I have already explained the reason for the severance. It is not something one would normally do, but there were special deals that necessitated this expenditure in the mind of the government.

With respect to the Land Claims Secretariat, we do intend to recruit a chief land claims negotiator. That is very much the case. No decision has been made with respect to that, to my knowledge.

As I have already indicated to the Member, with respect to the organization chart as I have given it to Members, he is quite right that it contains no changes, because it is the existing organization chart. I have indicated to Members already in this Legislature that we will be adding another principal negotiator by moving vacancies around, so we can have a situation where principal negotiators have a manageable number of files to handle at any given time.

We know that the First Nations are all coming ready to negotiate. We cannot negotiate with all of them simultaneously on the same day, but we can negotiate with them simultaneously in the coming year. In order for us to do that, we will have to add another principal negotiator position as a priority. We will transfer vacancies - and the vacancies are identified there - in order to accomplish this task in the near term.

I have already indicated to Members that I have every intention of coming back to the Legislature in the spring, in the context of the main estimates, to seek some additional resources. However, for the time being, the reorganization, in the short term, will help us to meet our short-term objectives without additional expenditure. The supplementary of this budget does not require money as a result of any changes we have made, as a government. The additional resources are as a result of requests our predecessors - the Member himself - previously identified to handle this particular organization. The extra $60,000 or so being requested is not from us - it is from that Member. Perhaps he can identify what the additional money is for, or he can tell me what his thinking was at the time.

Our plans for the future are that we intend to staff the position of chief land claims negotiator, and to add a principal negotiator in the short term. In all probability, we will be requesting some additional resources in the main estimates when we get to that point.

Mr. Ostashek: The Government Leader can skate all he wants to on the deputy minister issue, but the fact remains that I have heard that Member stand up and condemn the Yukon Party government for how it treated people. I think the Yukon Party government is head and shoulders above this Government Leader in the way it treated people. When the Government Leader offers a person a position that he knows the person cannot possibly accept because of his spouse, I do not think that is a legitimate offer.

I want to go into more details on the Land Claims Secretariat, but before I do that, I want to stay with the deputy minister position, because I am very concerned about that. There is no doubt that, over the course of the last four years, the deputy minister, the assistant deputy minister, the chief land claims negotiator and associate chief negotiator had some very head-to-head confrontations with a good friend and colleague of the Government Leader. I just want to ask the Government Leader for the record: did his good friend and colleague demand that these people be removed from their positions?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: No.

I must say that I find the Member's assessment of the situation with respect to the deputy ministers incorrect. I certainly believe that we made legitimate offers to professional public servants based on what we believed their qualifications, abilities and match-up with departments were. We made that assessment, and it is an assessment that is made upon every government coming to office.

The difference in our particular case is that, having been in the Legislature for 15 years, knowing my colleagues and talking to them, I made the assessment very, very quickly - with the advice of my colleagues. However, the Member himself, new to government in 1992, perhaps quite appropriately - given that he had never been in the Legislature before - took two months before he fired four deputy ministers. I do not remember him making any comments about whether or not their spouses had jobs or anything else, or what that might do to the familial status of people. I do not recall that, but it might be worth checking out. Maybe it is - maybe it is not. I cannot trace every single inconsistency that this Member raises in this Legislature. I would be working full time just tracking his comments.

The situation, as I understand it, with respect to the Land Claims Secretariat, is that the chief land claims negotiator was offered a position with this government that we care about, and he chose not to accept it.

The Member identified two other positions. In one particular case, the person volunteered - requested - to leave, for reasons that I am not able to disclose.

The second position was a matter between this person and the person's supervisor, which had nothing to do with me at all.

I worked with both of those people in the past, one in particular, for many, many years. I have nothing but respect for all of the people who work in the Land Claims Secretariat, including the chief land claims negotiator to whom I did offer a real job at the deputy minister level.

In terms of creating havoc, I would argue that the Member opposite has done a masterful job in doing so and in putting forth people's names in this Legislature and creating the impression that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. The Member has been a master at that, and he has been a lot better at that than he was at governing this territory.

This does not change the fact that negotiations are proceeding and that the Yukon government does have representation at the land claims table. To my knowledge, there have been no meetings cancelled as a result of anything this government has done with respect to any organization, or future organization relating to the Land Claims Secretariat. That is the situation as I see it.

Mr. Ostashek: The Member can stand and defend his actions all he wants, but the reality of it is, the Yukon public is not buying it.

There are many, many concerns about what is happening with land claims and who is protecting the Yukon's interest. Let me tell the Government Leader that he can make all the speeches he wants, but no one is buying it and it is time that the government came clean with the public and let us know what is going on.

First of all, the Government Leader blames this on his deputy minister - an interim deputy minister - who is making major changes and then leaving the position. I think the deputy minister left the position today and that does not wash with the general public.

There is no doubt that these decisions were made in the Government Leader's office and carried out by the deputy minister. Both of these people whom the Government Leader has identified as associate deputy minister and assistant chief land claim negotiator have been told they were going to be moved. One, he says by their own accord. I think that was after they were told they were not doing a good job there any more, so they offered to leave and get out of his road. I understand that the other person was offered the Ottawa job. Again, this is the job that the Government Leader now thinks is such a great job that everybody should be scrambling to take.

The Government Leader is on record in this Legislature as saying that these people are only in their jobs until the replacements come. I will pull it out of Hansard if he wants. He said several times in Question Period that they were in their positions for now, but one had offered to leave, and the other was going to be moved to another position in government. That is what he said.

I ask the Government Leader this question: who is taking their positions? When are the positions going to be advertised? When does he hope to have them filled?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The Member tries to come across as a great interpreter of the general public's will, but I would argue that his interpretation has faltered somewhat in the last number of months; otherwise, the Member would have been on the government side of the House. He is, frankly, very lucky to be on the Opposition side of the House, for that matter.

With respect to protecting the Yukon's interests, we do have negotiators who are protecting them. We have very good negotiators protecting the Yukon's interests. We have very good negotiators who are trying to get reasonable land claims settlements. We have very good negotiators, including the people whom the Member has been identifying, who are staffing every table and meeting that comes up. It is true that the people whom he has identified will be in their positions until they either voluntarily leave, transfer or something else happens. That will be the case, because we care about these positions, and we want to see this work get done.

With respect to when it will happen, I do not know. I have not asked the department in the last week or so to give me an update on recruitment or on the request for transfer. Presumably, there has to be a place to transfer to if somebody voluntarily requests a transfer.

Presumably, that has to be acceptable, so we have to work that out. I do not have any more information on that particular subject but, yes, indeed, those people will be doing their useful work for the time being.

Mr. Ostashek: I have one more question for now, and then I will let my colleagues get in for a while.

This is mind-boggling to me and it is mind-boggling to the general public. Here is a Government Leader who raised havoc in the Land Claims Secretariat, caused all kinds of commotion and concern, demoralized the department, and now says nothing is changing.

What has happened is that the Government Leader has been caught with his pants down and is now trying to cover his butt. He is trying to work these people back into the system. He is on public record as saying that they are going to be moved - one voluntarily and one by being transferred elsewhere in government. Now he is saying they are going to be there for the foreseeable future. It is no wonder that these people are demoralized. It is no wonder that they cannot accomplish anything - and nothing is being accomplished.

The Government Leader should come clean. Things have come to a complete standstill at the Land Claims Secretariat, because there has been no clear direction given by that government.

I understand also that the Land Claims Secretariat was told that new direction would be coming. Could the Government Leader tell us what that new policy is going to be, and when is it going to be delivered to the Land Claims Secretariat?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I do not believe there is any need for the Member to lose his self-control or to be crude. There is no need to be crude. We are having a discussion about public policy in the Yukon Legislature here, and the Member has already lost control. I would urge him to regain his self-control, please.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The Member says, "Go back to Thursday." Yes, again, that is another example of where the Member loses control very easily. I would appeal to him to please try to regain it.

With respect to the situation at the Land Claims Secretariat, the Member makes the allegation that nothing is happening and that everything has come to a standstill. I am certain that that will be news to the negotiators in Dawson, who are negotiating this morning and have been negotiating for the last couple of days, and it will be news to the people who were negotiating a couple of weeks ago in White River. I will pass on to them that the impression being left by the Leader of the Official Opposition is that they are not doing anything; that they have come to a standstill and are not accomplishing anything.

Given that the Member has taken it upon himself to try to raise the concerns with the public through the media, and is, in large part, responsible for the sense of havoc - if there is such a sense out there - I will take it upon myself to transmit directly to the Land Claims Secretariat the notion that they are not doing anything, they are now completely at a standstill. I will assure them, as I continue negotiating the Dawson agreement, that I do have faith in the negotiator and they will be given my full support, as per usual.

Mr. Cable: I have some questions about an exchange between the Government Leader and the Leader of the Yukon Liberal Party late last year, in November 1995. At one time the Liberal Party issued an eight-point plan in relation to First Nations that it would put into place if elected to government. The first point was that a Yukon Liberal Party government would conduct an immediate review of the performance of all YTG officials who deal with First Nations on a regular basis. This would include final agreement negotiators as well as those responsible for the various activities relating to implementation of the UFA and four final agreements.

I am told by the Government Leader that if that had to be redone, that it certainly would not be the wording. It was unfortunate that that position was put forth, and he was not happy with what came out of it. What it brought forth was a broadside from the Government Leader. There was a press release issued, which I think was noted for a fair quantity of umbrage on behalf of public servants.

I am going to quote from it and I am going to ask the Government Leader if he still subscribes to the quotes that are in the press release. This is a press release issued by the then office of the Official Opposition and dated November 10, 1995.

The Government Leader is quoted as saying, "Apparently Mr. Taylor does not understand some of the basic principles of our parliamentary system. One of those principles is that elected officials take the flack when something goes wrong, not government employees." Later on, in concluding the press release, the Government Leader went on to say, "In any case, publicly attacking government employees who cannot defend themselves always places a politician on dangerous ground."

I assume that that is still the Government Leader's position. Could he simply confirm that that is in fact his position?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Yes, it is.

Mr. Cable: There was an unfortunate article in the Yukon News a couple of weeks ago where one got the impression, either through the Government Leader's mouth or through the mouth of the interim deputy minister in the Executive Council Office, that the land claims people who were moved aside had gone stale or had run out of energy.

Is that, in fact, an accurate assessment? Is that innuendo correct?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I was not trying to provide an innuendo. I cannot say anything about that. I do happen to know the personal reasons that are underlying this situation, at least in one case, but I cannot relate them in the Legislature in public.

Mr. Cable: There appeared to be a clear innuendo from that article that these people had, in fact, run out of steam. I was rather surprised to hear that sort of comment.

It was not clear in the way I read that article whether or not the Government Leader had actually made that comment, or if it was through the mouth of the deputy minister or was some creation of the reporter. Could the Minister clarify that? Did it come out of either the Government Leader's mouth or that of his deputy?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I do not believe that it came out of anyone's mouth. Certainly I did not say anything of that sort. Further to that, I would not say anything of that sort, even if I knew it to be true.

There is a fair amount of information that comes to us about the circumstances of individuals working for this government. It is not our place to be relating that information in public. As much as I want to respond to the speculations that are being made by my opponents, I feel somewhat hamstrung. I cannot respond in kind. I must simply explain the situation as I have, to the best of my knowledge, and that is what I have done.

Mr. Cable: All right. Let us both scour that article and see exactly who said what.

The impression I got from the news clips, when the Yukon Liberal Party Leader indicated that the performance of the Land Claims Secretariat negotiators was going to be reviewed, was that the Government Leader felt that was improper. He felt that it was the mandate that should be reviewed. Was that his feeling at the time?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Yes, it was and is.

Mr. Cable: Prior to the lateral movement of these two people in the Land Claims Secretariat, was the mandate, in fact, reviewed with them?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Some elements of the mandate were reviewed with them. Before, during and after, I was aware of some intentions on the part of some of the people to transfer.

Mr. Cable: Did these people seek a wider review of the mandate? Did they in any way indicate to the Government Leader that, if there were any problems - I assume the Government Leader did raise some problems, otherwise what happened would not have happened - the mandate should be clarified, enlarged, reviewed or discussed with them in greater detail?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The Member is making an assumption I do not think is fair. He is perhaps trying to tie the fact of the mandate review to the departure of the individuals. I did not say that at all. I answered the questions precisely as the Member put them. Yes, indeed, the mandates have been reviewed, are being reviewed and will be reviewed as we go. The Member asked the technical question of whether or not mandates were reviewed even prior to my knowledge of the possible departure of these two individuals from the Land Claims Secretariat. The answer is that, I believe, yes, some parts of the mandate were reviewed. They have since been reviewed and continue to be reviewed, including with these individuals, because negotiations are ongoing today.

Mr. Cable: Perhaps I do not fully understand what the Government Leader is saying. Is the Government Leader saying it was not a question of mandate that caused the movement of two people in the Land Claims Secretariat, but something else, something other than the clarification of the mandate?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I am not saying anything. The Member is trying to find out why the individuals left, or are leaving, or why anyone might be planning to leave. I am not commenting on that, one way or another, with anyone, either for the individuals involved - who have been cited in the Legislature - or for anyone else in the future.

If the Member wants an answer to that specific question, I think the only way he will get the information, if they want to provide it, is for him to call them.

Mr. Cable: All right. Let us go at it a wee bit differently. Has the mandate been fully reviewed by the Government Leader? Perhaps he could clarify that. He went through it a few moments ago, but I am not sure what he said exactly. Prior to the hiring of new people, has he set down and set up a review, or a redone mandate? Apparently, at one juncture, he indicated the mandate was not satisfactory in the past, over the last four years. That is my sense of where he was coming from at some junctures in the past.

Has he sat down and reviewed the mandate and completed it?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: Yes and no. I have sat down, and I have been reviewing the mandate, but I have not completed it.

Mr. Cable: I am sure my colleagues will have some further comment, but there is another issue that came up in the House a couple of weeks ago about the movement of the presidents of the two Crown corporations.

There was the president who wears the double hat of the presidency of the Yukon Development Corporation and the presidency of Yukon Energy Corporation, and then there was the president of the Yukon Housing Corporation.

As I read the respective acts, the appointment of the president with two hats - the president of Yukon Development Corporation and Yukon Energy Corporation - is made by the recommendation of the board of those corporations. The president of the Yukon Housing Corporation is actually appointed by the Yukon Housing Corporation itself. If I read those acts correctly, that would indicate that the Government Leader did not go through all of the hoops that he should have done.

Now, when we get a chance to fully delineate all of the steps that the Minister took - because I think we got hived off about some argument on legal opinions and what not - did the Government Leader seek the opinion of the board of the Yukon Development Corporation before he shuffled the previous president out and put in the new president?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The reason we got hived off on the subject of legal opinions is because the Member asked me if I received a legal opinion and I was only trying to be helpful. I tried to respond to the question of legal opinions.

During Question Period, I believe I already answered the question about notice to the Yukon Housing Corporation Board and the Yukon Development Corporation Board that, no, we had not done that; we had not gone to the board prior to making the announcements; no, we had not.

As a matter of practice, the appointments to the boards have always been done by an order-in-council. The government was in possession of a legal opinion that concluded that it had the right to appoint, dismiss or transfer the positions. However, I would freely acknowledge that there is a confusing sense of overlapping jurisdiction that should properly be clarified at some point, but our legal opinion suggests that, yes indeed, we had the right to do what we did.

Mr. Cable: Could I suggest that we get an independent legal opinion from the private bar?

It would appear that the Housing Corporation Act is quite clear, unless I have missed something. There may be some qualifying provision stuck away in another act. The clear language in the Housing Corporation Act is that the board makes the appointment. I think that both of these boards are set up sort of as arm's-length boards.

Does the Government Leader not think that moving in on these two Crown corporations, which are ostensibly arm's-length corporations, yanking out the presidents and putting in new presidents, violates, if not the law, then certainly the spirit of the law?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The only thing that I will grant the Member is that there seems to be overlapping jurisdictions - that is coming from a non-lawyer.

The Member asks if we would get an opinion from the private bar. I believe that the Yukon Housing Corporation did seek an opinion from the private bar. It concluded that we had the right to make the appointment, presumably based on some legal principles of perhaps hierarchy of laws or something else. I do not know what the legal rationale was. However, the Yukon Housing Corporation Board certainly went through the same process as the one that the Member has mentioned. There is corroboration on that particular point.

I would concede to the Member, because, as I look back on the Housing Corporation Act now, there are many concerns that one could have of the Yukon Housing Corporation Act and its seeming inconsistency with other legislation and current practice. It would be worthwhile to remove those inconsistencies.

As far as I am aware, we were acting within the law. As far as I am aware, both boards have endorsed both appointments. In practical terms, I do not believe that there is any concern. When we do get around to updating the Housing Corporation Act, this ought to be addressed as a seeming inconsistency.

Mr. Cable: I think another inconsistency, of course, is with the Yukon Energy Corporation. They cannot actually make a recommendation unless they are aware that their president is going to be yanked and they have gone out to the public and sought some input as to who wants the job.

Is the Minister saying that the Yukon Energy Corporation board has actually validated the appointment after the fact?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I understand that it is accepting the appointment. I do not know how that has been constituted. I do not have information with respect to that matter. I understand it to be the case.

With respect to the law, as I have indicated, the government was in possession of a legal opinion. We do believe that we acted within the law. Not being a lawyer, I cannot challenge it, but I can tell him that that is in fact the case.

Mr. Cable: Would the Government Leader not agree that it would be extremely difficult for the Yukon Development Corporation/Energy Corporation to make a recommendation to the Government Leader on the appointment of a president if, in fact, they were not aware that the president was going to move?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: The Member is asking me for an opinion of the provisions of the Yukon Development Corporation Act, presumably, and how it relates to the Public Service Commission Act. I am not in a position to be able to answer that question. If the Member wants to write out specific legal questions, for which he wants a legal opinion, please do, and I will try to answer them as best I can, once I get the people who are qualified to answer the questions, to answer the questions.

Mr. Cable: No, I am not looking for a legal opinion. I am looking for a commonsense opinion. Section 10 of the Yukon Development Corporation Act, as it has been amended, reads: "On the recommendation of the members of the board, and subject to the certification by the Public Service Commission, the Commissioner in Executive Council shall appoint a president..." Now, if the Government Leader moves in and yanks the president, would it not be reasonable to assume that the board has not made a recommendation? Let me clarify this - and excuse me for being repetitious. One would suppose that there would be a recommendation from the board before the presidency would be filled from that section. Did the Government Leader, in fact, go to the board and say, "Look, what is your recommendation on this appointment? We want to move the president out of the job and move someone new into the job." Did the Government Leader actually talk to the board before the fact?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I think I have answered the question on a number of occasions. Is the answer not clear? I said no. I said no in Question Period, and I have said no a couple of times today. No is the answer. The Member is asking if that is seemingly inconsistent with the Yukon Development Corporation Act - quite possibly. I am not certain if that is the case. I will have to get a lawyer to provide that response. The Member protests that he is looking for a commonsense opinion. I am afraid that he is actually asking for a legal opinion, and I am not capable of providing that opinion with respect to how the laws relate to each other and what the hierarchy of laws is. I do not know that answer, so I will have to request it.

Mr. Cable: During the previous session, there was some considerable comment on the relationship of the then government Minister with the Workers' Compensation Board, which is supposed to be at arm's length, I gather. It is clear that these corporations are supposed to be at arm's length and it is clear from the commonsense standpoint. I am not really seeking a legal opinion. The Yukon Development Corporation Act clearly suggests that there be a recommendation from the board before these moves take place, and any reasonable interpretation of the Housing Corporation Act would suggest that there is some input to be had from the board - whether or not there is some conflicting statute around. There is a clear section that says the board shall appoint the president.

In view of the fact that the Minister has received this advice that there is some confusion around or he is of the opinion there is some confusion around, is he prepared to clarify these statutes so that we know exactly what the relationship is between the government and the arm's length corporations?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I have already indicated that, yes indeed, there is some confusion around this, because I had taken the trouble to go to the government and ask for more information about what transpired specifically around these appointments. From my perspective, there does seem to be confusion about the intents of the two acts. I would say that the Workers' Compensation Act is a much clearer act because it does make reference to the Public Service Commission Act - very specifically, I believe. So I would say that, in that particular case, it is very clear. With respect to these two, and as I have indicated already, we were in possession of a legal opinion that said we could do what we did, that we had the right to appoint or dismiss the positions. There does seem to be some inconsistency from a lay perspective, not being a lawyer, and I am more than happy to try and clarify that so that there is no inconsistency. That is as much information as I have and can provide to the Member.

Mr. Phillips: I would like to go back to the Land Claims Secretariat for a moment. The previous NDP administration, in the seven years it was in power, was negotiating land claims and it almost completed the first four final agreements in that seven years, but it had not quite completed them. In the four years when the Yukon Party was in power, I believe the first four were finalized and then three others.

The Minister has said that he had trouble with the mandate, and I am just wondering if it was the speed of the mandate, or was it something in the mandate that gave him trouble. I know a lot of Yukoners who were pleased that, in four years, seven of them got settled. I know there are other deadlines to meet but I just wonder whether or not the moves that the Minister has made have sent a message to the general public as to whether or not we are actually going to see the others completed in a timely fashion.

What the public is telling me is that they see the removal of the top three people in the Land Claims Secretariat and they see the Minister wanting to expand it to seven tables and to change the mandate. They do not see a new mandate or a public policy or a new policy on the table at all. The federal government has announced that it is not aware of a change to seven tables. The federal Minister has said that he is not aware that there is going to be an acceleration of the land claims to seven tables. I guess there is some confusion felt by the general public. It is getting a mixed message. When the top three people are removed from a department in the manner in which they were removed, it makes it rather difficult to understand.

I know that he is going to come back and say that two of them are still there. In fact, he has, in a way, made them lame-duck negotiators. They are good people; they are talented, but he has told everyone on the other side that they are only there temporarily until they get someone to replace them. It does not give much confidence to the individuals who are there, at least from the Minister's standpoint. We had confidence in them in the time they served us.

I wonder what message the Minister is trying to send and if he is going to adopt a new mandate or a new policy in land claims. Is he prepared to make public what the new policy is and what the difference is between the old policy and the new policy so that the people can understand why he cleaned out the three top people in the Land Claim Secretariat and why we are going in a new direction?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: I would like to answer that question with a few questions, which will certainly make my point. Is the Member aware that when the Yukon Party government assumed office in 1992 it made no changes to the first four negotiated settlements? Is he aware of that?

Is he aware that his government made no changes to the umbrella final agreement? Is he aware of that?

When he says that, he is trying to take credit, I presume, for somehow negotiating the first four under the umbrella final agreement. Is he aware that his government made absolutely no changes? In fact, not only did it make no changes to the first four negotiated agreements, not only did it not make any changes to the umbrella final agreement, but it did not even make changes to the law that it brought in, the law that our government had introduced in the spring of that year. It did not make changes to that law either. It changed absolutely nothing; negotiated nothing and changed nothing.

Is the Member aware that the Ta'an Kwach'an agreement is only a partial agreement? It is dependent upon some significant sharing accords being developed with Kwanlin Dun. Is he aware it is not actually a final agreement? Is he aware that the negotiators and the land claims staff have been working to do all the mop-up work and to finalize the Selkirk agreement and the Carmacks-Little Salmon agreement? Is he aware that that is the case?

Things have been happening since the election to ensure that the agreements are in fact signed and delivered.

The ex-Government Leader asks what has been happening. The negotiators got a negotiated agreement, but they did not get a legal agreement, so all of the detail work has had to be done during the last couple of months, which has been consuming a lot of time.

The Member is asking what kind of message we want to send. Our land claims policy is the umbrella final agreement. If the Member wants an overall policy, that is what our policy is.

The Member talks about seven tables. That has nothing to do with this government's policy; it has everything to do with the approaching February 14 deadline, after which time penalties will have to be paid.

No wonder all of the remaining seven First Nations want to come to the table, because they are going to suffer penalties. It is our duty and obligation to try and do whatever we can and negotiate in good faith, so that they will not have to suffer much penalty. We are going to do everything we can to avoid penalties.

Let us do the math here - there are now two principal negotiators. One negotiator would have three files and the other would have four files.

We are proposing the addition of a principal negotiator so that two negotiators can have two files and one can have three files. What is so wrong or difficult about that?

The Member is saying that people are being removed. They are not being removed, and the Member is quite right when he says that is my comeback. Somehow the people who are leaving - for whatever reasons - are going to be lame-duck negotiators. Is the Member aware that the people who are leaving, or who might leave, or whatever the situation is, are in fact not negotiators? Is that a detail that makes any difference to the Member? The people who are the principal negotiators on the right-hand side of the sheet are the negotiators.

The Member has put on the record four or five pieces of wrong information and has asked me to respond to some scenario.

Mr. Phillips: The Minister has created his own dilemma here; that is the problem. He has taken over government and gone in willy-nilly and told some people that he does not need them any more, because someone else has told him to get rid of them, and the Minister knows that. The Minister has given us no reason whatsoever why these individuals are leaving.

The Minister tells us that they are negotiating under the umbrella final agreement; so were we - what is the difference? The Minister cannot tell us the difference.

The Minister cannot tell us the difference. Perhaps the three principal people are not exactly at the negotiating table, but they are the three key people who give direction to the department and the other negotiators; they worked through them. Surely, they were not just sitting there doing nothing.

It is because of the very poor action by the Minister responsible and some of the people working for him in the way that they handle people. The New Democrats are supposed to be the caring people, and then they go in and do this to some of their people who have worked very hard for years. It is quite disgusting. Actually, it turned out to be quite embarrassing for the government and for the Government Leader.

For the Government Leader to stand up and say that nothing has happened in land claims for four years is outrageous. He criticized the Leader of the Official Opposition for saying that there is nothing going on right now. It was just a few days ago that he stood up and said that nothing had happened for four years. How does he think those people feel, the 20 or so people on the list who have been working hard, putting in extra hours and working weekends to finalize agreements? The Government Leader just chooses his words to suit himself.

Perhaps the Government Leader can tell us when they are going to put out the job descriptions for the new positions in the Land Claims Secretariat. Is the government going to advertise for the new positions - the new deputy minister and the other positions that people are going to eventually leave? Are they going to be filled in a matter of time? Who will be giving direction to the department in the meantime?

There are a lot of Yukoners who are concerned about what is happening at the land claims table - or what is not happening - and what the problem is.

The Minister was quite sensitive about the first four agreements. He said that I said that his previous government did not do anything. I did not say that at all. In fact, if one looks at Hansard, I said that a lot of work had been done. The Minister should listen.

The new government came in and finalized it and did a lot of the clean-up work that he might be talking about now. It was not all completed. He did not just show up at the table the day after and sign it. There was still some work to be done.

The problem is that the new Government Leader is just too sensitive. We all know these kinds of things take time and that there is overlap in every government.

I would like to hear from the Government Leader, if he did not like what was going on in land claims over the last four years and is not happy with the settlements, if he plans to go back to the negotiating table with any of the seven First Nations and change anything in the existing agreements? Does he plan to go back and have discussions about the existing agreements and make changes to those initialed agreements?

Hon. Mr. McDonald: To answer the last question first, I do not see any reason to, other than the fact that the last three - the Ta'an, the Selkirk First Nation and the Carmacks-Little Salmon agreements - are not complete. In the Ta'an agreement's case, there is some major work to be done in the sharing accord. Consequently, there is a fair amount of work.

If the Member is asking me if there is any consequential changes that have to be undertaken with the first seven as a result of what is being negotiated right now, the answer is that I do not believe so.

With respect to the Member's comments about a lot of the work having been done, if I sound a little sensitive, I do not mean to. The first four agreements were clearly negotiated by the New Democrats, and I know that was the case. I was perhaps responding to election campaign rhetoric, which said the Yukon Party had something to do with the first four agreements and the umbrella final agreement, when all it did was take the legislation into the Legislature - legislation and agreements they did not change. Consequently, that is probably what I was responding to, if nothing else.

Am I concerned that no agreements were struck in the first three years? Yes, I am very concerned about that. I am not saying for a second it was the fault of any individual in the public service.

The umbrella final agreement contained some deadlines to complete the remaining First Nation final agreements, and the assumption was made that those negotiations would be happening over the course of the first three years of the Yukon Party's mandate. However, the agreements were not being concluded. Now, I am expected - on behalf of our government - to try to negotiate seven final agreements in two months. If I do not, then some Yukoners will be paying penalties. We are really going to be under the gun.

The negotiators who have always been at the table over the course of the last couple of years are continuing to go to the table. They are the ones who are in Dawson right now. With respect to some changes in the mandate, certainly, depending on the community and the issues, there may be a review of the mandate. There might be a review of the mandate with respect to Tombstone Park. There might be a review of the mandate with respect to some other items in the final agreement, all consistent with the umbrella final agreement. Certainly, our orientation is to get fair land claims settlements for the remaining - really, it is eight, First Nation agreements, including Ta'an Kwach'an's. That is what we want to do.

Again, with respect to the people the Members have identified as possibly leaving the Land Claims Secretariat, yes indeed. When the arrangements were struck, if they leave voluntarily, or if they quit, or if they take another job some place else, or anything else, their jobs will be filled because I have asked the department to make sure that critical jobs for the Land Claims Secretariat are filled as soon as possible, particularly when they have notice. I have indicated that we are going to be recruiting a chief land claims negotiator - yes indeed. That is an important job, and we will be recruiting for it. We will be meeting as much of our mandate as we possibly can within the very severe time lines that we face. That is our challenge.

Chair: Order please. Do the Members wish to have a short break?

Some Hon. Members: Agreed.

Recess

Chair: I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. We are dealing with Bill No. 3, Executive Council Office.

Mr. Phillips: I would like to go back in to the Land Claims Secretariat and try to get some commitments from the Government Leader on the new staffing for the Land Claims Secretariat.

The government has made a lot of to-do about local hire. It even got a local hire commissioner and spent several hundred thousands of dollars on a new initiative there to get that up and running. I think that if they are going to staff the Land Claims Se