Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 26/00) - The MLA last year embroiled in a bitter battle that led to the resignation of Premier Don Morin has been named deputy premier.

Hay River MLA Jane Groenewegen's appointment as deputy premier was announced Monday along with the delegation of cabinet portfolios.

Kakfwi said the appointment of Groenewegen (left) as deputy premier reflects "the tremendous courage and commitment she made in the previous legislature to do a job she felt was necessary to do.

"It's also a signal by myself that when people see something that needs to be addressed, you need the courage and conviction to stand up and address that and also the tenacity to see it to completion."

Kakfwi said the appointment also provided some balance in cabinet between his Northern Dene constituency of the Sahtu and Groenewegen's southern and larger constituency of Hay River.

Groenewegen concurred, saying, "I think if you took the whole Northwest Territories, between the two of us we capture a fairly large part of that Northern persona."

Groenewegen is also in charge of health and social services and the status of women.

Kakfwi said the appointments were made by cabinet as a whole, with the need for "stability and continuity" being one of the overriding considerations.

Four departments will be overseen by ministers who have been in charge of them before. Kakfwi, with help from Handley and Jim Antoine, will be in charge of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. Vince Steen held the portfolios of Public Works and Services and Transportation for the last government. Antoine served as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs before replacing Don Morin as premier.

Joe Handley was given the most powerful portfolio, taking responsibility for the finance department and the financial management board.

With it comes the job of overseeing final preparations of the 2000-2001 budget. Main Estimates, as the draft budget is known, is typically released at the end of January. The late election has set the budget preparation process back a bit, and it will likely be released in early spring.

"We do have short- term problem of simply being able to manage our budget," said Handley, when asked how he proposed to deal with the estimated $60-million deficit this year. "We're going to have to be careful with the way we spend money in the short term."

Though a first-term MLA, Handley has been a part of the territorial government longer than any of his cabinet colleagues. He has served as a deputy minister since 1985.

The fixing of cabinet posts will likely signal a shuffle in cabinet support staff, with cabinet ministers replacing some of the staff they inherited from the previous government.