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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife MLAs Robert Hawkins and Glen Abernethy say the government must consult with city education, health and housing boards before moving ahead with plans to merge them.

"I think they sent ripples into the community before they even know how to do this," said Hawkins, who held that the government should have consulted first before announcing last week its intention to merge all boards. "I think the government is going to be spending a lot of time putting out fires on this initiative."

On Oct. 21, Michael Miltenberger, lead minister of a refocusing government committee, announced the government is moving to merge 70 housing, health and education boards across the territory into six separate regional boards and one territorial co-ordinating board.

In Yellowknife, officials from the Catholic and francophone school boards had not heard about the plan when contacted by Yellowknifer the following Thursday. The public board chair only knew of the plan from Miltenberger's announcement.

While Hawkins said he was not opposed to the principle of board reform, the MLA for Yellowknife Centre underlined he would not support the government's move until they had consulted with the boards involved in the planned merger. He said the government should have gauged their interests in combining boards before moving ahead.

"The minister should have started off this whole thing by visiting the three (education) boards and saying this is something we are going to look at it," he said, adding he should have asked if they would be interested.

Hawkins said initial communication like that could have gone a long way in getting groups on side.

"Now you have people on the school boards not even being consulted," he said. "They feel the carpet is being pulled out from underneath them and that's going to bring opposition right away.

"I think they're going to be upset, and I think they have every right to be."

Hawkins said he has received emails and been stopped on the streets by constituents and what he has consistently heard from the public is board members still need to be elected.

He also said he isn't sure the government knows exactly what they are undertaking.

"When they consider moving health, education and housing together as one board, it's a ridiculous suggestion," he said. "In my view, there is no understanding to the complexities of how this would even work."

Glen Abernethy, MLA for Great Slave, has been a vocal supporter of making government more efficient.

He said he believed there was merit to considering merging boards to get the maximum value out of every dollar spent, and said other jurisdictions, like Alberta and New Brunswick, have recently moved to amalgamate their health agencies into one board.

The government's model is based on the Tlicho Community Services Agency, which oversees health, education and social services for the region. Abernethy said fitting this model to Yellowknife will pose challenges.

"We have a territorial hospital - how do you roll that into a regional model?" he asked.

Responding to statements Miltenberger made to Yellowknifer last week, Abernethy did not think board mergers were a done deal.

"In my opinion, nothing is guaranteed at this point," he said. "They are still going to have to get this through the house and get this voted on."

Abernethy said the onus was on government to engage people and hear their concerns. He said if the government's recommendation comes back before the legislative assembly without having addressed the concerns of constituents, "it will be awfully hard to support."

Hawkins and Abernethy said regular MLAs had informal discussions about board reform with ministers, but there wasn't much detail known about the government's plan.

Last Friday, Miltenberger told Yellowknifer figures for cost savings had not yet been calculated.

"At this point, we are working out all the detailed information," he said.

He added he will be meeting with board chairs of health and education in the next two months to discuss how the restructuring will happen.