Departments need a second look
Government has changed since it first came to North

by Nancy Gardiner
Northern News Services

NNSL (June 27/97) -

When the government of the NWT moved to Yellowknife from Ottawa, it borrowed ideas from the South when organizing the North's departmental structure.

Since that time, there has been a push for more boards and agencies. Later, many were scaled back due to dwindling resources.

The Beattie Report in the early 1990s recommended the amalgamation of many government departments to better accommodate the changing needs of the North.

Many of these amalgamations have already come about.

Among the largest mergers was the one that produced the super-department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development.

But some departments may have been missed in the implementation of the new departments.

And while the names of departments and the jobs that they have done in the past may have been fine while getting things going up here, they just don't cut it any more.

To help MLAs in restructuring the government, we have come up with nearly 30 department names that may just jump-start what the North really needs -- true Northern bureaucracies.

In no particular order of importance, here are those departments:

  • Department of Duplication and Overlap
  • Department of Other Departments
  • Department of Arenas
  • Department of Pickup Trucks and Ground Transportation
  • Department of Hiding the Government Phonebook
  • Department of the Bureaucracy
  • Department of Inhuman Affairs
  • Department of Off-loading, Decentralization and Centralization to be Amalgamated into the ... Department of Indecision
  • Department of Perpetual Renewal of Old Reports
  • Department of Government's Shrinking Services
  • Department of MLA Compensation Benefits and Lotteries
  • Department of Classification of Bureaucrats
  • Department of Foreign and Office Affairs
  • Department of Restructuring
  • Department of Friday and Sunday Afternoon Press Conferences
  • Department of Government Weigh Scales
  • Department of 5,000-seat arenas for 1,000-person communities
  • Department of Nunavut Forestry and Water Bombers
  • Department of Diverting Capital Funds to Ministers' Ridings
  • Department of Creative Spending
  • Department of Northern Lights
  • Department of the Bathurst Herd
  • Department of the Porcupine Herd
  • Department of the Easy Pickings Herd and Others
  • Department of Dreaming in Technicolor
  • Department of Flare Guns and Search and Rescue of Wayward Tourists Who Go Where Wild Animals Wouldn't
  • Department of Icebreakers and other one-liners