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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
At the end of a GNWT budget consultation meeting in Fort Smith on Sept. 24, people in the small audience were asked if they thought the new process - bringing such meetings to seven regional centres - is useful.

"We'll have to wait and see the budget," Blaine Dumkee responded succinctly, to laughter and nods of approval.

Grant Paziuk said he echoed Dumkee's view, adding it would have been nice if more people had participated in the exercise, which was attended by Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger and a delegation from his department.

"It gives us people in the cheap seats, so to speak, that like to criticize easy enough an appreciation of what you go through," Paziuk said.

The meeting was attended by 14 town residents.

While noting he doesn't think the process is a bad thing, Paziuk said, "It just doesn't necessarily pay out in any tangible way."

Margaret Dumkee thought the exercise was worthwhile, but she is not sure if it was worth the $100,000 the GNWT is spending to hold the consultations in regional centres.

"I think to dialogue is always good," she said. "It's our government and we are the government, and we need to take more responsibility for the decisions that our governors make."

Miltenberger noted there were varying opinions in previous meetings on spending $100,000 on the consultations.

"Some folks have said you should just keep the money and build a third of a house and just stay in Yellowknife and develop budgets and do the things we do in the office buildings of the legislature," he said. "I'm of the opinion that you can't go wrong when you take the time to come out here and talk to the folks and get some feedback."

Fort Smith was the fourth community visited by the delegation

Following the meeting, Miltenberger said the reaction in the other communities visited - Inuvik, Norman Wells and Fort Simpson - was more positive.

"The other three communities were very keen to have this happen again," he said. "The people in Smith are a little more guarded, but the other communities all thought it was an excellent idea."

The minister noted the crowds have been not bad to modest - three dozen plus in Inuvik, five in Norman Wells and 11 in Fort Simpson.

Prior to this year, a GNWT delegation had not travelled outside of Yellowknife to consult with Northerners in advance of a budget.

"The chance to talk with Northerners has been, I think, very important," Miltenberger said, noting common themes have developed at the meetings, including infrastructure development, prevention of program overlap and health promotion.

The meetings asked people for their opinion on where government money should be spent, while stressing that more funding from one program means taking it from somewhere else in the GNWT's $1.4-billion budget. That was visually illustrated by small Lego towers of various heights representing the money spent in each area, such as health and basic education.

People at the meeting were asked to move the Lego blocks - each representing about $500,000 - from tower to tower according to what they believed should have more money and what should have less.

"Most people liked them because it gives them a sense of scale," Miltenberger said of the Lego towers.

There were numerous ideas suggested at the Fort Smith meeting - including more focus on revenue generation, more funding for education, refurbishing public housing instead of building new units, increasing preventative maintenance on government buildings to make them last longer, having government departments share more office space and even one suggestion that Aurora College be reduced from the current three campuses to one or two.

After Fort Smith, the travelling consultations stopped in Hay River on Sept. 25 and in Behchoko on Oct. 1 and will continue in Yellowknife on Oct. 23.

A report will be compiled on the suggestions received at the meetings.

"This is a process that has relevance, that has timeliness, and it is going to be put into the budget process and we'll try to reflect what we're hearing in this budget and going forward," Miltenberger said. "If there is a general consensus that seems to be developing across the North, we'll do this for the life of this government and we'll keep building on that process, that relationship."

The territorial budget is expected to be presented in February.

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