Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a motion. I move that, in future, the public accounts include a detailed explanation of how the Government of the Northwest Territories has performed for that fiscal year in relation to the Fiscal Responsibility Policy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a motion. I move that the Department of Finance undertake the necessary audits and investigations required to ensure that revenues from self-reporting taxes are fully maximized and that the department report back to the Standing Committee on Government Operations with respect to its findings by August 31, 2014.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think, first and foremost, I need to congratulate the department on providing a signed copy of these public accounts at least one month sooner than they did in 2012 and it was tabled in November 2013, which is, again, three months sooner than the process that we did, the first time we’ve done this in many, many years. I appreciate the government for doing that.

Although the government may have received what the Auditor General called a “clean opinion,” it’s important to note that variances in any one category greater than $24 million are not followed up in any of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no problem explaining my term of saturation with the Minister in his office, but my fourth question is: Will this Minister commit to the House that the negotiated and sole-source contract policy will undergo a robust review by Cabinet, by committee and the public during the life of the 17th Assembly? Mr. Speaker, a simple yes or no will suffice. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the negotiated and sole-source contract policies were designed years ago when there were all but a handful of Aboriginal companies and they wanted to build capacity in the Northwest Territories. Today we have well over 500 with the same mandate.

Can the Minister indicate to the House why the government has not tried to modernize this policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to address the detailed reports in the tabled report on the GNWT contracts over $5,000 in the 2012-2013 budget year and the response to my written questions received on February 25, 2014, by the Minister of Finance.

I have said on more than one occasion that we are dealing with an antiquated, outdated and ultimately unconstitutional negotiating and sole-source contracting policy with this government. It’s abundantly clear that the taxpayers are holding the bag in its shortfalls.

I have always said the devil is in the details. With that in mind, let’s examine...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, to the motion, I’m hoping that we can get some information before the end of next session here and before the next round of public accounts. Again, for the record, I do want to thank my colleagues. It was a good journey, preparing for today and with the motions. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I mentioned in my earlier comments today here, the Fiscal Responsibility Policy is very specific in how it deals with surplus, and clearly, this government has had surplus in years past, in some cases we’ve had substantial surplus, and that surplus has to follow within their own policy called the Fiscal Responsibility Policy, which states 50 percent of that is put into operation surpluses for infrastructure and 50 percent, roughly, goes back to short-term and long-term borrowing. I’m just kind of summarizing it in basic terms.

The concern committee had is we don’t...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, it should be no surprise to the Cabinet and the Members in this room my continued journey on putting a lens on what I refer to as one of the largest loopholes in our taxation collection, I think, in modern history that we deal with in the Northwest Territories.

This loophole, this self-reporting loophole is exactly what it is. It’s a loophole. This self-reporting aspect is rarely monitored by government. We don’t have enough investigators to do the audits, and clearly, when audits are done, miraculously, money is found. This motion clearly sets the stage and the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro summed it up quite well. Again, there is a fiduciary obligation on behalf of all of our stakeholders to report their financial statements to public accounts and to this government, and as Ms. Bisaro mentioned, the Housing Corporation… Actually, there were four that did not meet the criteria, and I wanted to make sure that that was clear. We had Aurora College that required an extension. We also had NWT Business Development Investment Corporation that also needed an extension date, and we had Northwest Territories Hydro Corporation who also required an...