Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, the end cash position of the government is one consideration of moving forward. It gives us a starting point for the upcoming budget planning cycle. What we have in this situation is that we also recognize some of those bump-ups that end up making our surplus position look a little healthier. It’s a one-time fund. They are not ongoing funds, and that’s the problem we’re going to have to tackle as we go forward.

Much like we did during the Market Housing strategy, the two-year pilot program that started bringing modular units into communities for the professionals, that was done on a cost-mutual basis in the sense that full recovery of having that unit there, utilities and so on, had to be a part of the package. That actually worked out fairly well for the most part. Some of those units came in at a lower cost than what we were having paid to rent for those in our communities living in standard public housing units. So that was an initiative. It’s something we can look at again.

The Housing Corporation...

We all are aware of the reductions that happened in 1995–1996. For the record, back then the government of the day looked at $150 million worth of reductions, and those were peer reductions. I believe the numbers back then for employees affected were in the neighbourhood of 700 to 800. Our scenario at this stage: we’ve minimized that to the largest extent possible.

The housing piece is something we’re still affected with, as the Member has pointed out. We have looked at.... For example, in the last Assembly there was the Market Housing Initiative to try to get units into communities for...

Mr. Speaker, when we sat down as Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly, just after territorial elections, we’d heard from people of the territory; they wanted to see things done differently. They wanted to see us continue to reinvest, as well as take control of where we were going. We’ve heard things almost from the day of the announcement that reductions needed to be done and that we would be focusing on reinvestments. That’s been the message from day one: We need to cap or manage our growth and look at the reinvestments. Those reinvestments, Members were aware, would have to come from the...

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 8, Appropriation Act, 2008–2009 be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the one-time funds I speak of are those adjustments that happened from past corrections to transfers from the federal government. Those are one-time. The Building Canada Fund is cost-shared dollars, and it’s for capital only. There are no O&M dollars attached to that, so that’s something we can’t plan on — making increased expenditures to O&M that will continue to grow with forced growth on an annual basis.

As well, Mr. Speaker, we have to recognize that the last government — and this is the issue…. You’re looking at the history of the government, where we’ve had to account for one...

We’re willing to sit down and look at those types of options with the Members and committees to see what avenues we can look at. We realize there are pressures there and we’re trying to find ways to mitigate that.

Back in 1995–1996, the housing package, along with the VTAs that were in place, at that time tallied close to $30 million. In today’s environment I wouldn’t even speculate as to how high it’s gone from that area. We are looking at ways of trying to have development corporations, the private sector, get involved in the housing in those communities. We’re trying to find that option.

When it comes to collective agreements, if the roles participating, the negotiators for the unions, ask to discuss it, there’s no stopping us from having the discussion. The fact will come in as: can we afford...

Mr. Speaker, I know the Ministers will be available for all the detailed questions Members may have in each department of those initiatives that are affected. In this part, as the government has prepared the budget — as I stated earlier, I believe it was yesterday — in the budget process when we talked about the normal business planning cycle, letters go out to departments in June and August and capital gets added. That is all put together and presented to Members in September for review and reporting back, and then Cabinet takes that back and makes some changes. We present a budget in...

No.