Floyd Roland

Madam Chair, I am pleased to introduce the main estimates for the Department of Finance for the 2004-2005 fiscal year.

The 2004-2005 main estimates for the Department of Finance request a total expenditure budget of $7.354 million. The department’s 2004-05 expenditure requirements are 30.1 percent, or $3.167 million less than in 2003-2004. The net decrease is a result of:

1)

reduced insurance premium costs of $1.624 million resulting from the government’s self-insurance initiative, implemented last year;

2)

implementation of the loss prevention and risk control program associated with the self...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do have that information. Under fiscal policy, travel and transportation, 2004-05 is $52,000; materials and supplies, $16,000; purchased services is $14,000; contract services, $55,000; fees and payments, $2,000; computers, hardware and software, $8,000.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I get into that specific issue, there were a number of comments the Member made about our revenue-generating initiatives. Yes, they are difficult and nobody likes the idea of increased taxes or new taxes, but if we don’t get it from the corporate citizens of the NWT or Canada, then we end up focussing on the private individual which would be much more difficult.

The fact is the federal government measures our tax effort and because we are not measuring up to what they think we can generate for revenue in the Northwest Territories, we are penalized on that. So...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my understanding of the process is we offer contracts to depots for that operation, but then they also receive the bottles and can pay out the fees that they would earn from those collections. They collect the bottles, get a fee at the local depot, and then would pay the group that brought that forward and then would send their product on. Again, through our organization, they would get some funding for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would gladly receive input from residents across the Territories on what we could do to save dollars for government and for the people overall as taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, one of the problems we had again was the timeline and choosing to come forward and have a full budget by the end of this fiscal year -- that's the end of this month – which put us under some severe time constraints as to what we could do. One of the processes I will follow, besides the fact that we will be working with Members and the northern leaders next month as we lay out and give...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, that issue has been dealt with. We are not happy with the under coverage, but we are happy that through our own exercise and providing those numbers to Ottawa that we actually increased the coverage and we are not under covered as much. To that extent, we feel we have done what we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a number of avenues that we will take and use to get the information to people and continue to provide them with the information to ensure that they feel that they're getting all that is required to understand our situation. I think that started in a large way yesterday by doing the budget address and highlighting that message to our people in the Territories of the impacts of what this budget means to them. As we go through this process in the next two-and-half weeks, as Members ask questions of departments and ask for the detail, that information then can...

Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I will have Ms. Melhorn respond to that as I wasn't able to catch the full question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is a small amount of money but it is a start, and we need to start working in that area to help the small communities in our territory start doing some of this land development. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has the detail as to how they will allocate those dollars in a number of the communities. I am sure the Member will be able to get that detail as we go through the budget process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That would show up on page 3-11 under compensation benefits for treasury, as well as there would be some of it included in the other expenses section, as Ms. Melhorn stated, and we will provide that detail. The majority of other expenses adds up to the $2.6 million on page 3-12. But on 3-11, it gives the wages and compensation benefits as highlighted on that page, then there would be some others included in other expenses. Thank you.