Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fiscal reality is what is driving us all and it’s evidenced quite clearly in the capital plan and we have a much longer list of infrastructure projects than we have money. The issue of prioritizing or having to make choices is always before us. So I appreciate the Member’s frustration on some of these requests.

The Willow River, I’m not sure what the opportunities are. I haven’t talked fully to the Minister of Transportation if there are ways, but we’re now faced with political choices and we’ve capital planned and flexed the process and everything has been through...

That issue came up during the Jay pipe hearings. The issue of cumulative impact was a directly contributable effect in terms of fatalities on a regular basis. It’s one that has not been clearly defined. There have been changes made as issues have been raised in terms of the road access, how the road is used, how the traffic flows, the ability of the herd to cross the road. So, there is continuing work as we look at that particular issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll respond to some of them and then I’ll ask Mr. Guy to respond to the Woodland Manor and update requested on the health centre and Mr. Neudorf to touch on dredging.

The municipal funding, as we put it out yesterday, has been kept at $28 million, in spite of our attempts to do passive restraints but it’s important to protect that funding.

The issue of building Highway No. 1 to the border and the need to increase widening, I’ll note that as well.

I’ll ask, once again, Mr. Guy to touch on the other schools that possibly need upgrades. The French schools, we’re not in a...

Forecasters are already looking at large-scale global weather models and into forecasts for next year. Forecasters are predicting an El Nino winter, warm with limited precipitation which, depending on the actual outcome, may affect our water levels for next season. It seems that the drought through the NWT will continue.

As such, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, or ENR, will continue to be proactive and ready itself for the next fire season. A debrief of this year’s lesson learned will take place in the fall and public meetings will take place over the winter.

The rollout of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do have witnesses.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to update Members on our fiscal situation and the challenges that Members of the next Assembly will be facing.

As the 2014-2015 interim Public Accounts that I will table later this session will show, we have achieved our fourth consecutive surplus last year, totalling $120 million. Our departments were diligent in keeping expenditures within budgeted levels. However, this is not enough. The public accounts will also show that our net debt has increased $37 million. This means we continue to rely on short-term debt to pay for our capital expenditures...

This is a consensus government that we operate in. There are mandate letters given to each Minister by the Premier. We work closely with committees. We have reviews of business plans. Of course, we are, in effect, a minority government and we serve at the pleasure of the Legislative Assembly. We have numerous checks and balances in terms of making sure that ministerial accountability is upheld.

The type of elevation and evolution of the current policy is one where we’re open to discussion. The issue of a piece of legislation versus a formalized policy, there are distinct differences and probably merits to each approach and we’re prepared to have that discussion.

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to the red flag lists, what has happened, the amount of money in the capital plan is varied and we went, most recently, from one hundred and twenty-five back down to seventy-five, which meant that things on the list had to be re-prioritized. You can only do a certain number with $75 million, which is a very small amount of money when you have an overall budget of $1.8 billion and we do have input throughout this process with Regular Members and one of the things where we could point to is the ratio over the money for the Build Canada Plan was switched to put a...