Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Member for his comments. I appreciate the comment that it’s not a bad budget, and then he woke up and realized that it was true, it was not a bad budget. I appreciate those comments. We do share the sense of success that we’re the only jurisdiction in the country that has worked out a renewable resource sharing agreement with Aboriginal governments where a share goes from the gross revenues of 25 percent.

The Member and I have had many discussions about how long it takes to move government and how long it takes to change things or get things added...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fundamental question that keeps coming up, even though it’s in our consensus system, is the concern by some Members that somehow they don’t feel that this budget process is inclusive enough, that the budget doesn’t have clear and visible handprints of the Regular Members, when I would suggest to you that things like all day kindergarten was an initiative pushed by the Members, or on-the-land programs. If you want, I have a list on my desk upstairs of the things in this budget alone, let alone every other budget that we have reviewed, where we have tried to work...

If there’s a specific request, ITI and the government, of course, would work with the Aboriginal governments on land that is identified or a part of a settlement area. On public lands we have the provisions put in place that we are able now to do under the current legislation and we will continue to do that. We, as well, offer these workshops to folks at large.

As the Member indicated, the year after fire season, there tends to be a bumper crop of morel mushrooms, and there’s an industry that tracks these fires across Canada, and the harvesters will appear to pick as soon as the harvest season...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a major piece of legislation that has to be redone. That’s the Forest Management Act. It’s a major legislative undertaking. Some preliminary work will get done in the life of this government, but it will be carried through to conclusion in the life of the 18th Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you. The goal that we have is to stay on a fiscal path that we’ve laid out for ourselves, a sustainable path. We’ve had discussions, and very clearly, as we go forward with the budget that’s before this House, it’s going to require about a $20 million reduction of government services. We have to find the money to meet all these things we said we would do. If we want to in fact add to the mix, the 25 percent, then we have to find roughly another $10 million. If we want to do the Heritage Fund, the 25 percent, plus other committee asks, then that number goes up to $40 million. So, we will...

Madam Speaker, we have undertaken consultation. This is now my sixth budget as Finance Minister. In the last government, in fact, we did consultation, but it was based on Yellowknife. We’ve gone around the territory now to talk about the budget and budget consultation. As I pointed out in the communities, as well, there’s a $1.6 billion budget we are talking about. The resource revenue piece is $45 million. It’s a significant issue, but it wasn’t the only issue by far in terms of sheer quantum and we had ranging discussions about other things, about the future of the Northwest Territories...

Yes, we are engaged in short-term borrowing and some long-term borrowing, as I laid out in my budget address yesterday. When you look at all the numbers and when you look at the capital plan, the O and M budget, the things we are trying to do, we end up with $142 million left between ourselves and the $800 million borrowing limit. We’ve added to our borrowing to meet some of the objectives that we’ve laid out as a government and as a Legislative Assembly. So for the next five years, we are going to be in a cash deficit situation to manage our way through what are going to be some very big...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I tried to lay out in the budget yesterday, we look at what our revenue is, what our projected revenue is and look at what our expenditures are. Within the budget, we’ve already committed to fund, in capital, over $200 million of capital projects. This O and M budget, because we are required under our Fiscal Responsibility Policy to put aside the required amount to offset that, we are supposed to put half our money in savings. We’ve done that. So all our expenditures and the borrowing we’ve done to fund all the projects, all our expenses, leave us at $142 million...

Thank you. That, of course, is a given. We have a very able group of MLAs that bring forward those opinions and, yes, I will do the rounds. In the first budget dialogue and the feedback sessions we had, for example, we talked about where we should put our focus with the limited funds that are available, and they gave us some good advice that we’ve built into our first budget and our second budget. We’ve received some very helpful advice on this go around, as well, including on the Heritage Fund. So, yes, we will obviously, and clearly, commit. We always take that feedback into consideration...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In our system of government, we do annual budgets and the government puts a budget before the House. In effect, the government proposes and the Legislature disposes.

We started this process, as the Member said, many long months ago to set this budget in place. We’ve talked about what we were putting forward as what in our estimation was the best way to move forward to balance all the demands with expenditures, revenues, projects, infrastructure versus programs and services, all those issues. We have put before this House a document that lays that out, and now we’re...