Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Chair, the Member’s impassioned commentary on decentralization stands on its own merit. It needs no response from me. Being from Fort Smith, it resonates, I think, very clearly with most of the folks that are from outside of Yellowknife.

The comment about spending smarter, if I could just speak to the budget dialogue again, I think that’s one of the themes that the people tell us as well. They don’t have all the answers, but they tell us to be efficient, avoid duplication, spend it smarter. The people who are charged with doing that, of course, are us. So that’s the discussion that we have...

The Member is correct. As a territory, as a government, as individuals and communities, we haven’t managed to come to grips with the ravages of alcohol addictions. The social indicators are all there, incarceration rates, shelters that are full with crimes that are committed that are tied to alcohol, involve alcohol, and the rate of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Spectrum Disorder, they are all there. It’s a crying shame, as the Member says, at this point in our political evolution that we are still having this discussion and the fact that Northerners have an intense proclivity to do things that are...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, as well, Mr. Nadli’s comments and recognition of the hard work that the folks have put in to try to build this budget. His concerns are very consistent in terms of some of the outside-of-Yellowknife issues: size of the bureaucracy, centralization versus decentralization.

The biomass project in his riding is being designed for the long term to be sustainable. We’re working on forest management agreements. The proponent has worked very hard to build up a business relationship with the communities and the Aboriginal governments, has signed agreements, looked...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Next year, as we expand the capital plan, there will be money for highways like Highway No. 7 on an ongoing basis. Once we ink the devolution deal and we have that nailed down, the fiscal framework will change somewhat. As well, we still have to manage our money and control the growth, the size of government and all these good things. We have collectively agreed that we need to focus on infrastructure that we are spending roughly $1.6 billion on programs and services, and barely less than 10 percent of our money goes into trying to do the infrastructure needs, and...

The Member’s addressed that we’ve had some discussion about the issue of how committed are we to decentralization. It’s been a long running concern and interest of, I think, every Member outside of Yellowknife. The Chair and myself have been here the longest, and we’ve had some modest success over the years but not a lot. So this is probably the most political support there’s been for decentralization tied to devolution.

I know the Member for Hay River North would appreciate a little bit of background of back in 1967 when the plane came north with the Commissioner for the first time and how...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Member for his comments. This budget-making is an issue and it’s a process of making choices, of looking at a long list of demands with a finite amount of resources, and we’ve done that again this year. We’ve been on this budget now for about six months collectively, and we’ve tried to capture as much as we can with the funds that are available, and we’re here to have the discussion now about the pieces, the final pieces maybe that need work or that possibly need adjusting.

I appreciate the Member’s comments about the support for the projects. The liquid...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and his ongoing attention to content and detail.

With regard to being more in debt, I would just point out once again, if you put us on a national comparative scale, we are one of the best managed and best run jurisdictions in the country with our debt to GDP ratio and the amount of interest to revenue that we are paying to service our debt. Most of our debt is self-liquidating.

We actually have about $150-some million or $180 million of actual debt that’s not, at this point, self-liquidating. We made a conscious point during extremely...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are three that are staffed, one is vacant. So there’s four total. Three staffed, one vacant and none of the incumbents have indicated they’re prepared to move; therefore, they will go on to the government’s Affected Employee Program. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member raises a concern that we should be putting more money into social programs, specifically health and social services. When I was Health Minister for five and a half years, I made the comment repeatedly that if you doubled the budget of health care, we’d be back within a year or a year and a half saying we need more to do all things for all people. I don’t think, looking to the fact that other jurisdictions are spending 40 to 45 percent of every dollar on health care, not social services, not housing, not anything else, is a sign of success. The reality is...

The Premier and Cabinet provided direction to the government from two departments to go back to their organizations and look at what could possibly be decentralized, and in a meaningful way that cohesive units or positions that would make sense that could easily function outside of Yellowknife. The BIP office was one of the suggestions brought forward. Some of the other departments were holding off pending the outcome of decentralization, for example. ENR and ITI, for example, are heavily caught up in that they go over land and water and resource development. So those will be looked at later...