Michael Miltenberger

Thank you. This has been an interesting exercise and there’s a number of key perspectives that we were looking for. We wanted feedback from the people of the Northwest Territories. We want to see what kind of responses we can get in terms of the things we’re now doing, which in this case confirm the focus that this Assembly has, for example, on prevention and the need to put more money into prevention, the need to sort out red tape, duplication program overlap, the need to look at how we add more money to our infrastructure budget. The other big issue is, of course, the support for sustainable...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s concern. One of the impacts on our current circumstance was the $10 million we put into this project a number of months ago. The money we spent that we didn’t anticipate was extra money on the bridge, we spent extra money on a number of different areas. But we appreciate the Member’s concern. We are still going to hit our fiscal targets, as we laid out in our fiscal plan to the Members. Thank you.

As we approach this project, the decisions made to ask for the funds in increments so that we would be reporting back to the Legislature and justifying the expenses because of the interest and concern about the project, as opposed to asking for a large amount of money and then at some point in the future coming back. We chose to come forward on an as-required basis so that we would always be before the House as a check and balance to make sure Members were fully engaged. When we conclude this final $2 million worth of work, we will have the information we need to put a package before this...

Madam Chair, can I ask the Member to give me the number, how much more or less it is than the numbers before us, without quoting the exact number?

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Thank you, Madam Chair. I would have to commit to get that from Public Works and Services. I don’t have the specific date when the first estimate was done.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member’s assessment is correct. The first step of the process is to improve the building envelope, the windows, the infiltration of air, the ventilation system, efficient lighting. Once that is done, then Public Works has indicated they will be considering this school for biomass heating.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you. We haven’t looked at resource rents per se. What we are looking at and what we’ve tried to invest money in over the years is, for example, to increase the amount of immigration into the Northwest Territories. Right now our population is either static or, in some cases, shrinking marginally, which has a significant negative effect on our Territorial Formula Financing Agreement. So in order to do that, we have to make sure we have a strong economy with jobs, and we have to work with all the groups and communities on things like affordable housing and the services that will attract...

Thank you. In fact, at every one of the seven communities where we had meetings, somewhere during the course of the evening we talked about the new revenues that are going to come, and that in our case they are tied most immediately to devolution, that we were not considering tax increases at this juncture, given the economic circumstance and fragility of the world economic landscape. So we’ve indicated that next time, and we’ve heard some other requests, as well, for full disclosure of all the budget numbers laid out more in keeping with the main estimates. So we heard a number of issues in...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 2, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2012, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.