Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for his comments and I will defer the response to the Minister of Transportation. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, listening to the Member’s questions today and over the last few days, it would seem to be that the issue the Member is talking about, he would like some specific confirmation and assurance that what water testing is taking place in the communities at the community level where the water is being put into people’s houses and they are using for daily use, that is one issue that would be an area that MACA has responsibility for. The issue of the broader aquatic ecosystems, the water basin, working with Alberta and the federal government and regional governments up and down the valley...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. Just if I could speak to some of the major points he’s made.

The federal government, Ottawa, sees the Tuk-Inuvik highway as a first step to the completion of the Mackenzie Highway. That’s very clear to us. The timing piece is important. Since we’ve been elected and we’ve had this discussion, we were elected in October and we picked a government in the middle of October, we had a capital session in December. We were also in significant discussions with the federal government about the borrowing limit and our ability to in fact engage in...

Clearly, over the time from 2000 to the present, there have been significant cost increases. The price of oil, for example, is now, as of this morning, slightly over $100 a barrel. We’ve made huge investments in the communities in terms of infrastructure, housing, roads, schools, sewer, water, you name it. We’ve invested in our territorial highways. We’ve negotiated collective agreements with the staff. Our staff have increased, as the Member himself noted in his statement, over 26 percent, and we are still running behind the curve. We have hospitals to build. For example, we have almost a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank Mr. Hawkins for the synopsis of the results of the meetings so far, and at this point I just accept those comments and the summary. Thank you.

Over the last few years we have had roundtables on economic development, roundtables on dealing with revenue options. We are as well looking forward to, in the life of this Assembly, moving that show on the road where we will go to regional centres and we will meet and do pre-budget consultation with the communities and with the regions. We also have other activities through the daily work of Ministers that are involved in economic development. As well where we’re looking for that type of feedback, we’re currently negotiating for collective agreements with the various unions that are going to...

We appreciate the Member’s summing up of his concerns. Of course, the government takes a different approach that time is important, that we need to do the work to get the information. As the Member for Mackenzie Delta pointed out, in actual fact, by next winter this will actually be drawing things back not one year but two. So I appreciate the Member’s comments, but as Ms. Bisaro had indicated, there will come a time when we will agree to disagree and this will be one of those times.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we’ve discussed throughout this supplementary appropriation, the process here is fairly set in that there hasn’t been, in many cases like forest fire fighting, or the food in this case, adjustments to the base budget. Rather, we’ve kept coming back and making a case through supplementary appropriation if that’s necessary. In this case, it’s a lot driven by the fluctuating inmate count. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out at this juncture as we talk about the need to have better information on the water, better decision-making as it pertains to water at a time when the federal government is cutting billions of dollars out of their various departmental programs to save anywhere between $4 million and $8 billion this year. They are looking at a lot of cases, scientists and Environment and Natural Resources and a lot of resources that they currently have are going to disappear.

We are pursuing this as a GNWT initiative with some partners that we are working with...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could just restate this sequence: Without the comfort that we achieve on the borrowing limit, any discussion was academic. It was a moot point because without the money it wouldn’t have been advanced. We weren’t in a position to bring it forward for consideration until we reached a point in our discussion on the borrowing limit that we had that comfort. There is no attempt to mislead, as the Member’s indicating. It’s unfortunate that she’s got these trust issues, but clearly we’ve been trying to follow this process to the T. Once again I will ask Mr. Ramsay if he...