Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me from Finance, Mr. Mike Aumond; and Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the Financial Management Board Secretariat.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize if that information never got there. We were working over the weekend and fired this in to your folks. It’s only Monday and we’ve been in the House and in meetings ever since everybody convened Monday. We did send this in as soon as we had it ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here to present Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012. This document outlines an increase of $14.817 million in operations expenditures for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The major items included in the supplementary estimates are:

$3.335 million for the Department of Health and Social Services to provide contribution funding to the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority and the Stanton Territorial Health Authority for extraordinary costs that contributed to the accumulated deficits in these authorities. This amount will be...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would submit that we have to be able to do both in this time of transition. We can’t stop heating the buildings we currently have and put all that money into something that’s going to take a number of years to put into place. So we have to do both.

I agree with the Member that just doing what we’re doing is not sustainable, which is why we’ve invested all the money we have to date. I was going to ask Minister McLeod if he wanted to talk about some of the efforts that the Housing Corporation is making to control their costs, promote energy efficiency, collect rents and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people of the Northwest Territories have a stake in the ongoing development of the oil sands. Protecting our land and water from potential downstream impacts of development in Alberta is critical.

The Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring is a solid first step in addressing the concerns raised by Aboriginal peoples, scientists and concerned residents, both upstream and downstream, of impacts of the oil sands development on our waters.

This new oil sands monitoring plan is based on sound science and incorporates world-class tools to monitor...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member has articulated the difficulty at this level trying to manage a system worth a billion for 42,000 people spread over 1.3 or so million square kilometres.

We do, in fact, and have over the years attempted many times to reform government and have reformed government at different junctures, strength at two levels. In the beginning of the 16th Assembly, the government of the day wanted to re-profile $150 million I think it was, or $75 million for savings and some cuts. There was a huge cry over that. You look at things that are dear to people’s hearts. You talked...

The main extenuating circumstance with the Housing Corporation, of course, is the significant diminishment of funding from CMHC. They made a determination a number of years ago now that they’re getting out of funding O and M costs for public and social housing, and they’re doing that. The latest, I think, cut was over $900,000. We’re not shutting the houses down, so we carry the cost as long as we can. The Housing Corporation has been asked to fund that from within, but there comes a point where it’s not sustainable. We can’t afford to do that.

The other thing is when you look at our utilities...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, we’ve had this discussion before and there are two basic approaches that I’ve lived through in government. In the old days your current year budget was always based on how much you spent the previous year. Government would spend all their money and at year end they would drive up their budgets and get funding starting that year based on that figure. It was an unsustainable pattern of constant, uncontrollable growth. The Legislature said this is not the way to do business, we cannot control government expenditures, we do not have enough say. So we’re going...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s one central operation for blood services. They circulate it. They create the products. It’s a high-tech, highly specialized, very carefully controlled process. One of the reasons being, as I’ve indicated in some previous answers, were the concerns about infection and the Krever inquiry. We’re part of the Canadian Blood Services Board and we sit at the table with the other provinces and territories and the federal government, and we buy from a central location where these highly specialized products are made.

I appreciate the Member’s comments. There is constant pressure on government to do more and constant pressure in this Assembly, constant pressure from our constituents. I mean, I’ve heard it around the table: let’s add money to pave roads, let’s add money for compassionate travel, let’s add money, let’s build more, let’s do things. We have to make choices and this Legislature has the authority. If they say that we’re not going to spend this money and we’re not going to pay for it, I mean, that’s our choice. We’re saying and we’re making the case here that these are very critical programs and...