Michael Miltenberger

Am I willing to do that and will I do it are two different questions.

---Laughter

I will say yes to both of them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think there’s a fundamental agreement that subsidies in the long term are not sustainable and not the goal of any operation like ours. But the reality is until we can make the cost of power affordable in the communities, we’ve embarked on the Territorial Power Support Program and in fact we also have $9 million in for a commercial subsidy to try to lower the cost of power and hopefully the food basket in communities. It is a cost, but for all of us that are on hydro, it’s something that we take for granted. The other thing that people on hydro never have to worry...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t had any discussions about taking an equity position in any major projects mainly because of fiscal constraints we experience as a government trying to look at the needs to run programs, looking at our revenues, looking at our expenditures and try to keep things affordable with our relatively modest borrowing limit that is already almost half subscribed to. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, FMB does say no with some regularity. They have a fairly tight hand on the purse strings, but we know that there are pressures in program areas that are important to all of us. The issue of the business planning process we started with capital planning, last year we split it out for the first time and I agree with the Member where we want to look at how things are working and if we have to adjust and fine tune and we should be looking to do that before we get too far into spring. Thank you.

I will refer the question to Minister Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. According to the information that we’ve provided, there was $120,000 on corporate human resource services; employee services for $600,000; for increased costs associated with employee medical travel and dental costs, $400,000 for that; and addressing the pay and benefits backlog, $300,000, and they have $80,000 put towards the Human Resource Strategy and policy. Thank you.

I would like to point out, as well, that the majority of this money is program money that is spent at the community level. The money for fuel and utilities is for the cost across the government in all of the communities, not just headquarters. We have built in the $60 million to try to do alternate energy to lower cost of living. We have a 9 percent increase for communities. I recognize the issue by the concern raised by the Member, but we have to keep in mind that a lot of this money is program money for communities. Thank you.

What we will commit to is, of course, to get the very latest information that we have in terms of any detail that would add or allow us to have a fully informed discussion. When we have that, we will share it with the Member and then we can arrange to have the discussions necessary to see not only Yellowknife but across the North where we are in the best position to take best advantage of this funding. Thank you.

Given the federal government’s stated commitment for a two-year stimulus and to use it or lose it, the more shovel ready projects we have are design ready, that are ready to be put in on the ground, I think is going to be a key criteria given the short time frames for the fund. Thank you.

Once again we can add that to the list. We’ll pull the IRMA agreement. The Member is very familiar with that. As we look at the issue and mapping out next steps, we’ll include that as part of the discussion, recognizing that there is also federal money in that mix.