Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Chair, part of the struggle in the economy in the resource sector has been a decline in what we initially budgeted for, so there’s been a significant decrease in the expectation of budgeting of that royalty. It’s reflected both in what we’re putting into our share of the Heritage Fund as well as what the 50 percent of federal government gets off the top or the 25 percent that the Aboriginal governments get. I will ask the deputy minister if he wants to add anything further.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here to present the 2015-2016 Main Estimates for the Department of Finance, totalling $221.3 million. This total includes the $85.4 million operating contribution to the NWT Housing Corporation. The department’s estimates, excluding this contribution, propose a decrease of $1.3 million, or 1 percent, from the 2014-2015 Main Estimates.

Highlights of the proposed estimates include:

an increase of $7.4 million in the contribution to the NWT Heritage Fund. The total contribution to the fund in 2015-2016 will be $7.6 million.

$10.1 million for the transfer of 25...

No, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member could expect to see another rate increase of single digits. The exact amount is not clear to me yet, but we protected against the rate cliff for four years and the price of diesel and the accommodation we have to make for that, the pressures have continued.

My understanding is the successful proponents in both of these cases could be run under the consignment model and they are reverting to a model that they have long experience with. We have consignment stores running across the land. Once again, we believe we have the capacity, where the systems are set up, with enough checks and balances and accountability to address the issues that the Member has raised. The issue or the concerns that should something go wrong that is totally unanticipated in all the processes and structures and consignment models that we now run, we have the ability to sort...

Mr. Chair, I am just harking back to the last government where there was a lot of work done on looking for savings and efficiencies. It took almost two years of discussion and debate. When there was a move to act on recommendations, we acted partially on some of the recommendations, not all. There was significant pushback from MLAs when we talked about inclusive schooling and people-teacher ratio, for example, and the re-profiling the overfunding that was going on at the time. When we moved to act on it, it was a hugely contentious issue, which I suppose speaks most clearly to the issue of...

We’ve been working extensively on this. There is projected to be some savings to the consumers in Yellowknife, and we’ll track all the liquor that goes through and all the money that’s made and we’ll be prepared to report back to committee after September when things kick into gear and we start getting some actuals to look at.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is an ability to move funds between activities. There is a report that’s done on a regular basis, interactivity transfers where we have to account for all the money that’s moved, how it’s moved and to ensure that it’s moved appropriately. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The contracts in Yellowknife don’t come into effect until September, so we won’t see any actuals until probably the end of the fiscal year by the time they go into business and we start seeing what the numbers true up to be.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have that level of detail with us but we can commit to provide it to committee.