Michael Miltenberger

Specifically in relation to the Sahtu, there are a number of things that are underway and being contemplated. The Member was at the budget dialogues, and the discussion was very clear the focus was on the next section of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Norman Wells to Wrigley section, and the need for roads.

The government has submitted, through the Minister of Transportation, an application for a special pot of money that exists at the federal level for initiatives and projects of national significance. We are making the case that this particular stretch of highway should meet that test...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will deliver the budget address on Thursday, February 5, 2015. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Return to Written Question 20-17(5), I wish to table the following document, entitled “NWT Debt.” Thank you.

The broad issue that has generated this debate and the one that we have been looking at as a government and the Assembly and what the charrette was focused on was the cost of living and the need to bring down the cost of energy, the need to look at things like roads and creating the conditions for economic development. The broad discussion of how we’re structured to deliver energy is an important one. The distribution side, the transmission side, for us, currently, as the Premier indicated, there is a franchise request possibly coming out from the Town of Hay River, and as the Premier...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m able to speak as the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation to what is within the purview of the Power Corporation, which is the rates that we have set, the thermal zone and the hydro zone, the rates being subsidized to the Yellowknife rate for our residences at a 700 kilowatt an hour cap and those types of things. I’m not in a position to speak on the NUL what I understand the Member’s asking about or anything that’s not within the specific purview of the Power Corporation. Thank you.

Health and Social Services, for example, is engaged in a transformative exercise to address that very issue, looking at avoiding duplication, the back office improvements, efficiencies, and move away from multiple disconnected boards to a more efficient one-board model. So that’s one example.

As well, we know there’s an interest and there’s a recognition between departments on the infrastructure side, where departments are now collaborating on building infrastructure that we need in communities: garages, warehouses, those types of things. We’ve had discussions with Deline, for example, where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would point out this is my third go-around in the Northwest Territories and we did three roundtables in Yellowknife last government where we brought people in. What has become clear to me – and it’s credit, I would suggest, both to having small communities and a small government – a lot of the concerns that I’ve heard going from community to community in the regional centres is very consistent with the concerns I’ve heard raised by the Members in this House. A lot of them focus on almost identical issues.

The people are very, for the most part, well informed who show...

There are two tools that are available that are in existence and have been for some time. Of course, the first one being the Business Incentive Policy which provides northern preference, in some cases local preference. Then, of course, there’s the opportunity from time to time, if all the right conditions are met, where negotiated contracts will be considered.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not wanting to get ahead of my budget address, I will make the observation that projections are for flat revenue growth between now and 2019, 2020. Anticipated growth of about less than half a percent, which means that the challenge for us is going to be to make sure that our expenditure growth does not exceed our revenue growth so that we can in fact maintain our Aa1 credit rating and all the other good financial indicators that we do have, like our debt to GDP ratio.

Mr. Speaker, first let’s just look at the bridge. Yes, it had some issues as it was built, but it has won, subsequently, all sorts of awards. I have talked to a lot of people about the bridge and I’ve asked them all the same question and there is always the same answer. Given some of the critics about the bridge and the dislike for the bridge and they don’t like how it was done and what it looks like, would you all go back to ferries and ice roads? It’s an unequivocal 100 percent no way. We love being able to go in and out. We love the service and access that the bridge gives us. If you...