Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled “Public Accounts 2014-2015.”

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to provide Members with more background on our fiscal situation. As Members heard on February 16, 2016, the federal Finance Minister announced a partial restoration of $24 million in annual Territorial Formula Financing funding lost through the unintended consequences of the data methodology revisions. While this is welcome news, the GNWT has already included a scenario in its fiscal forecast presented to Members that included the partial restoration of the Territorial Formula Financing. The problem, however, has not changed. The GNWT...

Speaking as the Minister responsible for Infrastructure, I can tell you that if the City decides to proceed with the bid, and subject to direction from the Financial Management Board, the NWT Housing Corporation is prepared to enter and negotiate a 70/30 split on the construction of an athletes' village that will meet the needs of the Canada Winter Games and the NWT Housing Corporation for public housing. Given the expected increase in the number of seniors, this would also be a project that would benefit the seniors in the Northwest Territories as well. There is a possibility that we can use...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First, I need to preface anything I say about the Canada Winter Games by stating that I can’t speak for the will of the House, its Members, committees, or the actions of future government. It is understood that a games bid by the City of Yellowknife would require the GNWT to support its share of the operational infrastructure requirements as per the standard Canada Winter Games tri-party agreement. If the City makes a bid, the GNWT will mobilize our departments to come up with potential financing models to meet the GNWT funding obligations. Our initial take was that...

I can actually ask the Member that question in his former role, so I've got to be careful what I say here.

---Laughter

Our regional staff are all very involved in the Arctic Winter Games trials and the selection of athletes. It's actually a part of what they do and it’s part of what they believe in, supporting the athletes that are getting out there, so they would play a role in helping to organize trials and working to get athletes to the next level.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that they do have local and regional trials, and if they make it through the regional trials, if they get to the territorial trials, usually there's some criteria in place. I think if there's an international trip like there is at this particular Arctic Winter Games, there's an expectation that they would have passport applications and the ability to access passports as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are working on the options now, and for me to say anything in here about those options would pre-empt our consultation with committee. We are going to have our meetings with committee and then through the business planning process, committee will have an opportunity for feedback to the government before we develop our main estimates for the May/June session. Committee will have an opportunity to see what some of the plans are for the upcoming budget. Then, during the business planning or the budget process, we have a number of different options in place as far as letting everyone know if...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given the timing of the elections and the need to get our budget through, for this particular year our plan is to proceed with working with committee and we're hoping that we get a lot of feedback from the public through the Members of this Assembly. We've heard from a number of people their views on the budget, but given the timing of the election and our need to get the budget through, it was not in our plan to do an actual public consultation this year. However, that may change in the future when we have a bit more time to develop our business plan and...

The Canada Winter Games 2023 is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the city of Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories to those across the country with the national exposure it will get as far as media coverage goes. As far as a hotel levy, I think there are some amendments that need to be made to municipal legislation that would allow the local municipal governments to, through bylaw, create, collect, and administer levies on hotels. Until that legislation is done there is nothing stopping them from creating a destination-marketing fee that would apply only to the city or to each...

One of the things we need to remember is that it is seven years until the Canada Winter Games in 2023, and there are seven GNWT planning cycles prior to that. This gives us some time and flexibility to come up with the necessary funding to support our part of the Canada Winter Games.