Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a question with regards to interest expense as well. I thank Mr. Bromley for asking the initial one, but I guess I would like to know, considering that we are expecting a drop in our revenues, we keep talking about that, some $38 million, is that going to have an impact on our short-term borrowing? Is this figure for interest expense, the estimated amount; is it liable to be less than what we now anticipate the interest costs to be for 2014-15? Thank you.

So if there are some things that are going to be able to be moved forward on, they are going to be funded from within. Is that correct? I’m asking if there is new money in this budget for the ERI. Thank you.

So it’s going to show up in the infrastructure budget? Mr. Kalgutkar said the 2014-15 Capital Plan, if I heard him correctly. My understanding was that it wasn’t going to show until 2015-16. So I’m getting confused here. We have $45 million to expend. In 2015-16, I understand the Heritage Fund money will show up but the other money being used for infrastructure, where can I find that? Thank you.

Sorry I didn’t hear you, Mr. Chairman. It’s tough to hear over here. I want to echo Mr. Bromley’s comments about the reorganization. I think that has been a good thing. I presume that the Education Renewal Initiative work is being done under corporate management, and I just would like to know what section of corporate management the ERI comes under. I am presuming it’s planning, research and evaluation, but if I could get a bit of an explanation on that. How has that been funded, the whole work that has been done on the ERI? Has that been funded from within, or is there money in this budget...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a brief comment here. I had the same question with regard to the NWT Power Corporation general rate application funding. I am, I guess, pleased to see that this is the last year that we’re spending this money, but I want to reiterate that, like Mr. Bromley, I think we ought to be putting a larger focus on trying to decrease our cost of living, and I will have a question when we get to the page where we talk about the subsidy that we give to our residents in terms of electricity. But it seems to me that we have gone from $15 million to $9.5 million and now to slightly...

So that begs the question if our actuals are down that much, why are we estimating $11 million instead of $6 million? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. My other question has to do with the Financial Administration Act, which I know has, I think, for quite some time, been on their radar for the department to do some work. Can I get a sense from the Minister of when it will come forward to the House for first reading? Thank you.

That’s good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it belongs here. I wanted to ask the question about legislation. I wanted to say at the outset that I am extremely pleased that we’ve had first reading of the NEBS Act. It’s been a long time coming and I’m really glad that we managed to get that done.

I did want to ask, though, about whether or not there are any plans in the works on the part of the department to make any changes to the Petroleum Tax Act? It’s been mentioned a number of times by a number of Members and I can’t remember all the specific details, but I know that we don’t treat, we don’t tax all of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to just briefly comment on the motion. I talked earlier about the program review office and my concerns with that office. That motion – I want to point out to my colleagues – does not call for the removal of the program review office, as much as Mr. Dolynny would like us to go there. His motion does not ask for the program review office to be deleted. It asks for a review of the program review office by the government and I think that certainly a review of any program, intermittently, is a good thing. This is a new program, it’s a new service, it’s a new...