Wendy Bisaro

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for advising me of that. I’m not suggesting that the government needs to be totally responsible, but legislation, if we put it in place, certainly would provide the need for people to buy and install AEDs. This is a difficult situation. Obviously, GNWT does not have any kind of a policy, we don’t have any department, from the sounds of things, that is responsible for this particular issue.

I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not he would be willing to commit to discussing this issue with Cabinet, whether or not he could then, after discussion...

I think it’s getting slightly less murky. So, we’re still working with an estimate of revenues for ’14-15, so it could go down at any time, I guess, or in May we’ll get a better idea and it could go down. If I understand rightly, the $30 million that the Minister has referenced that we’ve lost is basically revenue in this current budget year. It sounds to me like the revenue we expected in the ’13-14 year didn’t come through. Am I right on that? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that and I can advise the Minister that there are defibrillators in every NorthMart or in every Northern Store within the territory, which is good to know. So some buildings have them and some buildings don’t. We obviously don’t have a policy within the GNWT and I would suggest that’s someplace that we need to go.

I would like to ask the Minister whether or not we have, apart from what he’s listed, a registry that encompasses all the defibrillators that exist within the NWT, all the places where they are. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I need to ask some questions about the revenues and taxation. I’m still struggling to understand these numbers. The Minister, in his budget address, indicated that we were down about $30 million in terms of taxation, and I think he referenced both personal and corporate income tax when he said that. I just heard the deputy minister say that our personal income tax has gone down, and yet I look at these numbers in the book and I’ve got almost $105 million in ’14-15 for personal income tax and $87 million in ’13-14 for personal income tax, so I don’t get where it has gone...

NWT legislation would provide clear protection from liability, would designate the public places where AEDs must be made available, and ensure that AEDs are registered and properly maintained so they’re ready for use when they’re needed. By setting in place protocols for distributing and maintaining these lifesaving tools, we can protect NWT residents from loss of life. We could be on the leading edge of health care for our residents.

I will have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time.