Wendy Bisaro

Mr. Speaker, it just does not compute for me. We are comparing apples and oranges and I cannot understand how it’s okay for us to record the revenues… It’s an accounting entry, I think the Minister said. So we are recording an accounting entry and it’s okay for revenues but we won’t do an accounting entry for expenses. So on the one hand we’re taking advantage and on the other hand the government is also taking advantage and saying we’re not going to do it in ‘14-15, we’ll do it in ‘15-16.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he can tell me, since 5 percent is presumably what the budget was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions to the Minister of Finance. I want to follow up on my statement and also follow up from my colleagues’ questions earlier.

I would like to say that I appreciate the government’s willingness to do the right thing and put 25 percent of our new resource revenues into the Heritage Fund, but I am unable to reconcile the Minister’s words with the numbers that are in our budget. As I stated in my statement, the request was to put that money in -14-15, not in ‘15-16.

Mr. Bromley has asked this already, but I don’t believe I heard an answer, so I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike my colleagues, I will not be putting aside my statement today, and I want to talk about the Heritage Fund. I want to speak to the report that I tabled yesterday from the Action Canada Fellows, titled “A Question of Future Prosperity, Developing a Heritage Fund in the Northwest Territories.” That report had six recommendations and I’d like to comment briefly on each one of them.

The first one is to establish clear fund objectives and allocate more than 5 percent of annual resource royalties to the Heritage Fund. We’ve heard from the Finance Minister earlier today...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That confirms what I had believed, that yes, it’s not in there.

The Minister, in his budget address, talked about 5 percent. Today was the first day that I heard that he was talking about 5 percent in ‘15-16. In all our discussions previous to this, I have never been advised that this 5 percent was not intended for the ‘14-15 budget.

I don’t have a question here, but I am quite dismayed that we’ve been led down a garden path and the only amount that’s going into the Heritage Fund for this ‘14-15 year is $250,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of questions that don’t need to be answered today. Many of them are rhetorical, but in looking at the budget address, I found it raised a number of questions in my mind. I don’t need answers that are detailed, but I do want to raise a number of concerns that I have.

Right off the top, the budget address stated that Members had helped with the budget. Yes, we certainly had input into the budget. We certainly had any number of meetings where we provided our comments, but like other Members, I don’t really feel that this budget reflects the handprint of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table the report of the Action Canada Fellows, entitled “A Question of Future Prosperity: Developing a Heritage Fund in the Northwest Territories.

I guess I need to say to the Minister that if I had asked for this information through his office, it probably wouldn’t have arrived in time for me to communicate that information to my constituents in advance of that meeting, so I have a real difficulty with everything having to go through his office.

I would like to ask the Minister, if he needs to track every request that comes from a Minister’s office, why cannot requests for public information asked of one of his staff of the department, why can that staff person, or a communications person, why can they not track that information or that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement and see if I can get some clarity as to the department’s policies.

I would like to first ask the Minister, what is the policy of Education, Culture and Employment, the department and/or the Minister around communicating public information to MLAs, either the MLA themselves or their staff? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to my colleagues for your indulgence in letting me finish off my list.

I wanted to just say that at the outset I think the Minister misunderstood what I was saying about the hydro. I know that the business case that we did before was for a different project. I think my concern is that we haven’t done preliminary analysis to determine that there’s a valid reason to go ahead with a detailed business case. The term throwing good money after bad kind of comes to my mind. I just wanted to get that out of the way.

My other point that I want to make on the hydro is that I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 22-17(5), opening comments or general comments on the budget. Thank you.