Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member has articulated the difficulty at this level trying to manage a system worth a billion for 42,000 people spread over 1.3 or so million square kilometres.
We do, in fact, and have over the years attempted many times to reform government and have reformed government at different junctures, strength at two levels. In the beginning of the 16th Assembly, the government of the day wanted to re-profile $150 million I think it was, or $75 million for savings and some cuts. There was a huge cry over that. You look at things that are dear to people’s hearts. You talked about board reform, supp health where people want to do things with good intentions but you get caught up in those types of circumstances. It is difficult.
We have, over the years, repatriated. That is why we have places like Trailcross and TTC here. The Member for Hay River will remember the effort it went through to get the unit built in Hay River to repatriate adults from the South that could be served up North. The number of children and adults in care has gone back up in the southern jurisdictions. As the Minister indicated, some have very specific, highly complex needs that we can’t meet up here. Others – the Member is right – we have to keep monitoring. If there are ones that we can build another facility and repatriate, yes, that is definitely an initiative we have to pay attention to. These things, though, take time. It is not an easy business that we are in, but, once again, I appreciate the Member’s comments. She and I have been labouring in the field a long time here. Prior to that, Social Services together as well, so it is a long, slow process and road. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. I have nobody further on the list. Are we done with general comments? Does committee agree?
Agreed.
General comments are concluded. We will go to detail. We will bypass pages 1 and 2 and go to page 3. Members, we are on page 3, Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012, Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, Office of the Clerk, not previously authorized, $128,000.
Agreed.
Expenditures on behalf of Members, not previously authorized, $349,000.
Agreed.
Okay. Total department, not previously authorized, $477,000.
Agreed.
Okay. Are we agreed we’re concluded the Legislative Assembly?
Agreed.
Alright. We’ll move on to the Executive. Executive, operations expenditures, Ministers’ offices, not previously authorized, negative $257,000.
Agreed.
Okay, we are agreed. Total department, not previously authorized, negative $257,000.
Agreed.
Okay. Page 5, Human Resources, operations expenditures, human resource strategy and policy, not previously authorized, $123,000.
Agreed.
We are agreed. Okay. Employee services, not previously authorized, $617,000. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Going back to what had been posted in previous Assemblies in terms of what’s been tabled in terms of supplementary in that area, that number keeps recurring time and time again in the tune of a little over a half a million dollars year in and year out for supplemental. Can the Minister, again, we talk about forced growth and predicting dental needs. I mean, there’s a certain pattern. If we’re not growing our employee base by that much and we know that there’s a delicate balance between full-time and part-time workers, aren’t we able to make better predictions and then not be having to come back time and time again with roughly the same amount of money all the time, Madam Chair?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to agree with the Member’s comments that this program area does see growth year to year. We have provided some forced growth to it in previous years, but it is a demand-driven program. One of the big reasons for the increased demand recently is the new collective agreements did increase the amount of benefits that employees were able to access. So that’s why you’re seeing this amount right now. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Kalgutkar. Mr. Dolynny.
No further questions. Thank you.
Okay, any other questions on employee services? Okay, employee services, not previously authorized, $617,000.
Agreed.
Total department, human resources, not previously authorized, $740,000.
Agreed.
Alright, Members, we will move on to page 6, Finance, operations expenditures, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $2.082 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an example of the sorts of management we could be doing to avoid these sorts of ongoing costs. I’m not satisfied with the earlier discussion, nor would I like to see this just provided in the budget on a routine basis. These costs are nothing short of ridiculous in this day and age. We insist on subsidizing energy costs and utility costs more and more, rather than dealing with them and reducing the costs. This is $2 million plus, Madam Chair, for the two items and I understand that the FMB has asked the Housing Corporation to report on how they are managing their energy costs.
Unfortunately this is a reflection of the government as a whole. Our opportunities to address these pass by year after year and we keep paying through the nose. Fortunately some of our residents and some of our businesses are finally moving out on their own and removing themselves from the system, providing their own energy, which of course makes our costs even greater and less efficient. So that is a big question, but the heating fuel, $600,000-plus, electricity $1 million-plus, these are big sums of money, Madam Chair, and they could easily put in infrastructure such as, for example, distributed energy systems and a distributed energy grid whereby people could start contributing to the grid and reducing costs.
There’s also very, very little that we’re doing to encourage energy conservation and so on, provide alternative, but cheaper forms of energy. I just don’t see the commitment of this government to that and I see a willingness to continue to just pay the piper on these things. So I guess, you know, what can we say? We can only bang our heads against a brick wall so much and I’m willing to butt my head even more this time around. So I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve always heard tell that when you’re banging your head against a brick wall the one good thing about it is that it feels so good when you stop.
I appreciate the Member’s concern. We have, as the Member knows, very few new dollars in the budget for alternative energy. We had $60 million. Our fiscal circumstances are such that after the end of this coming month of March that money will be concluded, sunsetted, and we’re now in a position of trying to find some money to continue the many initiatives we have underway in terms of conservation of energy efficiencies, alternate energy, biomass, wind, sun, solar, all those type of things, construction standards, incentives for people to be more energy efficient.
So I appreciate the Member’s concern, but in the meantime these are costs that we just can’t flip a switch and avoid. It’s infrastructure change that is going to take more time than we have before us in the next few weeks. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Bromley, anything further?
Well, Madam Chair, I’ve been elected to not necessarily bang my head against the wall, but I have to try until I’m no longer in this position.
The Minister says no, we’re just going to keep doing this. That’s just not good enough. We’re struggling to get an increase in our debt limit and I guarantee that this investment would pay back big time, pay back periods of whatever, five to eight years. How long have we been doing this? We know this is going to continue until we’re completely out of federal dollars, 2034 or ‘37, whatever it is, and how long have we been doing this? This just makes sense to invest these dollars into enjoying these gains and reducing our cost of living for our people.
So I just don’t accept that argument, and meanwhile we talk about taking on big new projects that are incredibly expensive, hundreds of millions of dollars with extremely modest returns, if any. The returns are conditional on other big things happening that are not going to happen, or little evidence that they’re going to happen. So I will be watching to see what we do at the end of this fiscal year and the beginning of the next. I think this is an improper use of funds and it’s our responsibility if we don’t take advantage of these opportunities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would submit that we have to be able to do both in this time of transition. We can’t stop heating the buildings we currently have and put all that money into something that’s going to take a number of years to put into place. So we have to do both.
I agree with the Member that just doing what we’re doing is not sustainable, which is why we’ve invested all the money we have to date. I was going to ask Minister McLeod if he wanted to talk about some of the efforts that the Housing Corporation is making to control their costs, promote energy efficiency, collect rents and all these other good things, with your indulgence, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Housing Corporation obviously recognizes that we have to cut our costs and is listening to some of the comments made by the Member in the past and some of the advice that he’s given on going to more multi-unit type facilities so that we can cut back on the heating. We’re upgrading and replacing a lot of older units with more energy-efficient ones. We’re trying to be more energy conscious in our renovations. Energy-efficient fixtures, there are LHOs that are replacing a lot of their incandescent lights. There’s LHOs that are replacing a lot of their toilets with low-flow. Those seem to be working really well. I know of one in particular where the return on that and the water consumption has actually gone down by quite a bit.
We’re doing what we can. Obviously we don’t like to be in this position where we have to come back for money again. I point out the fact that had we collected a portion of the rent or revenue that was due us, then we wouldn’t have to be coming back looking for more money to offset some of the utility costs.
The utility costs, unfortunately, are going up, but I can assure the Member, and I think I’ve assured him in the past that we are constantly on the lookout for ways that we can improve the energy efficiency of our units and the amount of electricity and fuel that they use, because it’s very high. An estimated $20.7 million will be spent on utility costs for public housing in 2011-2012 and $7.2 million in heating fuel, $7 million in electricity, and $6.5 million in water and sanitation. It’s a huge cost driver to the NWT Housing Corporation.
Again, we try not to pass those costs on to the tenants as much as we can, but we’re getting to be in a position where we’re going to have to, it doesn’t answer the Member’s question as to what are we doing.
As much as he thinks that we’re sitting idly by and just coming to the trough every year, it’s not the case. Having worked in the housing industry for 23 years, going from back then to what I see today, the improvement is night and day. There’s still a lot of work to be done and we’ll continue to plug along and make sure that we design as much energy efficiency into our units as we can.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bromley, I’ll put you back on the list. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The beautiful thing about being a Regular Member is that there are times we’ll have differing points of view and sometimes I have that with the Member for Weledeh. In this case I agree with him 100 percent. I just want to make sure that’s on the record.
Taking that one step further with respect to this amount of money and looking at the breakdown that we see here, the breakdown I want to make reference to is just the electricity component itself. We’re seeing a variance percent here of about 15 percent in terms of a supplemental, which is quite a bit higher than the rest of the utilities. Again, the Minister made reference to CMHC and stuff, but really we’re talking about a supplementation of $1.7 million here.
I want to focus my question around that 15 percent variance and the reason why I say that is if one has to go through a lot of the old Hansards and look at some of the comments made by certain Ministers or the Minister of Finance, we’re hearing that the electricity rates being used by the end user from the Housing Corporation has been relatively constant or consistent, I think is what nomenclature has been used. As a Regular Member, if I’m hearing that if the consumption has been relatively constant, if we use that as a variable in the equation and we know that the government pays market rates and it’s subsidized through the residential power for these housing authorities, somehow this math doesn’t make sense because we know that electricity rates haven’t risen by 15 percent in the 2010-2011 budget year. They’ve gone up somewhat; I don’t know that percentage off the top of my head. So I guess if usage is constant and the rates are slightly high, how is it that that percentage could be so high? Mathematically there’s something missing in that equation. If the Minister could maybe clarify that and shed some light on that, that would definitely help me appreciate and understand the math here a little bit better.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I can give the Member some numbers and if they don’t work, I’ll turn it over to Mr. Kalgutkar.
For a territorial average the budget base rate of power is 53.91 cents per kilowatt. The 2011-2012 rate of cost is 69.72 cents, which is a 15.81 cent variance or 22.617 percent. So there is a difference between what they are budgeted for and what the cost actually is; what they have in their budget.
Maybe I’ll ask Mr. Kalgutkar. I notice you have that look that you want more information. I’ll ask Mr. Kalgutkar maybe to speak further to this.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister did state it correctly. The base rate that the Housing Corporation currently has in its budget was based on 2006-2007 rates. That was the last time we gave them a funding increase for utilities. The rates have seen some growth since then. As the Minister said, the average rate for the 2011-2012 fiscal year is around 69.72 cents per kilowatt hour. So there was an increase of about 23 percent since the 2006-2007 adjustment.
Thank you, Mr. Kalgutkar. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not going to question the math on the base rate but again this number hasn’t been negotiated previous to coming down to the House today. I would have appreciated having that in previous discussion on this, if possible. That said, have these numbers for base rates been published that are accessible for Members and the general public?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize if that information never got there. We were working over the weekend and fired this in to your folks. It’s only Monday and we’ve been in the House and in meetings ever since everybody convened Monday. We did send this in as soon as we had it ready.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We did receive this document. I’m not sure, but I think Mr. Dolynny was asking if this perhaps could be made public, this information. Would you like to clarify, Mr. Dolynny?
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Again, part two of my question was exactly that. Is this information or can this information be made available to the general public to see some of the baseline numbers that the Housing Corporation or even our government are using when we’re talking base rates? We know there are lots of rider rates out there. The power rate system is very complicated, even though I know past Assemblies have tried to make this more streamlined and I give them credit for doing so, but it is still very confusing. The question is: Can this information be made public or available so that people can follow the map when they see this information presented?
