Community justice and corrections, not previously authorized. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m sorry; I’d like to go back to the first item, law enforcement. I did have a question with regard to the expenditure, the third expenditure for $206,000 to provide funding for our share of increased costs with regard to the new RCMP allowance policy, I guess, or backup policy.
I know that this policy has been in place for I think maybe two years now, perhaps a little longer, but I’d like to know whether or not this policy is going to have an impact on us in the future. We’ve got an expenditure here which is beyond our budgeted amount in this particular year. Is this something which is going to have an impact on our budget ongoing or forever, or are we liable to get more funding from the federal government to help us deal with their backup policy which requires us to spend more money on our policing?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed to go back to law enforcement?
Agreed.
Thank you. Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This funding will be an ongoing requirement and in fact we have provided for some funding to be included in the 2012-2013 Main Estimates when they are considered by the standing committees.
Thanks to Mr. Kalgutkar. I guess I just would like an explanation then. Is this our share of the extra costs because of the backup policy, or are we bearing more of a cost than the federal government is in this? Or is this the same 70/30 percent share that we have with all of our other RCMP expenses? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s part of our share of the cost-sharing arrangement, which is 70/30. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Law enforcement, not previously authorized, $840,000.
Agreed.
Community justice and corrections, not previously authorized. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My question will be with respect to the HALT amount for $100,000 here, and understanding full well that this is a flow-through program. It looks like this has been a frontload on behalf of the government here for $100,000, but what’s more troubling is that this is in phase four of, obviously, a phase one, two, three and now a phase four project. We’re talking about supplementals here. Can the Minister give us some idea why this is not included in the base funding?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This particular program is application based, and we just finally got word from the federal government that we were successful in our application for this fourth component. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Community justice and corrections, not previously authorized, $908,000. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a question with regard to the last item, the funding required to address the increased costs of food. Like other Members, I’m having great difficulty understanding why we couldn’t have seen that we were going to need a higher budgeted amount for food costs at our corrections facilities across the territory. My understanding is that we have budgeted the same amount for corrections facilities for food for about the last three, four or five years. To the Minister, I’d like to know how often we adjust our base funding. I know sometimes it’s done every year, but in this particular case it’s been four or five years since the base funding has been adjusted. Do we have any method by which we do an analysis of what we’re spending? Do we look at trends over, say, the last two years and determine that there needs to be an increase in base funding, or do we wait four and five years before we do that analysis? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As we’ve discussed throughout this supplementary appropriation, the process here is fairly set in that there hasn’t been, in many cases like forest fire fighting, or the food in this case, adjustments to the base budget. Rather, we’ve kept coming back and making a case through supplementary appropriation if that’s necessary. In this case, it’s a lot driven by the fluctuating inmate count. Thank you.
I guess I would like to know from the Minister, you know, I understand that this is something that we do. We keep the same amount of money for a number of years, but does the department do an analysis of trends from one year to the next or over the last two or three years and, therefore, look at increasing base funding based on trends? Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Through the annual business planning process, primarily through the forced growth, departments make submissions for forced growth to their base funding if they can demonstrate through factual information that they’re actually incurring these costs and they have no other options to mitigate those costs. In some cases the costs of the item which they are looking for is volatile – sometimes it goes up; sometimes it goes down – and in many cases departments have abilities to mitigate the impact of cost increases. It’s only when they can’t mitigate and they can substantiate the request through that one time of the year, which is the business planning process, that they’re allotted forced growth. If they can’t, and otherwise they get caught by surprise throughout the year for unexpected circumstances which they could not have anticipated or they could not mitigate, then they come through the supplementary process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Community justice and corrections, not previously authorized, $908,000.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, Department of Justice, $1.748 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, activity, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $28,000.
Agreed.
Income security, not previously authorized, $1.779 million.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $1.751 million.
Agreed.
Moving on to the Department of Transportation. Activity, airports, not previously authorized, $280,000.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $280,000.
Agreed.
Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, activity, economic diversification and business support, not previously authorized, $63,000.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $63,000.
Agreed.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, activity, corporate management, not previously authorized, negative $104,000.
Agreed.
Forest management, not previously authorized, negative $963,000.
Agreed.
Total department for Environment and Natural Resources, not previously authorized, negative $1.067 million.
Agreed.
Does the committee agree that we have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 3-17(2), Supplementary Estimates, (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012? Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Mr. Menicoche.
