Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to welcome a couple of members from Nunakput, Laila Noksana, Whitney Carpenter, and also William Greenland, who's in the House, and also Chief Ernest Betsina, and also everyone in the gallery, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Recognition of visitors from the gallery. Member for Hay River South, Mr. Schumann.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize my beautiful wife Lori Schumann here today for coming down for the Second Session and everyone else in the gallery.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to recognize Darrell Beaulieu with the Denendeh Investment Corporation and also Tom Hoefer, the executive director for the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, and everybody else that's come to visit us.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I'd like to give recognition of course to our distinguished and honoured guest here today, Mr. Whitford, who is also a resident of Yellowknife North. Thank you. I want to also recognize our Pages and we'd be lost without them. Our Pages from the riding of Yellowknife North that I'd like to acknowledge today are Niva Stephenson, Aurora Nind, Laila Noksana, Grace Clark, Sophie Clark, Shiri MacPherson, and Ida Fells. Also, I'd like to acknowledge a resident of Yellowknife North previously acknowledged, Ann Little, who also is the mother of our fellow MLA for Yellowknife Centre, Ms. Green. We also have in the gallery today Mr. John Stephenson, a resident of Yellowknife North and the chair for YK1, and all other folks that might be here from Yellowknife North today.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize constituents from the Deh Cho riding and congratulate the new elected mayor of Enterprise, Craig McMaster, and also leaders that perhaps I can’t see, so I'd like to acknowledge their presence as well, and at the same time, recognize people from the New Day Program: Laura, Lisa, and William as well.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Thebacha, Mr. Sebert.
I'd like to recognize my wife who has come here from Fort Smith today, and also my good friend Jim Umpherson from Yellowknife.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. There's been a lot of stories in the media, a lot of talk about the government's fiscal strategy. The Premier has issued a press release. I am glad to hear that Territorial Formula Financing reduction from the federal government is not as much as first indicated. I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance to tell us what things the government is considering to increase revenues. Thank you.
Masi, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will be tabling a revenue options paper early in this session that we had an opportunity to share with Committee, and it points out a number of options we're looking at as far as increasing our revenue.
In the recent press release that I referred to in my first question, the Premier said the government needs to take decisive action to keep our fiscal problems from getting bigger. There are a lot of rumours about what decisive action means. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance what decisive actions are being considered to resolve the fiscal problem.
Decisive action is ensuring that our expenditures don't run away from the revenue that we're able to generate, and we have tasked our officials with putting some of the options together. They will share them with Cabinet, and I will share them with committee. Depending on some of the direction that we take, they will come forward in the May/June budget cycle.
I know the government typically borrows money at the end of each year for short-term until the following year's budget is approved. This is basically bridge financing. In 2014-15, a total of $242 million was borrowed, which is a jump of about $200 million from 2010. I would like to know where this government is going on short-term borrowing. Roughly, what is the goal of the short-term borrowing at the end of this Assembly in 2019-2020?
In the last number of years we've had to use some short-term borrowing, usually beginning of the fall, as our expenditures continue to out-strip our revenues. This is not an option that we want to use too often. I mean, the option's there, we will take advantage of it, but our goal at the end of the day is to ensure that our expenditures don't exceed our revenue.
Masi. Final supplementary. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In order to keep the short-term borrowing down, as the Minister indicated, we will need to have more revenues and possibly even cuts to the government. Would the Minister give us a rough estimate for the next year? What is expected to be gained in revenues and how much, if any, is expected to be saved through cuts?
Again, we have prepared a revenue options paper that will look at some of our potential revenue options. As far as the reductions, we're still going through that exercise right now. We will get some decision from Cabinet. I have committed to working with committee to keep them up-to-date as to what we do. Then we will see it go through the business planning process, which is in April and May, and whatever feedback we have back from committee and our back-and-forth, and that'll determine what we table as the main estimates in the May/June budget session.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was delighted to hear in the opening address that the government wants to create solutions to address homelessness, so my questions today are for the Minister responsible for Homelessness. Does the Minister support Housing First as a solution to chronic homelessness in Yellowknife?
Masi, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for Addressing Homelessness.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I do look at Housing First as a viable model for addressing homelessness. However, it is one model and one area. Even with Housing First, there will still be other avenues that we need to seek to alleviate homelessness altogether.
My question for the Minister responsible for Homelessness is whether the government is prepared to match the federal contribution of $306,000 annually to Housing First in Yellowknife.
As the Minister of Finance spoke, we are still in the middle of looking at the budget allocations. We do know that the federal government is looking at social infrastructure as a priority. Until that federal budget is allocated, we're expecting at the end of the March, we won't know exactly what we'll be looking at putting on the table.
My final question for the Minister is whether the government is prepared to increase the level of clinical support available to people whose mental health and addictions have made them homeless? That's the staff to go with the housing piece.
As most Members know, I'm assuming, is that homelessness is not just one department. Housing is not the only department. The whole GNWT has different aspects of homelessness, so at the current time the GNWT is looking internally. We'll be working with the departments and with the Standing Committee on Social Development, which I met with the chair yesterday and asked to get a meeting immediately, as soon as your committee is formed, so that we can all work together in addressing homelessness and looking at what the wraparound services would look like.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. During my Member’s statement, I talked about building capacity, so I'd like to ask the Minister, could you please explain to us the process for selecting mission staff regarding the Arctic Winter Games?
Masi, Member for Nahendeh. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have an agreement with Sport North that manages our games. They put a call out for advertisements in the paper for mission staff for the games that are coming up. Apparently, this year they had 80 applications, and they chose them. My understanding is they wanted to get a bit of a regional balance and that too, so that's the process that they use for the selection of mission staff.
Regarding regional balance, six communities out of the 33 have 11 spots. Could you please explain to me what the regional balance is, what they're talking about?
At this point, I'll remind the Members to direct your questions through the Speaker. Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
I would have to have a discussion with Sport North. If you look at the names that came forward and the communities that they were from, I mean the Member's correct, there were a number of communities that weren't included in this. A lot of the folks chosen were from some of the regional centres. I can have that discussion with them and see if there are ways that we can include a lot of the smaller communities. They look at, as I said before, they want a regional-type balance, a gender balance, and they try to get as many people that have been involved in sports before. But I take the Member's point and I will have that discussion.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize, and I’ll direct my questions to the Speaker. I thank the Minister for that response. Is there a rubric that they use to identify how they select their candidates for the mission staff?
I will follow up with Sport North and have a discussion with them as to the criteria that they use for the selection of their mission staff, and again, they are paying attention to the conversation that we're having in here today, so I'm sure that they will take steps to ensure that there's a greater regional balance and small community balance in the future.
Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member's statement, I have questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. Through my last constituency meeting in the community of Tsiigehtchic, my constituents wanted to know why the Housing Corporation is planning to start bringing in modular homes. For many years, our residents in our communities have built the units in each community, so my question to the Minister is: can the Minister explain why the Housing Corporation has chosen to switch to the shipping modular housing units instead of building basic homes in our communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi, Member for Mackenzie Delta. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to start with now, all market housing within the communities were put out to public tender. All of the market housing that the Housing Corporation are currently contracting with are northern contractors, and they were approved through the Business Incentive Policy. The modulars that you speak of are designed to meet the Housing Corporation design guidelines, as well as national building codes which are the same standards used for stick-built units constructed by the NWT Housing Corporation.
It sounds to me like the department is supporting taking jobs away from our communities, and that's exactly what is going on here. My question is why is the department not building these homes in our communities instead of shipping them from Alberta?
