Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Committee, we’re open for general remarks on the Legislative Assembly. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to let the Assembly know that I certainly wanted to say how pleased I was with the introduction of the first Elders’ Parliament that you’re going to have this year. I think it’s a unique approach. It gives the elders who are going to participate in the parliament a sense of what us young leaders go through, a sense of the work. I think this is a good initiative that should be successful. You always have something to learn and it will be very good. I was talking to some of my elders in Deline over the past weekend and they’re quite excited about this. So I think that’s a good move on behalf of the Speaker and the staff to move on this initiative, and I look forward to seeing how the Elders’ Parliament is going to come out in terms of some of the issues that the elders would be speaking on, in terms of their participation in the parliament, in this Assembly here.
I want to just make note of that, Mr. Chair, in terms of my comments to the Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and his staff there. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Yakeleya. General comments. Does committee agree this concludes general comments?
Agreed.
Mr. Speaker, response to general comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments from the Member for the Sahtu. We have had a fair bit of interest shown in this Elders’ Parliament and we’re going to work to make it as successful a week as possible with the elders when they come here. Thanks for those comments.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does committee agree we go to detail?
Agreed.
We will defer the department summary, operations expenditure summary, on page 1-7, and start with page 1-8, information item, Legislative Assembly, infrastructure investment summary. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 1-9, information item, revenue summary. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 1-10, information item, active position summary. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 1-13, activity summary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Can I just get a brief on the other, on 1-13, $574,000?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I believe that was more detail on other? Is that correct? Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll just get that information on the other expenditures here. I’ll refer the question to Olin, and he’ll run down the list of other expenses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ll go to Mr. Lovely for this response.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The other expenditure is $571,000 for the interest expense on the Legislative Assembly building payment. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Once again, committee, we’re on page 1-13, activity summary, Legislative Assembly, Office of the Clerk, operations expenditure summary, $8.277 million.
Agreed.
Page 1-14, information item, Office of the Clerk, active positions. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 1-17, activity summary, Office of the Speaker, operations expenditure summary, $323,000.
Agreed.
Page 1-18, information item, Legislative Assembly, Office of the Speaker, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 1-21, activity summary, expenditures on behalf of Members, operations expenditure summary, $6.805 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 1-23, activity summary, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, operations expenditure summary, $372,000.
Agreed.
Page 1-24, information item, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 1-27, activity summary, statutory officers, operations expenditure summary, $1.462 million.
Agreed.
Page 1-28, activity summary, statutory officers, grants and contributions, contributions, $258,000.
Agreed.
Just for clarity, committee, that was $250,000.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 1-29, information item, statutory officers, active positions. Questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. If you’ll turn back to page 1-7 for consideration of the department summary. Department summary, operations expenditure summary, Legislative Assembly, $17.239 million.
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree that that concludes the Legislative Assembly?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Thank you to Mr. Speaker and your witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
Does committee agree that next will be the Department of Finance?
Agreed.
So be it. I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance if he would like to present some opening remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to present the Department of Finance’s main estimates for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
The department’s 2010-11 Main Estimates propose O and M expenditures of $76.528 million. This represents an increase of $1.658 million or 2 percent from the 2009-10 Main Estimates.
In October 2009 the Department of Finance released its Strategic Action Plan 2009-2012, which provides multiyear direction for the department. The plan includes strategic initiatives flowing from two overarching strategic priorities, these being fiscal sustainability and modern management. These strategic priorities are critical to the long-term success of the GNWT and flow to departmental initiatives and action items.
The Department of Finance will continue the GNWT’s longer term broad-based initiative to modernize government management in order to better respond to changing expectations and priorities. Key activities aimed at identifying and addressing areas for improvement within the current management framework include:
investing $200,000 to continue the renewal of the Knowledge Management Strategy;
modernizing the Financial Administration Act, associated financial policies, procedures and directives;
continuing to implement and maintain the new financial information system, SAM, by investing $338,000 for incremental support costs and an additional $595,000 in amortization expense to reflect a full year of service for SAM;
investing $125,000 in one-time funding to complete the planning, design and transition activities for the implementation of a financial shared services and procurement model;
investing $195,000 to implement the GNWT’s Strategic Security Plan, which will help the GNWT to protect the government’s electronic information assets;
modernizing the Petroleum Products Tax Act; and
implementing an electronic records and document management system.
Also reflected in the department’s proposed budget is an increase of $912,000 in collective bargaining increases.
The department’s budget includes $37.122 million in contribution funding for the NWT Housing Corporation. The department has no direct authority over this contribution funding, other than providing the corporation with its operating cash flow.
As the GNWT’s lead revenue department, the department will address fiscal sustainability through initiatives that will enable the GNWT to generate long-term economic social and environmental returns that will over time increase the Territory’s self-reliance. The Department of Finance’s revenues are projected to total $1.236 billion, which is approximately 91 percent of the total GNWT revenues being forecast for 2010-11. The department will undertake a number of revenue-related initiatives, including:
following recent public consultations, develop a proposal for changes in the NWT tax mix to better balance the tax burden;
continuing to participate in discussions on devolution and resource revenue sharing; and
releasing a public discussion paper on the establishment of an NWT Heritage Fund.
For the 2010-11 fiscal year the Department of Finance’s main estimates include a total staffing complement of 108 positions, 99 in headquarters and nine in the regions. This is a net increase over the previous fiscal year of one term position resulting from the Refocusing Government’s Strategic Initiative to implement a financial shared services and procurement model. That concludes my opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
