Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on my list I have Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sometimes in this role we become quite critical in design. Unfortunately, that’s part of our role as legislators and part of our role in going through budget as we are doing before the House.
It’s also an opportunity, and I’ve said this many times, when I see something that’s going well, I pay credence to that as well. This is one of those areas. I believe there has been significant improvement, and we’ve echoed that in the tabling of the public accounts. I really want to echo the fact that this was a lot of work to change a mindset of trying to get numbers, analysis of numbers, financial numbers, the reporting aspects in time to work with the Auditor General of Canada. We’ve seen a remarkable improvement in the last two years since we rekindled the public accounts program.
I wanted to make sure I went on record because sometimes that gets missed. For the record, there are no questions here, Mr. Chair. This is a classic example of when a department works with committee, we can get great things done. That’s what I want to leave you with. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny, for that good news. Mr. Miltenberger, would you like to respond to that?
On behalf of the Department of Finance and the office of the comptroller general, I would like to thank the Member for his accolades and kind words in this House and on the record. As he’s indicated, good work was done, an enormous amount of work by all parties. I just thank the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on page 5-25, activity summary, office of the comptroller general, operations expenditure summary, $49.567 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up. I did find the document I was referencing. It wasn’t the Minister’s words, it was the program review office had looked at the payroll tax compliance and in a couple of reports they made reference to that. The first one, October 30, 2012, they said: “Growth in taxes” meaning payroll taxes here, “has not kept pace with growth in non-resident income. Suggestions: we may not be achieving desired results, may not be operating optimally, may require increased resources.” Perhaps that’s partly the compliance officer that Mr. Kalgutkar referred to.
In the second reference, February 27, 2013, about a year ago, they gave this issue a high score, meaning it really should be given some priority. It was categorized for consideration in the 2014-15 work plan which is under discussion today through the budget. I don’t have an official citation here, but is there any intent to look at the compliance issues that we seem to be hearing about with collection of payroll tax? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t actually recall those reports the Member is referring to, so I’ll have to go back and dig up that information for him. Currently, the office is compiling information to develop its 2014-15 work plan which it will share with committee early in the new fiscal year. Thank you.
That’s fine. Thanks very much. Perhaps the Minister’s discussion paper on that developed in consultation with the Regular Members could be part of that. That’s all I had. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Committee, we are on page 12-25, activity summary, office of the comptroller general, operations expenditure summary, $49.567 million.
Agreed.
Page 5-26, activity summary, office of the comptroller general, grants and contributions, $11.085 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I need to ask a question here with regard to the Power Subsidy Program and the subsidy that we are paying out. I’ll start by saying I notice a doubling of the amount between our actuals in 2012-13 to what we estimated in this current budget year and the budget year we are now discussing. So why is there such a large increase from actuals to estimates? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member would recall when we went to the rate zones, demand on the program has dropped significantly. The utilization of the program has not been as high as we anticipated because of that change.
So that begs the question if our actuals are down that much, why are we estimating $11 million instead of $6 million? Thank you.
I believe this is the budget that was in place prior to the rate zone change. We might have to go back and look at the magnitude of the budget that’s in place now. Thank you.
You mean we might have a slush fund to play with. That’s a humorous comment, Mr. Chair.
My question has to do with the increase in our power rates and with consumers not being subsidized anymore, because we’ve been subsidizing, I think, 7 percent, 7 percent, 7 percent, 5 percent. Is there a relationship between the loss of that subsidy on our power rates or the increase on our power rates and will there be a corresponding increase on this Power Subsidy Program because our residents are going to be paying the full rate now? Thank you.
It’s hard to predict that right now, but we wouldn’t anticipate to have that much of an impact on this budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Kalgutkar. Committee, we’re on page 5-26, activity summary, office of the comptroller general, grants and contributions, $11.058 million. I’ll read that number again, $11.085 million.
Agreed.
Page 5-27, information item, office of the comptroller general, active positions. Any questions?
Agreed.
Page 5-29, activity summary, office of the chief information officer, operations expenditure summary, $2.260 million.
Agreed.
Sorry, committee, $2.460 million.
Agreed.
Page 5-30, office of the chief information officer, grants and contributions, $50,000.
Agreed.
Page 5-31, information item, office of the chief information officer, active positions. Are there any questions?
Agreed.
Page 5-33, activity summary, Bureau of Statistics, operations expenditure summary, $1.042 million. Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Chair, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to say that I highly value the Bureau of Statistics. I find that the information they produce is very good. I don’t find it is a consumable maybe the general public grabs upon. It’s usually for those folks like academics and whatnot and those researchers and boring MLAs that are trying to find a crowbar to complain about government. With that said, I’m very grateful.
I just want to put on the stats that that is a shop burrowed into the hollows of government. It does some good work. I just want to thank them for the information they produce. This area never gets any recognition at all. It’s probably for a good reason they don’t tend to get a lot of criticism either. I said for a good reason because they do a good job.
That said, I do appreciate the work they do. I just want to make a point on the record. I’m really glad they keep the information up to date, especially when I remind the McLeod government about the detail. I just wanted to put that out there.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Miltenberger, do you accept that compliment?
I do, on behalf of the employees that labour long and hard. We can’t manage or we can’t count, as we say, in many areas and this is one of those, so thank you on their behalf.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Committee, we are on page 5-33, activity summary, Bureau of Statistics, operations expenditure summary, $1.042 million.
Agreed.
Page 5-34, information item, Bureau of Statistics, active positions. Are there any questions?
Agreed.
Page 5-36, information item, Liquor Revolving Fund. Are there any questions? Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This section isn’t necessarily going to get a compliment. It may be a little more of a link. It is not necessarily criticism either, but what I’m finding here is there are some real concerns about the modernization of our present Liquor Act. Recently I brought some concerns to the Minister of Finance about some problems that we’ve been having in interpretation and certainly in the modernization. Does the Minister see any sort of public dialogue on potentially modernizing some of our liquor laws? As such, we have to sort of balance out what is real and modern and what is realistic.
What we are seeing in the rise, for example in the city of Yellowknife, I know that many bars are asking for Sunday openings and extending the sales period. Recently there was an experience where I saw a bit of an anomaly in one of the liquor laws. I brought it to the attention of the Finance Minister to what that detail is. It doesn’t really matter as much, but what we are noticing are quirks as to what I would like to say is sort of a modernization.
I know that I was here during the Liquor Act rewrite a few years ago. I think the work there at the time is certainly good, but that said, does the Finance Minister see any future or I should say near future discussion about some of the rules around these types of things? I know that the general administration has been bequeathed down to the city so they can make some rules, but I’m talking about some broader opportunities. I have heard that there might be some things on the horizon. If there are, maybe the Minister can speak to that type of policy development under this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Miltenberger.
Mr. Chair, we are always interested and prepared to have discussions with committee. If it is on an area such as this, yes, we are prepared to have a discussion about concerns, next steps, options, but I would ask Mr. Koe if he wanted to speak to some of the things on the drawing board in terms of addressing some concerns that we are dealing with, and we do get a considerable and fairly steady stream of issues being raised.
Mr. Koe.
Mr. Chair, as due course of business, we do get regular requests from MLAs to take a look at parts of the Liquor Act. We do follow those up to see if those would be regulatory changes or act changes. Some items we have on the table right now are looking at manufacturing retail outlets, you brews, and the proposal of the motion on enforcement of the Liquor Act by municipal enforcement officers. We are doing the research on that through regulations and act and see how best we can look to compromise some proposals. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate Mr. Koe’s answer on that. I will frame this question on two points. What type of public dialogue do you draw out there? I don’t see any ads in this particular area saying, are liquor laws meeting our needs? Really, I think they are individual ones. Recently we changed concerns in the Sahtu to reflect what is needed and demanded there. Rightly or wrongly, it seemed like the right thing to do and certainly the right thing to support, as far as I was concerned, because we were responding to community area needs, certainly people’s needs.
What type of outreach does this area, division, do in sort of staying in contact with what vendors as well as the public find are important and certainly relevant to the localized area? The simple example I would provide to make sure it is clear and relevant is maybe Sunday openings make sense in Yellowknife. It might not make sense somewhere else. That type of dialogue. I am talking about allowing it in general as opposed to providing the opportunity for a permit. Right now, you have to permit. You are only allowed so many. I guess that is the type of relationship I am trying to find out how much we do and how we do it. Do we get any dialogue or feedback or relationship built on that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We will go to Minister Miltenberger.
Mr. Chair, we deal with issues and concerns as they are brought to our attention by MLAs, by clients, by vendors. If there is a broad cross-section of impact, we will talk to folks. In terms of what I understand the Member could be suggesting reaching out to have a much broader discussion, restate the readiness to accept invitation to meet with committee. If there is a concern by the committee about issues that require a broader outreach, then we would be happy to have that discussion with the Member or with the committee. In the meantime, we work at this level out of Hay River, as well, to deal with those issues that are raised on an individual specific basis. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, so the answer is no, but you take inquiries so that is fine. I see an opportunity to continue this dialogue. The example I provided was an example, one that is sort of in the public realm, one that is easily understood that makes sense to people. Whether they agree or disagree is not the issue as opposed to the example to illustrate is important. Fair enough. That is the only question I have at this particular time. Thank you.
