Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Finance, as well, today. I want to follow up on the questions asked by my colleague Mr. Ramsay. He and I were obviously on the same page when we were developing our questions relative to the budget address.
The Program Review Office has been there for three years, since 2008, and I agree that it was a necessary office for us to set up. I have some concerns with the results as well. The budget address read by the Minister lists six reviews that have been done by the Program Review Office. They have done other work, I presume, as well. I’d like to ask the Minister which of those reviews or what work that the Program Review Office has done has had an impact on the development of this budget.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The office building for sure has an impact as we think about this budget and the budget that’s going to follow this one in terms of what flexibility and capacity does it give us if we know we’re going to have a $100 million savings. We know that we’re identifying a $100 million savings over the life of the lease. We know that we’re doing work in a number of very critical areas that relate the programs in education and health that are going to be very significant and we identify those as areas for future work or future decisions because we’re not going to be able to make those final decisions in the life of this Assembly. Those are some of the areas that we contemplate as we carry on the work of government for this budget and thinking into the future for the 17th Assembly.
So it is, as the budget address indicates, that apart from the review of the office building space within Yellowknife and the decision made to go based on that review, everything else that the Program Review Office has done will be for the next Assembly. That wasn’t my understanding when this office was established three years ago, that some of that work, more of that work would have an impact on the work of this Assembly. So the Minister has indicated that there was no political appetite. It was his understanding that people didn’t want to proceed; people on this side of the House, I guess. So I’d like to ask the Minister where his position came from. What was it? What conversation did we have? What update did we have? What letter did he receive that led him to the position that there was no political will to go forward and that we should not carry on with inclusive schooling and PTR, for instance?
It’s my recollection of the last briefing we gave to committee where we identified the work that was being done on these various and looking at what was possible. Some of the complexities, some of the impacts as it would be felt depending what the decision was in terms of, for example, the PTR being higher, considerably higher than is required under legislation, or changes to the inclusive schooling budget that would allow us to reprofile. It was at those meetings and the feedback and the discussion and the juncture where we were in this Assembly that there was not going to be much political appetite to get into a contentious issue of possibly reducing or reprofiling education money to schools, for example.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say that I’m distressed by that answer. It sounds to me as though the last update we had from the Program Review Office, which was some months ago, to my recollection, quite a long time ago, the Minister made an assumption based on conversations around the table and feedback from Members. I’d like to ask the Minister to confirm to me that there was no correspondence. I presume it was from the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning. Did he receive any correspondence from the committee which led him to make the decision that he did, or did he make the decision on his own? Thank you.
I will commit to confirm that for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that commitment. I look forward to receiving that in short order.
I’ve mentioned that I’m a little concerned about the amount of work that the office has done. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could, maybe not today, but if he could commit to provide for the Members the efficiency of the office as a percentage of the savings that the office has determined from their reviews and from the work that they’ve done so that their savings as a percentage of the cost of the office. Thank you.
I will look at the wording of the question so it’s clear exactly how the Member sees us doing this. For example, if we’ve budgeted to save $100 million over the life of the lease of the office building in Yellowknife, if that’s the kind of math we use, or will that not be satisfactory to the Member. So I’ll have to check Hansard to see how we could best respond. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
