Debates of May 24, 2012 (day 2)

Okay, thank you. General comments. Okay, seeing no general comments...

---Laughter

Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I offer some general comments on the main estimates before the House for this week and this budget session. I think I’ve made the point the other day about missing two words, which are “Highway No. 7” and “expenditures” for it, new money for this coming fiscal year.

It saddens me that there are zero dollars allocated for capital expenditures for this year. I know there are some capital carry-overs from last year’s projects, and earlier in the year I made strenuous efforts to get the Minister to commit to expend those funds. Before the rainy season, late August/September, hopefully he will follow through on those commitments and get those projects completed that are outstanding from last year with regard to Highway No. 7 and around the Fort Simpson area. I still continue to try to get Highway No. 7 as a priority of our government. Like I mentioned, there is no mention anywhere in the Commissioner’s opening address or the Finance Minister’s budget remarks as well.

As we move along I know that they had mentioned that I think in August/September we will be doing our budget consultations and it will be addressed. However, I still feel that there is a need to expend some money this summer. In fact, the constituents are looking forward to any improvements to highway infrastructure in that area.

I know the government is saying that we are under fiscal restraint and passive restraint, et cetera. However, we have a little bit of a surplus and as well when it comes to finding additional money, we have no problem creating a supp for it. That’s something I would like to see if there is a special project or some way they can continue the work around Fort Liard and Highway No. 7 and that they do find some money to undertake those investments, and I will continue to stress that.

As well, earlier today in my Member’s statement I alluded to the fact that the tourism budget, the Minister indicated that it was $10.4 million. However, there is a reduction. The budget last year was $10.7 million, so there’s a $300,000 reduction to the tourism budget. It impacts the way that people do business and the tourism sector, just that little bit of money. I traveled quite extensively with Mr. Ted Grant, who is a strong advocate of tourism and the tourism industry in the North. He’s almost single-handedly sold the beauty of the Nahanni National Park to the world. In fact, it’s in a lot of our national marketing programs. You see pictures of Little Doctor Lake, the Ram Plateau and a lot of advertising campaigns. As for our own NWT marketing campaign, I know we have the NWT Tourism Strategy document, but every little reduction impacts how we provide those services. I would certainly like to see something special done this year and we don’t have to be faced with those reductions.

As well as with my travels with Rendezvous Canada and meeting with the NWT Tourism chair and executive director, one of the points that I have been really clarifying in my Member’s statements and questions to the Minister was that the department is holding back $400,000, for unknown reasons. That gives me the question: Is the government using fiscal restraint to hold back the $400,000 and say that to save some money? I would like to see them release it. Previous years they’ve been operating on the $1.6 million and doing quite an effective job, but a $400,000 holdback I guess on this issue really impacts their operations. So in total, if you take that perspective from their perspective, they’re actually facing in this coming year a $700,000 shortage, and that’s huge, especially for tourism.

In the past nine years we’ve striven and we’ve worked really hard to double that budget. When I first became an MLA in 2003, it was almost $900,000 and now we’re well over $2 million. But to cut it back like this and especially when all other jurisdictions are maintaining what they spend to market their different provinces or their territories, like the Yukon and Nunavut. Nunavut saw fit to do it. Even though they’re facing severe budget restrictions, it still saw fit to increase their tourism budget, Madam Chair. We’re actually doing a reduction in tourism and I still don’t know how that happens. Particularly our Minister was the strongest advocate of tourism for eight years and now he becomes Minister and he cuts the tourism budget he supposedly so strongly advocated for. It’s kind of puzzling that that’s the way that it happened. In fact, the budget address was kind of private, we’re not cutting programs and services, yet when it comes to tourism there’s a $300,000 reduction over last year and it certainly does impact programs and services, and how we spend it will impact that.

I’ve always made the case that I’ve always linked Highway No. 7 and tourism as well. The more that we improve Highway No. 7, the more tourists and tourism products we can sell in the Nahendeh riding. Well, in fact, once we talk about the Deh Cho Trail concept, that goes right around the Providence junction and over to Hay River and Enterprise and exposing all of that to potential tourism and tourism marketing. It does wonders for our micro industry of Aboriginal crafts and sales.

So those are the two concerns that I have that really stick out in the budget, or don’t stick out in the budget as it were in the case of Highway No. 7. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Miltenberger, before you make your response, would you please introduce your witness for the record. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Finance. Madam Chair, I’ll just quickly respond.

There will be more detailed discussion as we get into the individual departments. I’ve looked at the ITI budget operations expenditures on page 12-7, and I see $10.398 remaining for this year in the main estimates and last year the main estimates were $10.054. So I’m not sure where the Member got the $10.7 million, but hopefully that can be clarified in debate or in discussion with the Minister when we do the departmental review.

As well as the specific issues of the money possibly or the concern by the Member that he’s under the impression or under the understanding that there’s money being held back to the tune of $400,000, Highway No. 7 we’ve committed for the red flag list once we get back into the position to add extra dollars to the capital plan. We know that we are and we’ve agreed that we’re going to be looking at $75 million a year for the next two years, and then we’re going to look at bumping that up significantly as a result of the work we’re going to do between now and then to replenish our cash reserves and we are still committed to that process.

Once again, when there’s very specific discussion through the Department of Transportation, the Minister will be in a position to talk about what may be possible in the interim as per the Member’s recent comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for allowing us to have some opening comments here on this budget address. I guess first and foremost one of the questions I’ll have for the Minister is he’s obviously breaking tradition by not buying a new pair of shoes today and have him answer that question as to why not. Obviously, I know there’s a custom involved with this.

I’m going to be kind of going not in any type of order per se in terms of priority, but obviously just kind of making some overall comments as things unfold here.

One of the things I know the budget seemed to have lacked or is lacking is in the prevention and promotion, especially in the health care area the budget does not mention in terms of a large increase. This is a concern, obviously, for Members of the Social Programs committee. We are definitely going to be talking more about it as we do the line entries for that.

Again, in the same breath, addictions is obviously one of the focal points of major concern for many Members on this side of the House, and solutions with the addictions programs throughout the Northwest Territories, whether it’s bricks and mortar, facilities or program development, requires obviously a lot of funding, and I didn’t see a lot in this budget and maybe I can get some comments to come back as well.

Given the fact we’ve got some pretty large-scale capital projects, one being completed and one potentially in the hopper, the Deh Cho Bridge, I was very surprised that not very much mention, if at all mentioned here as we complete the final stages of this large-scale project in terms of any potential future costs to this House, and whether or not we can earmark a potential opening of this infrastructure in this fiscal year. I’m hoping to get some… I guess Members here probably could hear a little bit more about that because it was not addressed.

The second part of that question in terms of capital budgets, obviously, is there was mention of the Inuvik-Tuk highway and again there’s still some grave concern of the affordability of this project given the current relationship. We know that we’ve got the federal partners on our side and that is a good, sure sign of a success, but given the complexity of this bridge, given the fact that we’re still unaware of the true cost of this bridge, or sorry, this road to Inuvik-Tuk, I’m still gravely concerned of the affordability of this, especially with our new-minted borrowing limit, which could put a lot of extra pressure over the years and so much so that as a concern if we are going to be tying into that money a lot of this is probably over a period of three to five years and it just so happens that will probably be at the downward cycle of some of our diamond industry sectors. So, again, we’re going to be having a large scale of payments just at the same time as our diamond sector is – unless something changes dramatically – going to be on the downturn.

With that, my next question, again it was mentioned in the budget, obviously recognizing grave concerns in our energy costs for especially the town of Inuvik and Norman Wells. I’ll let the Members themselves divvy up a little bit more for their respective areas, but my concern is that in this budget we’re talking about throwing some monies to help face the imminent depletion of some of the natural gas problems that are facing these two communities and yet we know that there is other monies that are being, I guess, divvied up in various other fashions and not really part of this budget, but indirectly part of this budget. As a concerned MLA, I’m concerned about the fragmentation and the polarization of splitting these monies up into smaller projects when really is there the opportunity to look at a business case for this government to look at getting into the gas business themselves as a separate entity to our Power Corp. If we’re going to be putting money towards these fragmented programs, let’s look at the bigger picture and see if we can actually make gas part of our priority and part of our opportunity to actually have an export item that we control. Novel in nature, but I can tell you that if you’re throwing and segmenting millions of dollars here, here and here, here’s an opportunity for a business case for this government to show lead example and being prudent in a business sense.

Keeping in mind the aspects of the Auditor General, the Auditor General has made various recommendations to this House over a large number of different areas. A lot of them are with respect to reporting measures. These are dashboard indicators of the performance of this government and I can assure you that the Auditor General has mentioned that many times and not just in the most recent reports but a lot of the reports over the last couple of years. Again, as a Member, I’m still shocked to see that reporting measures aren’t being emphasized enough from this government in terms of proving to the taxpayers and to the Members here that we’re being very prudent with our spending. So, as a Member, I would like to see more of these reporting measures being part of the overall government initiatives.

Devolution and with the same token of decentralization. Again, these are very high level but obviously very important matters before the House, before Members themselves. Jobs are by far one of the most important indicators of a healthy economy. I can assure you that I support my Members from rural and remote communities that the decentralization of jobs due to devolution as we come closer to the term is going to be one in which we are going to be very importantly looking at and I do support them. Yet I notice in the opening address here that we do not see a lot about the decentralization and the devolution jobs that are being created. I’d like to have some reassurances that we are looking at our small communities to make sure as we are developing these new jobs that there is a firm commitment from this government that all new jobs involving devolution will be decentralized appropriately in the right nested units so that small communities will benefit from these newly created jobs.

Last but not least, obviously brought up in Members’ statements today here but one that I think deserves some merit. Again, the Minister indicated that we didn’t want to put borrowed money into this, which I’m referring to as our Heritage Fund, but I can assure you that the Members on this side of the House strongly feel that if we do not start something soon with this Heritage Fund, then really this thing is going to get just shelved with nothing more than dust being accumulated. Yes, we know that potential devolution dollars can be put in this at a point of time through the revenue resource sharing agreements that hopefully come on line soon, but that said, putting at least an attempt thereof is something which I think this government should show positive signs for the people of the Northwest Territories that they are indeed looking at our future.

I’ll leave it at that. I’m sure my colleagues will have further comments as well.

Thank you very much, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just go through the list as I made notes. The issue of the tradition of no shoes or not having new shoes and breaking with tradition, in fact I thank Mr. Bouchard, the Member for Hay River North. He sent me over a couple of printouts that he obviously got off the Internet that shows in fact over the last 40 or 50 years the majority of the federal Finance Ministers didn’t in fact get new shoes. In fact, nobody is quite sure where this tradition started, it seems. In regard to the tradition here, I know it is a tradition but it was my sense that we are asking people and governments and communities for two years of fiscal discipline and we have to focus on the things that we have to do not that would be nice to do. While it would be nice to have a new pair of shoes, I’ll save that for years three and four when we will be in fact able to put the fruits of our labour over the next two years to good use and it will be part of a symbolic recognition that we are now in a position where buying some new shoes fits in with the extra money that we want to put to use in infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Oh, just one second, Mr. Miltenberger. Our sound technician thought you were finished. So back to Mr. Miltenberger, please.

Sorry, Madam Chair, for the confusion. In regard to the prevention and promotion, as I indicated in the budget address, we’re going to be responding to the letters from the Social Programs committee and all the committees in terms of their requests and recommendations and we’re going to bring forward what we think will hopefully be an acceptable response.

The Deh Cho Bridge opening, it is important. The vast majority of the funds have been expended. We anticipate that this piece of infrastructure will be open before winter and that’s what we’re working towards.

The Inuvik-Tuk highway, as I have as well mentioned, we have made a number of commitments in this Assembly to Members that were as a result of questions raised and confirmation that the work’s being done. Once we get the detail we will report back to Committee and to the Legislature to have a discussion about what do the estimates prove up, what does the environmental and geotechnical work tell us, but most importantly the concern and focus on the projected cost of the road right now. We have a very low level, soft estimate and that number, there’s a whole range of numbers that are out there. We’re going to firm that up, and as the Minister of Transportation indicated, we will report back.

The borrowing limit, we have to be very judicious in how we use that. When you look at the amount of combined short-term and long-term borrowing, the number’s in the neighbourhood of $656 million. That leaves us roughly $150 million out of the $800 million. It’s not, as I’ve indicated, quite as generous as it seems and it doesn’t give us as much latitude as we would have liked if we would have been able to not have a limit. However, it’s what we have to work with, so we’re going to be very judicious in how we use that. We just have to recognize that $150 million when you look at all the projects, the $3 billion that we’re accumulating in infrastructure deficit, it’s a relatively modest amount of money to try to add to the mix. So we have to use it wisely.

The energy costs in Inuvik and Norman Wells, we’re committed to sorting out those issues. As I tried to indicate today as well, the issue in Inuvik is pressing because their gas wells could go dry at any time. We’re taking steps to make sure we’re prepared for that imminent eventuality. In Norman Wells we’re doing some work there. NTPC, however, has an ongoing period of grace from Esso so it’s not the same kind of pressure, so we’re putting our focus and resources into dealing with the most imminent demand, which is in Inuvik.

The Member also talked about concern about splitting up money and maybe the GNWT should get into the gas business. After we have devolution there may be an ability or there will be an ability to have that broader discussion as we have all the economic levers at our disposal that we don’t currently have. In the meantime we’re in a situation that we have to focus on getting to devolution and beyond and that’s our intent.

The Member’s comment about reporting measures is well taken. We are at work as a government to ensure first that every department has a strategic plan going forward with measurable outcomes and action implementation plans from which will flow into the business plans. We’ve also heard the concerns raised at the committee table about the need in the business plans for more measurables and more specifics. We have heard that concern.

In regard to devolution and decentralization, the Premier committed in this House today that the government is committed to decentralization and, in fact, we are looking as we speak as all the Ministers have been instructed to look within their current operations to see what may be a candidate for decentralization with devolution and even in spite of devolution. There is that commitment.

The Heritage Fund, it’s the issue of using, if we’re going to put money into it, we’re going to be putting borrowed money in and we’re committed as a government and I think as a Legislature, which is why we passed the bill, to make this a functioning and usable fund. The question is going to be one of timing over the next two to three years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. With that we’ll be going over to Mr. Bouchard.

Robert Bouchard

Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My opening comments on the budget this year, as I indicated in the House before, my concern with the escalation of our operating expenses, over the last 10 years we’ve seen our budget double in the 10-12 years since division. Our population hasn’t grown anywhere near that. I know we have lots of demands, especially from this side of the House, on things we need to do, but we need to curb some of that spending as well.

When we were discussing the issue of our borrowing limit, one of the indicators I had indicated was the budget at that time was $1.2 billion and we need to find $500 million, or $50 million and that would represent only about 5 percent of the budget. I would still urge that we look to find cutting wherever possible and try to reduce that cost.

It seems like when we look at the numbers, the numbers are escalating and continue to grow every year. Most of the departments that we’ve looked at through the business plan are all growing. If they’re not growing it’s basically because the program’s being cut. That’s one of the areas of concern that I have. Some of the things I think we need to do is do some of the projects, but do them a little smarter, do them a little differently.

One of the other areas during the business plan and through this budget that I’m going to question is some of the positions and whether those positions need to be decentralized, moved to the regions wherever possible. I do believe that decentralization has to begin, and we talked about devolution being one of the ways to decentralize the government, but I think it needs to be a moving cart that we throw devolution on to. That if we don’t have some of that happening before devolution, at the time we’re going to find more difficulties for some of these communities to take on positions, whether they have capacity or office space or residential space. We have to start doing some of the groundwork for those positions of devolution to go out to the regions.

I think one of the areas that one of my colleagues from Hay River mentioned in some of the meetings was we talked about the review office, and one of the only rare recommendations was to add another office space to Yellowknife. I’d like to see that office or that review office become more of an office to look at decentralization, where in government, where in the different departments we can decentralize positions, areas of different departments. Have blocks of people, two, three, five, 10, depending on the size and capacity of the community, to move some of those positions out there. I do believe that decentralization will improve the Northwest Territories completely. As those regions strengthen, Yellowknife will strengthen. I know that we need to encourage some of the bureaucracy to do some of that. As we see those reasons get stronger and employment get increased, we won’t see the demands on Yellowknife that we are currently experiencing from the migration from the small communities to the large communities, and some of that is mainly because that’s where the jobs are right there in Yellowknife. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; if that’s where the jobs are, that’s where people are going to move to because most people want to have a job, want an income, want to provide for their families. I think it’s an area we need to review.

One of the positions that we’ve asked and talked about is a permafrost position in ITI. They’ve indicated to us that it’s cheaper to do it in Yellowknife as opposed to farther north, but some of those positions I think there’s a bigger activity in permafrost and some of the studies can be done in a northern region.

Some of those are going to be questioned whether those positions need to be there or whether that additional expense is worth it. If there are additional expenses, is there actually more of an additional benefit to the region, as well, if we have one or two additional positions farther north? Do they have a bigger impact than adding one or two or five or six more positions into Yellowknife? It barely will even be noticed in the economy, but in the smaller communities and in the regions those positions are noticed greatly.

That’s my opening comments for the business plan, or the budget here. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We’ll go to Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. The issue of the escalation of operating expenses of government, I mean, that is a stark reality. As I laid out in the budget address, we are committed to restraining and constraining the growth of government and ensuring that our revenues exceed our expenditures so that, in fact, we can do the replenishment of our cash reserves and look for efficiencies within government. We are committed to, as I’ve already indicated, decentralization. The Premier has made that commitment in the House today. The Member is indicating that we should get on it right now, and in fact, that work is underway as we speak.

One of my functions, one of my roles, myself and Mr. Aumond, is I’m the chair and he’s the lead deputy for refocusing government. So we will take the Member’s suggestion about the program review office and then that office being tasked with looking at decentralization, and we will put that on the table for the refocusing government to see how we could meaningfully engage them in areas such as this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We’ll go to the Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are in no particular order and they don’t necessarily merit a response, but they will also reflect many of the concerns of other Members who’ve already spoken and who will speak after me.

I want to start by talking about the amount of money that we are going to be using, $15.6 million, according to the Minister, to offset the NWT Power Corporation’s rate increase that’s upcoming. I’m all for reducing my power bills. Lord knows I don’t want to pay more for my power than anybody else does. I think that our cost of living, whether it be here in Yellowknife or elsewhere, is already high enough. But my concern is that we are providing a subsidy to our residents and not, at the same time, looking at how we can reduce the reliance that we have on fossil fuels.

The Minister further stated in the budget address that we need to reduce reliance on environmentally unfriendly and costly diesel-generated power. And, absolutely, I agree with that statement, but I don’t see much evidence of it in the budget. We have reduced the amount of money that we’re spending on energy projects considerably. We in the last Assembly had $60 million over four years that we put into energy projects. We don’t have that in this budget and I think it’s a step backwards. There’s some money in here but there’s certainly not enough. I don’t see the emphasis in this budget that should be there to get us off fossil fuels. The only way that we’re going to reduce our cost of living adequately is to get us off fossil fuels.

I am somewhat concerned that there is no money in this budget earmarked for implementation of the Midwifery Program. I realize that it’s a fairly big change and there’s a fairly large amount of money. There are verbal statements that it’s an important program, but I don’t see that we have money in this budget that’s going to allow us to implement or even to start with the beginnings of an implementation of the Midwifery Program from the report which came out in the last little while.

I’m more than a little concerned about the livelihood of our sport hunter outfitters, particularly one or two in Yellowknife who have managed to survive thanks to the contributions through the Sport Hunter Outfitter Marketing Program, but the budget indicates that that’s reduced this year, and that’s not helpful. My question – I guess this is a definite question to the Minister – is: When are we going to allow our sport hunt outfitters to have access to caribou tags? There have been some changes in the number of caribou and in the counts and so on and we’re allowing certain organizations to have access to tags, but we’re not allowing our outfitters to have access to tags, and I fear that we are going to lose some of our businesses. They’re not going to be able to survive for much longer without those tags.

I have concerns, as many of my colleagues do, about the Inuvik-Tuk highway. It’s a huge project and it’s not necessarily in this budget, but again, it is going to impact our budgets as we go forward, and certainly, it’s going to take man hours in terms of staff and so on. It’s a project that is not fully formed yet and yet we’re spending all kinds of money on it.

I am somewhat concerned, we have a reduction, I believe, in MACA for a minimal amount of money, but some money for municipal emergency response. Without that money I think our municipalities are going to be struggling, particularly the ones that are on the highway system and that have to respond to emergencies out on the highway. Communities are now doing that at their own expense and there needs to be some opportunity for communities to be able to provide that service, because it’s a necessary service, and we expect them to do it but we don’t provide any funding to them to do it.

Along with that, we’ve had a recent indication that in terms of flooding, for instance, there’s money through the federal government for emergencies with flooding, but that, in my mind, in terms of MACA, we could provide for an emergency response fund which could be used either for accidents out on the highway or for such things as dealing with mitigation of flooding.

Like my colleagues, I feel that we should be putting money into the Heritage Fund, and I am dismayed to see that there is no indication in this budget. The Minister stated earlier that we will not be putting any money into the Heritage Fund in this fiscal year. I note that this budget identifies a $74 million surplus, and I know that is intended for capital expenditures, but it would, in my mind, be a simple matter to take $500,000, $250,000 out of that $74 million surplus and put it into the Heritage Fund. It’s a small amount of money. I don’t quite understand why we’d have to borrow to put money in there when we’re ending up with a surplus. I think that it would put an action to the words from the Minister that he feels this Heritage Fund is important. We have to start, and I think we’re better off to start now than to wait for devolution. That could be 10 years down the road. I hope not, but it’s feasible that it could be.

I note that we’re expanding the single-window services centres, and I’m really pleased to see that. My understanding is that the service centres we have now are working extremely well and I’m glad that we’re expanding that program. I think that’s going to be a really good move and I think all of our communities are going to benefit from that.

I note that in the budget we have identification of $137,000 for an RCMP family violence coordinator, and that seems to be in response to the Family Violence Action Plan recommendations. But there were 19 recommendations for part three of that Family Violence Action Plan, and this $137,000 does not go anywhere to meeting those 19 recommendations. I’m very concerned that we will not be advancing our work on family violence to any great degree. Having an RCMP officer is great, but we need to be doing more than that.

I, too, am concerned about the amount of money that we’re putting into prevention in the Department of Health and Social Services particularly with regard to mental health and addictions. We, again, pay lip service to the fact that we have this problem. We recognize this problem all across the territory, but where are we putting the money where our mouth is. I really feel that this is an area that we must put a greater emphasis on, and to put a greater emphasis on, in my mind, we have to put more money into it.

With Education, Culture and Employment, I am somewhat dismayed that we don’t have a greater focus on early childhood development. It’s happening but it’s happening very slowly. I appreciate that it’s happening. It is going to be a good thing, but I think, again, we should be putting a bit more money into that area of ECE than what we are.

I, too, am dismayed that there’s no new revenue source in the budget. I feel really strongly that we should not be waiting. I don’t necessarily believe we should be taxing residents, but I do believe there’s an opportunity for us to get back some of the royalty resources which are flowing rapidly out of here and never coming back. I think some sort of a corporate tax of some sort is definitely doable, and I’m sorry to see that we haven’t got it in this fiscal year.

Lastly, just to follow up on the comment that Mr. Dolynny made about evaluation and so on, it’s been my belief for quite some time – and I have to shake my head every time I hear about this within this government – but I don’t believe you should implement any new program or service unless it comes with an evaluation framework or an evaluation plan. I have seen too often in my brief time here that we put a program in place and about a year or two later somebody asks whether or not it’s working and nobody knows because there’s no evaluation framework or there’s no evaluation plan attached to that program or service. So that’s kind of a general comment, but it’s extremely important that in order for us to know what we’re doing is successful, we have to evaluate it. If we haven’t got any way to evaluate it, we’re just doing stuff and throwing money at it. We don’t have any money to throw around, in my mind.

That’s the end of my remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would agree with the Member. We definitely don’t have enough money to throw around, but let me go through the lists.

You made a comment about the subsidy, but we need to do more to reduce reliance. Within the fiscal ability that we have available to us, we are doing a significant amount of work. It varies. Like biomass, retrofits, upgrades. We’re looking at a very positive geothermal opportunity. We’ve put in the biggest solar array in this part of the country in Simpson. We are looking at our hydro opportunities, both to the north around Deline as well as the North and South Slave. We are funding and keeping programs going as an incentive to people to make those transitions to more energy-efficient types of appliances and such. We are putting money to work that we have available, recognizing that we could spend more if we had it. Yes, we could.

No money for midwifery. The Minister has indicated that the report has come out, but we’ve laid out the budget here where we’re talking about maintaining and protecting the programs and services we have and the ability to try to constrain the growth of governments to address some of the broader issues of being fiscally responsible and to deal with some of the things, for example, mentioned by the Member for Hay River North about the concurbent spending. So we’re trying to do that to address our issues.

Would midwifery be nice? Yes, it would be, but we have the capacity to birth children or babies in the North. It could be improved upon, but it’s one of the ones that are an issue of choice. It’s a choice that we have to make, one of the hard choices we make in this government, but the Minister of Health will be speaking on that going forward.

The sport hunter outfitters, when can they hunt? We are doing a significant amount of work and we have been over winter, spring, summer and fall. They were going to pull all that information together. Indications are that the Bathurst is looking positive. How positive? We’re not sure. The Ahiak herd we think will give us some room to move. As well, we have the Bluenose-East numbers that are being looked at and there are possibilities there as well. When those numbers come in, we will look at it collectively with all the folks that we need to that should be engaged in this, as well as this Assembly, to see what the sacrifice and the sacrifice of Northerners have done in terms of helping the numbers improve.

The Tuk-Inuvik highway, I’ll note the Member’s concerns and we responded to yourself, Mr. Chair, and I’ll just be reiterating that to the Member.

Family violence, the 19 recommendations that the one position is nice but it’s not enough. Once again it’s a question of choices. When the Minister of Justice is before this House, we’ll be able to have a detailed discussion about the other 18 and where they fit and what timelines might be.

The same with the issue of early childhood development. It could move faster. You want to put more money into it. Those are, once again, all laudable programs, but with the plan we have laid out, some of those program initiatives are not there.

The need for new revenue, the Member and I would have to agree to disagree. It’s our opinion, as I indicated in the House, that we’re not planning to come forward with new taxes. Our corporate tax now has us in the middle of the tax with other jurisdictions in terms of tax rates. There is a national push to try to bring our tax rates down to 10 percent. In some cases, if you want to go lower, there’s a point where you’re racing to the bottom. We’ve held fast over the last couple of years. We haven’t touched it. So there’s no plan on our part to come forward with any kind of corporate tax increase. We are definitely looking into other revenue streams, but at this point, given all the other cost pressures like general rate application and such and forced growth on all our constituencies and communities, a type of new tax could be onerous.

The issue of evaluation framework, we agree that we have to do a better job at measuring what we do and look at outcomes and be able to justify more specifically, not just with a compelling narrative, but with facts, figures and numbers on the work that we do and the money that we spend. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. With that, we’ll be going to the Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d say, to start off with, I’d like the Minister to remember his words about it’s a question of choices as he hears the repeated mention of common issues from this side of the House, and in that respect I have to say I’m very disappointed not to see any response in this budget from a massive amount of input that Members have had massive amount of work that both the Cabinet and the Regular Members had done in reviewing the draft budget and so on.

At the same time I do recognize that in post-election it’s a very different time frame, so I’m anticipating that the government will show some response in reaction to the substandard issues that we’ve put forward and commented on that you’re hearing about again repeatedly today.

The Minister mentioned that this is the best managed jurisdiction in Canada fiscally, and I say the evidence supports him in terms of the proportion of debt we have relative to our budget.

The Minister also recognizes the fragility of the global economy. I do actually agree with him on that, although I say it’s strictly a result of government policies that that is happening and that governments have the power to change that.

Meanwhile, given that fragility, this government is striving to hitch its star and that of our municipalities to an ever greater degree to the global economy. I think that’s very wrong-headed and deserves some real examination.

One reason we’re the best managed could be, of course, because the federal government has imposed legal debt limits and made us be that way. But I do appreciate that this government and this Minister have committed to decreasing our debts and putting in place or attempting to put in place a policy in that direction. So I will be monitoring that and I appreciate that stance.

The House has heard me speak a little bit today on the revenue issue. I would say that we have attempted to raise corporate rates in the past and dropped back again. We are in the middle of the pack, but I’d say in terms of resource rents we have indeed won the race to the bottom and we have a lousy record of capturing resource rents. I am very surprised that the Minister doesn’t seem to even know about the resource rents and the sorts of reviews that we have talked about for years. So I am hoping that he gets boned up on that and brings a proposal forward.

I think a real opportunity has been missed in this budget again, year after year, but again in this budget, to introduce a carbon tax or some form of carbon pricing that could have been administered in a revenue neutral way and thereby achieving the Minister’s goal of protecting the people, but at the same time advancing the goals of this government’s supposed commitment to environmental sustainability. That is indeed part of our vision and our goals and we have a limit, but maybe we need some discussion about what environmental sustainability is, because I see us in this budget backing away from it rather than advancing forward. We can talk about that more in detail, but I think that is a key issue and today’s whirlwind. Even the largest corporations in the world are recognizing we need a truly environmentally sustainable approach in order to be even a sustainable business and have a sustainable economy.

I want to mention that on page 4 where the Minister notes this government makes no cuts to the $1.4 billion, I see this rather than being something to be proud of, I see a government unable to do the critical and ongoing assessment and redirection work that is needed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of our programs and meeting our responsibilities. I’m not saying it’s Cabinet alone, but I think this side of the House might be complicit in that to some degree, but we need a government that’s able to recognize where we’re going in the wrong direction or not being effective, and redirect dollars to priorities or better ways to achieve our goals.

The education, I’m shocked, is completely missing in action in this budget. There have been considerable discussions recently about where we’re going with education. So I’m particularly, again, shocked when early childhood development is well recognized around the world, globally as well as nationally, and you can look at Alberta’s extremely progressive work on that. What we don’t achieve now there’s very little hope of regaining it without a lot of high costs and personnel and efforts. So I think if we don’t get started on that, we’re really missing the road.

Other issues that I agree with that have been mentioned, mental health and addictions. We need full implementation of family violence, phase 3 and so on. The land use sustainability framework that’s mentioned has been mentioned annually for the past four years by the Minister. Nothing has been achieved to date except a word has been added to the title and rather than land use framework it’s now land use sustainability framework. I suppose that’s enough said on that. It’s been years and years and my expectations are lower than ever on that one.

Similarly, my understanding or my recollection of the Macroeconomic Policy is it was established in 2007 and, again, we’re just talking about implementation this year. My expectations are low, but I thought that was a good policy.

The mineral development, yes, we need it, but where is the strategy? Again, completely missing from meeting their energy requirements. Again something we’ve talked about and talked about and talked about. Especially meeting their energy requirements with renewable energy and where is the talk about a renewable energy portfolio called for in the Greenhouse Gas Strategy that would support the industry moving in that direction. Again, I understand that without any authority we will be spending two-thirds of $1 million on a Mineral Strategy in anticipation that we might get some authority there. But so much on the energy front. We’ve talked about it for years. So I guess we’re going to talk about it for years more, but that is disappointing.

I want to briefly point out, if I can, on the energy side and I think our cutbacks in energy commitments and so on are huge and deserve a discussion on their own, but the phrase going forward we are looking at regulatory improvements that will avoid the need for such drastic price increases by providing for an annual indexing mechanism refers to electricity rates. Now we’re simply going to increase them every year. So we’re telling the public as if this is a good thing, we’re going to avoid problems, we’re just going to increase your electricity rates every year from now on, so don’t worry about it. We’re subsidizing electricity rates by over $30 million in the next three years in addition to the already $30 million we’re putting into it. We need to actually put in place programs and return to a level of expenditures that we had in the 16th Assembly that will actually reduce costs of living and meet the needs of our people and businesses. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Over to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the response to listening to the MLA feedback, we have been listening very carefully. This document has gone through extensive consultation work with committee. We went through interim appropriation to allow for that cycle to take place. In addition, we got feedback when we finished the review of business plans from committees, which we are going to respond to through the supplementary appropriation process and we’ll have that debate. I would point out the asks in that letter; the combined asks, of my recollection, were in the neighbourhood of $4.3 or so million. So I think we should take some pride in the fact that we have $1.4 billion worth of a budget here that has been through our consensus system. So we have been listening; we’ve been working together to get to where we are and we’re going to continue to work together over the next month to get us to the third reading so that we can have this money freed up and put into use.

The issue – and I’ve heard the Member’s concern over the years – about tying our economy to the global economy, that it’s a bad idea and in this world where everything is tied together. I just noticed in the fruit trays and such, we’re eating things like kiwi fruit and mangos, which we didn’t do 20 or 30 years ago. Just as a simple example, but we’re truly in a global village here. How we would disconnect our economy from the rest of the world when we get $4 billion in GDP and most of that comes from the diamond mines, most of which the project is sold down south is something that we’d have to take a serious look at, but I appreciate the Member’s concerns.

One of the things that’s driving us in terms of our budget and our managing the money is we have a Fiscal Responsibility Policy that requires us to free up money to pay for capital. It says when we don’t meet the conditions in the Fiscal Responsibility Policy, we have two years to get back into compliance in terms of meeting the criteria, and over the last year or so we haven’t hit our targets. We’ve been running a deficit and now we’re obligated to that policy, among other things, and other than the fact it makes good sense to get back into compliance, which we intend to do.

The resource rents, once again, the Member is indicating that he’s surprised at my lack of knowledge. I will get boned up on the subject, but I can tell you that until devolution comes along, we don’t have the levers of authority that we need in this area of resource rents and other things, like dealing with all the issues related to water.

The idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax and backing away from sustainability, we’ll continue to have that discussion. I’m of a mind that if you have a community… Let me use an example. If you have a remote community, a thermal community that has no other choice and you put on a carbon tax and you want to encourage them to do other good things, other alternatives where there are none, what benefit does that do to us when we already have the highest energy rates in the country? I believe there’s a way to get to the same goal from a different path. At this point things like investing heavily in solar and biomass, geothermal, looking at getting our hydro capacity realized, that will do the same thing in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions, getting our reliance off of fossil fuels. So I think once again we want the same thing, but we have to look at all the ways to get there.

The issue of no cuts – and we shouldn’t really take a lot of pride in that fact and we should actually be looking for efficiencies – there are two different things here. The intent when I made that comment about no cuts, on a comparative basis when you look at the federal government, when you look at Ontario, when you look at New Brunswick, pick a province that is going through massive deficit reduction, layoffs, program cuts, increases to taxes, and if you look at some of the countries in Europe that are bankrupt, where they’ve cut pensions, laid off tens of thousands of people, my reference was the fact that we should take some comfort that we’ve managed ourselves well enough to avoid that level of deficit reduction.

The education is not missing. We clearly, as I indicated, have a budget of $1.5 million. I think I indicated in my statement it’s $818 million, I believe, is going to help Education, Housing, Justice, and corrections as part of Justice. Education’s budget is going to be $300 million-plus this year, so I think we have a very continued, strong commitment to education and it’s there and it’s visible in this document when you go through the education budget.

I take the Member’s comments and support for the mental health and addictions program and expanding that.

The Land Use Sustainability Framework, I agree with the Member. He and I have been waiting for some years. It was a priority of the last Assembly that never got done. I would point out two things. We do have an existing Sustainability Policy. That is in effect in what we are doing and what we have done in this process is just do more than added another word. We’re trying to integrate that Sustainability Policy into the land use so that it’s an integrated piece and we hope to have a document on the table – and I will qualify that with a “finally” – by next month to be able to have a discussion on it. I do appreciate the Member’s frustration and ask his continued forbearance even though I do accept the, not derision but the pointed comments he makes about our not getting it done yet again.

The Macroeconomic Policy, yes, has been, it was developed and in place and I think it’s an acknowledgement on our part that we are going to make it play a more central role as a lens through which we will review our business plans and economic initiatives going forward, so that in fact it’s not just a policy sitting on the shelf but a functional working policy that will assist us.

The Mineral Strategy, I appreciate once again the Member’s concerns about the issues related to energy. There is work being done on energy that we’re going to come forward with. We’ve made some references in the budget address and the Commissioner’s address speech from the throne about the work that’s coming forward on energy, hydro, solar, dealing with the Inuvik issue, the continued commitment to the alternative energy, and we will be following through on that.

The Member made a comment about why would we even be doing the work on minerals because we don’t have the authority. I would just point out to the Member that we made that very conscious decision five years ago now on the Water Strategy, that we didn’t have legal authority at the time, but we knew very well we were headed down the road to take over that authority. That process took four years to develop and now we’re fully engaged in transboundary negotiations. If we hadn’t taken those four years or preparatory work, we would be entering devolution without our thinking clear on water. We’re taking the same approach, though the time frame is shorter, on the Mineral Strategy. We know we’re going to be taking over that responsibility soon and we can’t get ready any sooner. That’s what we intend to do.

The regulatory reform that we referred to we used as an example avoiding rate cliffs. That we want to come up with a way where we have much more modest ongoing increases so that the shock is not there, but regulatory reform talks about much more than that and it implies much more than that if you read that due diligence report.

One of the other things, for example, is a general rate application costs almost $3 million every time we do one. That money goes into the rate base. We all pay for that. It’s not seen to be a very efficient process and we want to improve on that. We want to look at how the PUB is structured. We want to be able to make decisions on economic projects like Avalon, like Tamerlane, where we need to make decisions as a government to be able to deal with big business opportunities, things like wholesaling power. Regulatory reform has a much broader basis than just that one narrow issue, and I apologize if that’s the way it appears. Thank you.

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Could I have the report of Committee of the Whole, please? Mr. Dolynny.