Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll start with the deputy.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the honourable Member from Hay River North, the Premier, will be absent from the House for the remainder of this week to attend to the Council of Federation in Washington, DC. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so no, we're not overstating the budget to make it all look better. It doesn't have that kind of effect on it, Mr. Chair. And perhaps given that this is getting into the process of how it is actually budgeted, I might start with the deputy minister but we might turn to director of shared corporate services too. Thank you.

to the deputy minister, please.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 20, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures and Borrowing Authorization), No. 2, 2024-2025, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have as of March 31st of last year, so the actuals coming in from last fiscal, we have a breakdown of equity at 24.2 percent fixed income. Yields or bonds are at 9.8 percent fixed income. Short term, 54.5 percent. There's cash equivalence of just under 11 percent. And we do yet accrue interest at 5 -- .5 percent as well as dividends at a small marginal amount, 0.5 percent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. No, and, Mr. Chair, happy to spend a bit more time on it. I think this is actually an important -- quite an important concept that happens across different line items, and this is a good one to use as any.

So we -- the 2023-2024 number that you see there is actuals. We don't get that until much later in the budget cycle. Obviously, we're filing public accounts, you know, after the fact when the fiscal year is well over and we're already well into the next cycle, so the budget would have already been established in 2024-2025 and would have stayed at 13.088 unless we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, Mr. Chair, I mean, I'm not going to ask the public service necessarily to run theoretical scenarios on things that may or may not happen in a space where they have previously done and been able to, you know, respond fairly quickly, that there's a lot of understanding within the department and our fiscal policy division of what the current circumstances are, what the current options are. They've had multiple conversations with the Department of Finance over the last couple of years every time there's been changes from the federal side. We have the option to zero out...

Sorry, Mr. Chair. Yes, they're for the transfer over. Thank you. They were previously -- yes, they were previously -- they were previously unfunded, showing as unfunded in Infrastructure, but they're being brought in and reflected for the fact that they were filled in or need to be filled. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: 2023-2024 Public Accounts, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4. Thank you, Mr. Speaker