Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier. It’s on the condition of our economy and what the potential for problems might be in the Northwest Territories.
I know the Premier did not attend the national round table of Premiers and leaders, but it’s recently been announced that the Yukon is taking action to at least monitor the situation. They are developing a round table themselves, for that jurisdiction, to give them an early alert and try and come up with some solutions. What is this government doing to monitor this situation and come up with a plan before it’s too late?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.
Mr. Speaker, earlier today there was a similar question, and my response was that the Department of Finance is involved in monitoring, looking at the environment we are in and preparing to make a presentation on the status that we are in here in the Northwest Territories. For the record, the Yukon is putting a deputies’ committee together to do their work, not a round table — a deputies’ committee to do the monitoring. Our Department of Finance is doing that work for us.
Mr. Speaker, given the situation that we are becoming more and more reliant on the export economy — diamonds and oil and gas — what’s the expectation of the Premier, having heard the situation on the market again this morning getting quite serious: global concerns and national concerns about recession…? What’s the expectation in terms of the diamond industry and the oil and gas industry for the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, we had an opportunity to meet with the presidents of the diamond mines over a week ago to touch base with them and look at setting up a cooperative agreement on further initiatives we can jointly work on; for example, establishing the workforce in the Northwest Territories by reducing the fly in/fly out component, looking at additional training areas. That’s something we’re working on.
The other area with the mines that they’ve shared with us is that the cost of fuel has a big impact. They’ve been watching the markets and shared with us their concerns. We know, as well, the rate of return that some of the oil and gas areas of development are producing right now; there’d be an impact with that. That would mainly be felt, along with the federal government, on the royalties side as well as by the companies themselves. We’ve been working with the industry and, again from our side specifically, working through the Department of Finance to look at our numbers to ensure we’re still in a healthy situation.
I must remind Members that during the budget we had in June, we talked about the dangers that were potentially out there — that we must look to living within our means. That was the budget we presented to Members, and the Finance Minister is continuing along that path.
Thank you for those comments from the Premier. I know that our public is acutely aware of this issue and also acutely concerned.
We apparently purchased fuel near the peak of the cost — the bump we went through — to resupply our communities. There’s a potential for some serious downturns in our industries. Will this government be preparing a thorough update and response to this, at least for discussion in the business plans or certainly at our next session?
Mr. Speaker, as we go through our process, first and foremost between me and the Finance Minister, we’ll be making presentations to the standing committees as we go into the business plan process. Following that, departments themselves, specifically as the Member has touched on…. On the petroleum side the Department of Public Works and Services would have all the information on how they’ve had to deal with the pressures they’ve had to look at.
Part of the problem — and the Member has touched on it, in a sense — is that when we purchase our product, we are purchasing it off the market. At the point when it was delivered to our communities, the prices were significantly higher than they are now. We won’t be able to adjust those until the next refuelling cycle, which in some communities may be through winter roads and in other communities the next barging season. That’s the difficulty the Department of Public Works and Services’ Petroleum Products Division faces when it comes to providing a level of service in our communities. But that will all be available to Members when we sit down and go through the process in the next business planning cycle.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate those comments from the Minister. This, again, is a very serious issue.
I’d just like to note that the Yukon will be holding round table meetings with various associations, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Yukon Communities and so on, so it’s not just an internal process. Will the Premier commit to including a public process where our residents can participate in a response to this situation as required?
Mr. Speaker, a number of departments have functions established that allow for public input. I know that within the Department of ITI the Minister responsible has an economic table advisory group that he can go to in these times. The Minister of Finance has gone out with a discussion paper about revenue options and got much feedback about that. Much of the feedback is coming as of late with the impacts that are being felt by individuals and companies as a result of the economic turmoil we are facing globally.
Myself, I have met with, for example, the president of the NWT Chamber, the president of the NWT mines, and the Construction Association on a number of occasions, and we’ll continue to use that avenue again to get more feedback about the work we are doing as the Government of Northwest Territories.
