Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today the honourable Minister of Finance, Michael Miltenberger, gave us a summary here regarding the borrowing limit. Being a businessperson of mind, it’s important to always have a strong balance sheet. I think that’s very agreeable. I think the Government of the Northwest Territories does have a very strong balance sheet in place. The Minister also uses terms like “economic levers,” and I’ve heard him speak many times about it and leveraging those economic levers. One such lever is our very own Crown corporation, the Power Corporation. Unfortunately, the Crown corporation rests on the government balance sheet as a liability, which is going against the borrowing limit. Can the Minister discuss how, if and when were negotiations ever achieved with the Minister of Finance federally about removing this liability from our borrowing limit?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The debt that is held by the Power Corporation that is on our books is what is called self-liquidating. They generate revenues and pay it down. While it’s on our balance sheet and goes against our borrowing limit, they are generating the revenue to pay down the debt.
To the Member’s point, there have been discussions and to this point the federal government is not willing to remove or separately treat the Power Corporation or the Housing Corporation or even the bridge, which are in similar circumstances, of having revenue that would pay down the debt that is on our books.
I can understand the Minister indicating that this is a definite “no” from the federal Minister. However, everyone knows that to leverage our assets is critical in order to remove that off our borrowing limit. Is this a dead issue or is this something that can be revisited here?
As I’ve indicated in my update before this House today, there’s been extensive work on the whole issue of the borrowing limit, redefining borrowing. As the federal government has indicated, they want to now include other instruments under the borrowing limit that weren’t currently there. There will be offset provided for that.
As I indicated in my statement, the big issue for us is going to be the negotiations and discussions with Finance Canada, Minister Flaherty, about the issue of adequacy, about what we need as a mature, well-run, fiscally responsible jurisdiction to be able to make the strategic investments that I referred to in my statement.
We’ve looked at every avenue. I’m going to be meeting next week on the 18th and 19th in Victoria with all the Finance Ministers. We’ll have an opportunity then to pursue the arguments or the discussions with Minister Flaherty. We met this time last year at Kananaskis, so we are both intent on concluding that borrowing limit discussion before the end of this fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
