Debates of March 17, 2004 (day 2)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Finance and it has something to do with the budget address that was presented to us earlier today. An omission from that, I do believe, was travel and that the government was going to go department by department and reduce 25 percent of the overall travel budget. Having gone through the draft mains the last two-and-a-half weeks, it was very difficult for me to get a firm handle on which departments were spending what in terms of travel. I know there was a 25 percent reduction, but the real numbers were very hard to get to, Mr. Speaker. It seemed to me that in order to arrive at a travel budget it was the number of employees times about $10,000 and that’s what the department arrived at in terms of a travel budget. So I’m asking the Minister if he could supply myself and other regular Members with what the real numbers are in terms of travel for each department of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Return To Question 18-15(3): Reductions To Departmental Travel Budgets

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. We’ve told departments that there will be a 25 percent reduction for the upcoming year on discretionary travel. Non-discretionary travel such as medical travel, student financial assistance, those things, court appearances, court duty travel, have not been touched. So it’s been discretionary travel. Those are difficult to follow through the business plans. Members will have the opportunity when each department comes forward to get specific details from them and we’ll inform departments that they should be ready with that information. We could try and gather the information for past years, but for the upcoming year it would be difficult because within each department, there may be health boards and education boards and so on and it would be difficult to actually take out an actual amount that they’ve specified, because a lot of it is built in to either a directorate function or another wing of their department. It would be fairly difficult to get that kind of detail. I’ll inform all Ministers and their departments that they should be ready with as much detail as they have when they come before Committee of the Whole with their specific departments. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Supplementary To Question 18-15(3): Reductions To Departmental Travel Budgets

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for the response. Yes, it was very difficult as a regular Member to arrive at what the real numbers were, so if the Minister can ask the deputy ministers and the other Ministers of the departments to allow us to see what the real costs are in terms of travel, I think that would be beneficial for us. I know there’s a 25 percent reduction. I don’t know if that goes far enough. I don’t know the real numbers, so it’s very hard to make a decision of what we should do with that, Mr. Speaker.

I guess my final question is can we get the real numbers? I know he’s going to ask, but I want to know if we can get the real numbers on travel, department by department. The medical travel, the student financial travel, things like that, that’s not what we’re trying to tackle here. We’re trying to tackle the travel that’s really unnecessary in this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Finance.

Further Return To Question 18-15(3): Reductions To Departmental Travel Budgets

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ll have that information put together, consolidated from all of the departments, and the Ministers will be prepared to respond to specific detailed questions when their departments come up. But we will pull that together. It will probably be a one-page consolidated number that we work from. Thank you.