Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To my Member’s statement earlier in terms of the Budget Dialogue, as Members know we do go through our business planning session in September and as soon as that’s done, we have a really strong debate and try to get into the budget in terms of programs and services for the residents of the Northwest Territories. In some cases, it’s been pretty challenging and tough at times. Earlier in my Member’s statement, I did talk about how the Minister of Finance took his Budget Dialogue out on the road starting October 8th after the business planning session.
At what avenue and how do recommendations from the dialogues from the seven regional centres or recommendations coming in from the 11 individuals and organizations, how can these recommendations that we’re getting from people of the Northwest Territories get into the budget when, as Members, we have challenges to get some of our priorities in the operational budget? What avenue is the Minister using to get priorities brought forth by territorial organizations into the budget that we are going to be starting tomorrow? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would point out this is my third go-around in the Northwest Territories and we did three roundtables in Yellowknife last government where we brought people in. What has become clear to me – and it’s credit, I would suggest, both to having small communities and a small government – a lot of the concerns that I’ve heard going from community to community in the regional centres is very consistent with the concerns I’ve heard raised by the Members in this House. A lot of them focus on almost identical issues.
The people are very, for the most part, well informed who show up. They have issues they want to talk about and we take those concerns into consideration, the concerns about economic investment and critical infrastructure, more training prevention, managing our money, don’t go into debt, but not too far. There is the issue to manage the cost of living. There are very, very consistent themes. They want to put more money into the social program areas, as I will lay out in the budget address tomorrow.
We are, as a legislature and government, responsive to nearly all those issues raised. We don’t have the resources maybe to address them all to the level people would like, but we do listen carefully.
I just want to once again comment on the link between what we hear in an MLA’s constituency from the people who are there and what we hear from the MLA, which I think reflects well on this process and the MLAs in this House. Thank you.
When I look at the document, as well as attending the meetings, there are very sound, practical recommendations that are made and they also come from this side of the House when we are looking at making investments into residents of the Northwest Territories and programs. I just want to know how after the business planning session that we had and getting reasons why we can’t get them in and the Minister stating that he’s hearing the same thing from the residents of the Northwest Territories.
I would like to ask him, I know he’s listening to our residents, but at what cost is it to the taxpayer going out across the Northwest Territories and still not being able to put some of these recommendations into the business planning or into our operational budget? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This round of budget consultation will be just a shade over $40,000. I would also submit to this House and to the Member that a lot of the suggestions that we get from the people out in the communities are not “just give us more money.” They have all sorts of good concerns. How we hire people, for example. The need to not create roadblocks in that hiring process, creeping credentials, lack of a really good equivalency, slow turnaround in how we respond to people. We, as well, have started the 2,000 people in five years initiative. A lot of the things we are talking about, people are talking about, as well, in terms of being responsive, recruiting our own students and doing a better job in a whole host of areas where we’re already spending a significant amount of money.
These are not futile, after the fact processes that have no bearing, but as we can show you budget to budget and as I will lay it out tomorrow, we have been listening very carefully over the years about how much money we put into social programs, the types of areas that work on prevention. All those things we have done our best to address and we are really prepared to make significant investments with the borrowing limit sorted out and addressing the cost of living related to energy costs and other areas where we need to apply ourselves and make those critical investments. Thank you.
During the discussions, GNWT asked residents of the Northwest Territories, how can we manage our expenditures? Our operational budget has increased over the years to the tune of about one point six. We’ll be seeing and hearing tomorrow.
Some suggestions, back from the 2012 report, were how can we manage government expenditures better? One was duplication of programs, duplication between departments, or duplication between departments and non-government organizations.
Has any work or action been taken in this area to see how we could be more efficient in spending our dollars and even support non-government organizations who run programs on behalf of government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Health and Social Services, for example, is engaged in a transformative exercise to address that very issue, looking at avoiding duplication, the back office improvements, efficiencies, and move away from multiple disconnected boards to a more efficient one-board model. So that’s one example.
As well, we know there’s an interest and there’s a recognition between departments on the infrastructure side, where departments are now collaborating on building infrastructure that we need in communities: garages, warehouses, those types of things. We’ve had discussions with Deline, for example, where there’s an interest in the community of Deline to build a community infrastructure that’s going to allow ENR, Housing, the municipal works, public works, to pool their money to build one energy-efficient, right-sized, integrated piece of infrastructure that will allow everybody to pool their money, so rather than five underfunded little pieces of infrastructure we have one good, solid, long-term, well-built, energy-efficient piece of infrastructure that’ll serve multiple community needs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the operations budget as big as it is, questions out there are being asked whether or not this government can sustain such a high expenditure for operations. The Minister has been noted that we’re looking at trying to increase our debt ceiling.
If that doesn’t go through, can I ask the Minister, what is the plan of action should our debt ceiling not be increased? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
One of the issues, if I may digress just for a second, one of the big issues of great, great interest in Inuvik, of course, was the fibre optic line that is now under construction. That’s going to have a major impact on Inuvik and it’s an $80 million investment by the Government of the Northwest Territories that’s going to look at Inuvik as a major remote sensing site for satellite remote sensing and the fact that we’re going to tie in all the communities on the way down with fibre optic connections or microwave. So that is another big piece that came up and was discussed extensively in Inuvik.
In regards to managing the money, there are two things. We have to continue to practice fiscal discipline and diligence to make sure that our expenditures don’t exceed our revenues. If we are unsuccessful and we are left with an $800 million borrowing limit, then our capacity to do anything new, to be able to build the Northwest Territories, to implement the vision of the people of the Northwest Territories with things like the Mackenzie Valley Highway link from Norman Wells to Wrigley, the winter road here, converting that to an all-weather road, they need to look at generation and driving the costs of energy down in the communities, Yellowknife and all the other thermal communities are going to be severely curtailed and limited, and then we will be reduced to concluding the projects we have on our books to try to free up some capital.
We have $350 million allocated, roughly, for the Stanton renovation, for example, which is going to take up a lot of our room. We have the conclusion of the Tuk-Inuvik highway and the Fibre Optic Link. So, without the borrowing limit increase, we are going to be severely constrained for the life of this government and for the next. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
