Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be for the Heritage Fund as well. The Minister’s statement indicates the Heritage Fund begins in 2015-16 when the revenue begins to flow into the government. I guess Mr. Bromley’s questioning about when that money will flow... Are we skipping a year of the Heritage Fund? Are we skipping the first year of the Heritage Fund?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, we’re not. We’re acknowledging that the Devolution Agreement kicks in April 1st. The resource royalties will start to accrue but the royalties will not be paid out and will not come into our coffers until the end of 2015. Once the appropriate business cycles are concluded and reporting cycles and financial cycles are concluded where royalties are ascertained, at that point we will honour the commitment and put in 25 percent in 2015-16 on a go-forward basis. Thank you.
I guess one of the confusions, then, is that we’re booking the revenue, we’re booking the expenses for the Aboriginal groups for the 2014-15 budget.
Can the Minister explain those if we’re not expecting them until the 2015-16 budget?
The $120 million is booked for accounting purposes. The $15 million is a sign of good faith, but you’ll notice in my budget address I indicated in there that that money will not flow until late 2015.
Mr. Speaker, are we sure those monies are flowing and if they don’t show up are we committed to the fact that we’re going to have to borrow that money to pay the Aboriginal groups?
As it has been pointed out, some of these figures are estimates. They’re based on the royalties posted on an average basis. So depending on how good a year it is and the coming year will depend on what we’re going to get, but we fully anticipate we are going to get royalties in the neighbourhood of $120 million, barring some unforeseen bad news, and if there’s good news, then it will be more. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
