Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Finance. I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement and ask him some questions about the amount of money that is not going into the Heritage Fund.
My first question to the Minister is a question that I asked in my statement. I’d like to know from the Minister, where was the opportunity for Regular Members to take part in a vote to determine how much of the budget – the 5 percent, 25 percent, whatever – how much of our resource revenues for this year’s budget would be going into the Heritage Fund. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Finance, Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. In our system of government, we do annual budgets and the government puts a budget before the House. In effect, the government proposes and the Legislature disposes.
We started this process, as the Member said, many long months ago to set this budget in place. We’ve talked about what we were putting forward as what in our estimation was the best way to move forward to balance all the demands with expenditures, revenues, projects, infrastructure versus programs and services, all those issues. We have put before this House a document that lays that out, and now we’re engaged in the process to review and, at the end of the day, approve a budget. So, the process the Member talks about and asks about is now underway. Thank you.
I understand the Minister is saying that one side proposes and this side disposes. Understood, but there has been an awful lot of conversation about resource revenues over the last year, and there has been a lot of information to the Minister and to Cabinet. There was public consultation. There was a motion passed in this House last June. I want to say that… Well, I’ll say what I said in my statement, that that input was ignored.
I’d like to ask the Minister how he can justify the cost of the consultation, and I can’t remember how many thousands it was but it was a goodly amount of money – hundreds of thousands – when he basically ignored the input of NWT residents. Thank you.
Madam Speaker, we have undertaken consultation. This is now my sixth budget as Finance Minister. In the last government, in fact, we did consultation, but it was based on Yellowknife. We’ve gone around the territory now to talk about the budget and budget consultation. As I pointed out in the communities, as well, there’s a $1.6 billion budget we are talking about. The resource revenue piece is $45 million. It’s a significant issue, but it wasn’t the only issue by far in terms of sheer quantum and we had ranging discussions about other things, about the future of the Northwest Territories, things we need to do to build our economic base… Some of the vision was needed as a territory to in fact move forward. We didn’t ignore the advice.
There was overwhelming support for the Heritage Fund, there was overwhelming support for not putting that money into programs and services, there was overwhelming support to put money into the Heritage Fund, infrastructure and doing debt repayment. All three of those things we are doing.
So the Member’s absolute statements are wrong and we intend to go back out next year. I think it’s a very good investment of dollars and there is a price for democracy. I’m willing, as Finance Minister, to go community to community every year to talk to the people and have that discussion, and there was a wide range of opinion about the Heritage Fund. At the end of the day, the government has to look at that input, plus all these other factors before us, these financial variables, the $350 million Stanton Hospital, the drop in revenues, the significant demand-driven supplementary appropriations, and we have to look at how we manage all of those and we’ve done that. Thank you.
The Minister has gone to my next question. I was going to presume that he was going to consult again and I’m glad to hear that he will, but I guess my question goes to – and I think it’s one that residents are asking as well – if you’re going to consult again next year, whether it be on the budget or whether it be on some other financial matter, will you take the views of the residents of the NWT into account when you develop the ‘15-16 budget? Thank you.
Thank you. That, of course, is a given. We have a very able group of MLAs that bring forward those opinions and, yes, I will do the rounds. In the first budget dialogue and the feedback sessions we had, for example, we talked about where we should put our focus with the limited funds that are available, and they gave us some good advice that we’ve built into our first budget and our second budget. We’ve received some very helpful advice on this go around, as well, including on the Heritage Fund. So, yes, we will obviously, and clearly, commit. We always take that feedback into consideration when we do the budget proposals, keeping in mind that there are other things that we have to consider as well. We can’t just look at that piece in isolation. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. The Minister mentioned, in answer to one of my previous questions, that the budget is now before us and that we will be deliberating the budget, and I heard a suggestion that there can’t be changes to the budget. So if there was a motion to come to this House, and the motion stated that 25 percent of our resource revenues for this ‘14-15 budget and onwards should go to the Heritage Fund, will the Minister take that as the will of the House and adopt the budget that way? Thank you.
Thank you. The goal that we have is to stay on a fiscal path that we’ve laid out for ourselves, a sustainable path. We’ve had discussions, and very clearly, as we go forward with the budget that’s before this House, it’s going to require about a $20 million reduction of government services. We have to find the money to meet all these things we said we would do. If we want to in fact add to the mix, the 25 percent, then we have to find roughly another $10 million. If we want to do the Heritage Fund, the 25 percent, plus other committee asks, then that number goes up to $40 million. So, we will have that discussion with committee, we will lay out information that we provided yesterday in this House, for example, about understanding vacancy rates and what they actually look like when you drill down and look at them closely. We will have the discussion about if we want to put 25 percent in, then we have to find $10 million and we’re prepared to have that discussion. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
