Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement about the budget, I will have questions for the hardworking veteran Minister of Finance.
I would like to see if the Minister can give me some information on how they look at getting more information from these budget dialogues going forward. The numbers are definitely low. Can we get some information on how we improve that?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When you go out on budget dialogues, it’s a commitment that takes a number of weeks. There’s a Swedish word that caught my eye that sort of lays out some of the challenges of that task. The Swedish word is resfeber. It’s the restless beat of a traveller’s heart before the journey begins, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. Every time I go out and go around the territory, I always wonder how it’s going to go. I look forward to going out to the communities to meet with people no matter who shows up, not only in the rooms where we are but in the coffee shops and in the offices when we go around to meet employees.
So, how do we get more people out? It’s a good question for this Assembly because as I came back in here, I looked around the auditorium and there’s not a soul in here but the work we do is important. We come here day after day, sometimes people show up. I know we’re wired in for people. People in the communities value the fact that central agency folks, especially finance people, take the time to go out there. How do we do that? There has been advice provided and we’ll look at the struggle of trying to do our budget consultations, the timing, because it ties in with business plan reviews, the work that we do, advertising, trying to figure out ways that we don’t conflict with community activities. One of the challenges, being we have to book so far ahead, by the time we get there, other things could overtake us. I think there are ways and we look forward to feedback from the Members. Thank you.
My next question is: What did we hear this year and how does that apply and how has it been applied to our current budget?
The work we do is cumulative and every Assembly builds on the work of previous Assemblies. Every budget builds on the work of previous budgets. The 17th Assembly charted out a bunch of priorities that we’ve been trying to implement. We’ve done things that the communities have asked us to do. We’ve put more money into prevention. We’ve protected programs and services. We’ve beefed up our capital plan in the places like the Far North. We’ve put in projects that are going to help not only provide infrastructure but some employment.
As I pointed out before, this is not a situation where communities are sitting there and it’s a blank slate. They have MLAs that sit in this building – and I commended MLAs prior to this – who reflect the views of their constituencies to a great degree. Plus, we all travel. It just gives us a chance to put faces to names and to hear firsthand many of the things we already know or think, or we know are critical principles and values of the Northwest Territories and of government, and in some cases they give us good advice, regional advice that we can look at when we come back. It may not be reflected in the budget, but it could be reflected in how the departments adjust their business on a day-to-day basis. Thank you.
I would like a specific example of what, out of this year’s budget dialogue, came out from the public, because I’m concerned the presentation was just made, the presentation was there, the public was heard, but nothing was implemented.
What specifically was implemented from this budget dialogue will be going forward or was implemented to this budget?
Let me give a couple of examples. There are a legion I could give, but let me give a couple.
The Western Arctic Geomatics Centre we’re setting up in Inuvik. It came up that we need to look at getting stuff out of Yellowknife; we need to tie into the work of the fibre optic line; we need to do a better job now that we’re the land owners post-devolution, and we need to invest money to do that and we’ve done that with the Western Geomatics.
We committed to decentralization, and one of the places that we’re going to decentralize to: some positions from ITI parks to Hay River.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
This is the problem that I have, is I think that those park positions were in the budget before the budget dialogue. So, I’m looking for specific examples from the budget dialogue that were implemented. We already knew about the fibre optic line; we already knew some of this stuff. I’ll even go back to the previous budget dialogues.
What has the department learned from the public, has implemented and put into our budget process and into the operations of the government?
Let me use another example. We put, I think, $425,000 into doing an Integrated Case Management Pilot Project, of which Inuvik and Yellowknife and, I believe, Hay River are going to be beneficiaries to push the departments that deal in the social envelope to integrate their case management approach so that when they deal with individuals and clients with multiple presenting problems, they do it in an integrated, coordinated way. A goal we’ve been striving to get done ever since I can remember and I’m in my 40th year now in government. We believe that maybe this will help us turn the corner on that. That’s a specific one.
If we want to look back, the Fibre Optic Link has had a life in the previous Assembly, and as we build off the work of that Assembly, we’ve now broken ground, we’ve got countries beating the path to the door of Inuvik. We’ve put in the Western Arctic Geomatics Centre to build off of the opportunities that the Fibre Optic Link provides. I would be glad to maybe share again a copy of the budget address with my colleague for Hay River North because it is replete with all the fine things that this Legislative Assembly has asked to get done that we are doing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Menicoche.
