Don Stewart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The program costs in the directorate are related to the deputy minister’s office, the office of the Chief Information Officer, and the shared corporate services unit that will be providing the services to both Department of Finance as well as Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Chair. Could I get the Member to repeat the question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe the Infrastructure Department would have the utilities budget for GNWT assets across the NWT, so I think that's where you would find the amounts that we're spending on utilities for our own assets. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That one is actually a very interesting case, because that was one where there was an offset of new sites identified and costs, as well as reductions as we cleaned up our sites, so it netted out to zero, the impact that year; but there was actually activity both positive and negative that led to that point. It wasn't that there wasn't anything going on. It just happened to net at that level for that fiscal year. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The way the environmental liabilities work for our own sites is we have a listing of all of the GNWT sites with liabilities. We have a liability fund of about $48 million that is put away to clean up those sites. The $2 million that you see in the main estimates reflects the changes on an annual basis that we would expect to happen as we either get better estimates of costs or that we clean up things or adjust them or, frankly, as new sites are identified and those sorts of things. The $2 million is actually almost like a debt value, if you like, because there may be...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think, for the Member, we will be in a position by the MayJune session to provide a briefing to the standing committee. The issue really with the heritage fund  there were two issues that were to be examined. One was around the overall governance of it and administration. The other was around some of the contribution levels.

The issue I think around governance, and we will get into this more, is really around some of the criteria on what kind of instruments we invest in. We are very conservative in our investments, and I think that is a smart strategy with this type of fund...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Minster noted, we've recently gone through a review of our funding framework, the way we calculate the resources to boards. There are a number of changes that we did and worked with the boards on. One of the things that we are looking at is how we fund positions. There are some changes that need to take place. This won't impact the 2016-17 school year; it will be subsequent years to that. For example, the way the benefits have been calculated in the past is somewhat inconsistent with the way it is overall in the GNWT, and we think we need to align that.

Secondly, right...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The wages and salaries are based on information that we get currently from the boards in terms of the incumbents that they have. In terms of benefits, it is a percentage of those salaries that we use to calculate the benefit amounts. It is a similar system than what the GNWT currently uses in terms of the rates that are used in those sorts of things. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2015-16, we had a particularly high caseload under the Income Assistance Program. Now we received a supplementary appropriation to reflect that higher caseload. That was one-time money. It isn’t ongoing at this point in terms of the caseload. But as happens in many years, if there is higher caseloads then we would have to come back for another appropriation, but in 2015-16, there were higher caseloads than the historical case. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of timing, the changes for income assistance that do not include the Canada Child Benefit and custody payments as part of the calculation. That'll take place on August 1st for the calculation for the August month. My understanding is that the federal changes will start to roll out in July, so it'll time well with those changes. The changes to the NWT Child Benefit will require the legislative changes and the likely timing is the fall for that. Once we have those changes in place, then we have to work with the federal government on implementing those, although we...