Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, I think if we just did an example from Mains to Mains, or even Revised Mains to Mains, we'd see that from Mains to Mains of ’07-08, as a practice of budgetary process, we're growing by 5.5 per cent, if you take out the one-time bump-ups for trucks that have been put in place and so on. So when we're talking about realignment, there's going to be a portion that we need to cap, or manage our growth of government. So there will be some reduction — Members are talking about reductions in different levels of programs — and an impact on some of our employees. But we want to reinvest...

Committees of oversight do exist. The Standing Committees on Social Programs, Economic Development and Infrastructure and of Priorities and Planning are looking at what the government is doing and keeping us accountable. Let’s also remember the fact that it wasn’t that long ago in the history of the Government of the Northwest Territories when Ministers of this government went down to Ottawa and sat at those tables. In fact, we didn’t sit at the tables; we sat in the hallway. Let’s be realistic. If we’re going to talk about being a grand municipal council instead of a territorial government...

Mr. Speaker, with all the questioning and answering on the process for quite a number of years, I thought the members of the public had had enough. The project is in place, construction is happening, trucks are moving, loaders are working, and people are being paid to go to work.

There is also the amount of the discussion we had, as was made by Member Bromley, that the Budget Address.... I guess I could have been here for a lot longer going into much more detail about all the specifics. The fact is, when you take O&M and our capital expenditures, it’s almost $1.3 billion of expenditures. We...

Mr. Speaker, we’ll be willing to look at it. Within the cost-of-living strategic initiatives there are a whole number of areas, and we definitely have to look at how we impact the lives of people in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, as I have committed to, as we begin our normal business planning process, that input, that back and forth is going to happen. It needs to happen as we proceed. We’ll present that, hear back, and go back and forth on that as we get back into our normal cycle. Not a first-year budget after an election. We’re ready to sit down on that basis.

As well, I’ve sat down with the Ministers to say that we need to get the committees on these initiatives. When the Building Canada Fund package was brought forward, recommendations were made. We looked at some of those changes, and we reacted to...

Mr. Speaker, the area of fuel prices in the Northwest Territories is impacting across the territory, especially in our more remote communities.

The factor of the free market plays a significant role in the larger communities, where private businesses bring the product in and sell it to consumers. We’ve looked at other jurisdictions where they’ve had what would be considered moderate as a potential price control.

The fact is that when you look at the other pieces of legislation out there, it’s not very clear, and it’s not necessarily price control. There may be a delayed impact, but there’s still...

Motions that are passed in this House unanimously, or obviously any motions in this House, are paid attention to as we do our review. Those that are specifically directed at departments, when they start their business plan process, are taken into consideration. We also have to look at the long list of backlogged capital items or O&M requests that we’ve not been able to fund, and that gets part of the discussion embedded as we prepare for that. I think in this situation there’s been a commitment to move with one of those projects the Member spoke specifically about: a motion moved for the...

If the Member is talking about the Parkland report, that’s one thing — hired by the unions in the Northwest Territories to look at our numbers, come up with their assumptions and present those, in a sense, to question where we’ve come from as a government. I disputed those numbers. As the Member stated, we can both — the government and people out there — look at numbers, put them on a scale and say things are actually quite good.

Talk about the surplus. The surplus is a planned surplus so we can fund our capital programs. I’ve been saying that for years and I continue to say it. We need that...

Mr. Speaker, we have provided, in tabling the documents…. It’s the first time we’ve tabled this set of documents so that they’re available for public review. The Budget Address, as well, has a lot of information on the stats and where we’ve come from. It’s not a myth out there. We’ve had to build on.... Based on our assumptions and knowing that our formula financing going forward is fixed — there’s little adjustment to that, and our growth of expenditures is there — we’re going to run into problems. So we have to take action now, before we end up in a situation where all our flexibility is...

I think that question has been answered a number of times — of course, not to the satisfaction of the Member. I think all you have to do right now is drive through some of the business parking lots and look at all the tractor-trailer units parked in their parking lots, because they had to stock up for the closing of the ice crossing. Let’s ask the businesses that.