Floyd Roland

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.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that would be good advice. We talk about it as Members. We shared that, our fiscal strategy, the years of projections, what goes into our projections and using our relationships. For example, our first year of budgeting comes from numbers we know we had from the federal government. We build on that with estimates. So yes, I can't see why we can’t put that in place.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m working with the Department of Executive, pulling all the dates, times and all of the process that unfolded, looking at our legislation, looking at the process and looking at how we can tighten it up. That work is ongoing. I’ll have to get an update here within days, and I can get back to the Member as to when we hope to bring on our responses forward to committee. The work is ongoing.

We have to be clear on this. We’re also trying to relook at history here. There were all kinds of meetings, as we tabled in this House back to Members, about meetings, times, events...

Mr. Speaker, as we put this plan in place, we looked at a $135 million overall reduction. Seventy-five million dollars of that would need to be reinvested in our priorities. As we put this plan together, it clearly shows we've not met our targets, and in the fact the budget still grows. So it's pretty hard to put it into the reduction scenarios that the unions have been talking about, and that's our initial language as well. We're having to manage our growth and find some dollars from in the system to reinvest. Of course, those who are affected in the delivery of those programs, as well as...

The fact is that we are trying to go down that path. I’ve offered to Members a different approach to take to the budgeting exercise. As I said yesterday, I was told to get the budget done; be ready for May–June. We’ve done that. I’ve said to Members that would put us back into the same old way of doing business as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’re in that, and that process has not changed. I would like to see a change going forward. As I proposed to Members, when we do these strategic initiative committees, the lead chairs and deputies would be going to committee on a more...

Mr. Speaker, I'll work with the Member on the next Budget Address. Oh, wait. I won't be doing another. Thank you.