Michael Miltenberger

The government, of course, stands ready to work with the affected communities in the affected areas where there have been fires in the previous year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

ITI has put on, and will continue to put on, workshops to assist communities and interested individuals on the ins and outs of the morel mushroom harvest, both in terms of the actual harvesting and then looking to the secondary piece, which of course is marketing the product. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Given the common theme of many of the opening comments, it seems to me the issue of process would be a fine item for August’s Caucus agenda to spend at least one time going around on protocols and those types of things which are important. If we need to have that discussion, I think that would be the place collectively to do it and see where we end up. Of course, we can always learn from the processes as we work our way through them.

The issue of the traditional economy and the challenges, I appreciate the Member’s comments, and we are committed in many areas to try to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Member for his comments. I appreciate the comment that it’s not a bad budget, and then he woke up and realized that it was true, it was not a bad budget. I appreciate those comments. We do share the sense of success that we’re the only jurisdiction in the country that has worked out a renewable resource sharing agreement with Aboriginal governments where a share goes from the gross revenues of 25 percent.

The Member and I have had many discussions about how long it takes to move government and how long it takes to change things or get things added...

Thank you. I don’t think it’s a case of anybody being bad guys. We are looking at a budget. We agree on the Heritage Fund, we agree on keeping the money out of programs and services, we agree to put some in the Heritage Fund, some in capital and some for debt repayment. Now we’re having a spirited, healthy debate about how much and how do we manage that along with all the other obligations we have and the factors and the variables we have to look at that are financial pressures on us.

In terms of corporate income tax, as we’ve laid out a number of times, it’s a very complicated process. The...

No, we did not ignore that request. We have spent a lot of time consulting, working with committee on the main estimates that are before this House. In my budget address, we laid out what we used in calculating and determining that budget, and one of those factors was as we looked at all the variables that are before us, the challenges, the financial issues, we saw the way forward as a government with 5 percent, recognizing that we had to meet these other objectives as well.

The committee recommended to us 25 percent. We heard that, as well, in other parts of the territory as well as we heard...

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...

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...

Yes, we are engaged in short-term borrowing and some long-term borrowing, as I laid out in my budget address yesterday. When you look at all the numbers and when you look at the capital plan, the O and M budget, the things we are trying to do, we end up with $142 million left between ourselves and the $800 million borrowing limit. We’ve added to our borrowing to meet some of the objectives that we’ve laid out as a government and as a Legislative Assembly. So for the next five years, we are going to be in a cash deficit situation to manage our way through what are going to be some very big...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I tried to lay out in the budget yesterday, we look at what our revenue is, what our projected revenue is and look at what our expenditures are. Within the budget, we’ve already committed to fund, in capital, over $200 million of capital projects. This O and M budget, because we are required under our Fiscal Responsibility Policy to put aside the required amount to offset that, we are supposed to put half our money in savings. We’ve done that. So all our expenditures and the borrowing we’ve done to fund all the projects, all our expenses, leave us at $142 million...