Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Members who brought this motion forward and articulated their concerns and the concerns that they’ve heard.

As responsible Ministers, we are obligated to look at what we’re doing, what we’ve done and the contents of that report. We’re going to do that. We’re going to do it in a very thorough way, and we will look at all the recommendations and there will be a response forthcoming.

In the meantime, that motion is a recommendation to government and we will be abstaining, but before I sit down, I do want to point out that I concur there has been an...

Thank you. The biggest tool we have is the ones that we are applying and showing progress with. It has become more and more visible as the committee has taken a more active role in reviewing public accounts. Those that are not derelict, but those that are late, those that are tardy, those agencies, boards now have to suffer the scrutiny of not only the Minister of Finance but also of committee, the public, and we’ve put a value on this process. By putting that value on the process we are, over time – a fairly short period of time – getting all the involved boards, agencies and government...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The role of public accounts is an important one. When I became Finance Minister, there was a significant delay in reports being done. The public accounts had sort of fallen out of attention and I made it a point, as the Finance Minister, to meet with the Auditor General, along with the deputy minister. We made the commitment that we would pay attention and we would reinforce the importance of time of reports, that the public accounts was an important function, and then the Legislature, as well, took it upon themselves and the committees to take a much more active role...

The rate of power already has a significant subsidy from the government. In addition, we have a significant number of rebate programs that are encouraging people to invest in alternative energy, be it biomass, solar, even wind, buying new stoves, buying the equipment that they need to get engaged in the production of the alternative energy. But there’s no other specific subsidy that’s attached to this net metering. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent is to provide a reimbursement of the retail rate for the kilowatt hour alternative energy that’s generated and supplied back to the grid. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have pulled together a guidance document that captures best practices, and we are looking forward to the feedback from committee, once they’ve had a chance to review it. It contains a whole host of such practices and we will look forward to whatever advice they can give us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government has been working on a guidance document in a draft form. Initially we started with encouragement from the committee. We have worked with the regulator. We have come up with the draft copy that is now on its way to committee. It is going to capture some of the best practices that we think are critical as we look at the use of unconventional hydraulic fracking that has taken place in the territory and where we anticipate in the central Mackenzie and the Sahtu, it’s going to be a practice that is going to have to be managed carefully. We’ve worked to come up...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly I want to just draw Members’ attention up and away from this specific issue that is on the table and just remind everybody about our fiscal circumstances, similar to what Mr. Menicoche was talking about.

We have a very modest capital budget, a very rigorous process that takes a great deal of patience and hard work to get projects on from across the North. It’s a process that everybody watches very carefully. We also are dealing with a project – I want to mention this project again – of the Stanton Hospital that is going to be the biggest capital project we...

We have to look at the consolidated public accounts process as part of the overall budgeting process where we do business plans, we do reviews, main estimates, and where we spend a full year either getting ready for the budget or cleaning up after the budget and then having a short, very, very short pause before we renew that process.

Once again, we have skilled, trained staff. We have qualified managers and we now have, of course, this clear political direction from this body, from the government, that public accounts have to be paid attention to and it has to be given its due. We are doing...

This is a process that has some history to it now, as I’ve indicated in my previous answer. I’ve taken this on, along with the deputy minister of Finance, as a critical issue. It’s been pointed out clearly by the Auditor General that we were lacking in this area and we acknowledged that. So, we have the political commitment. We have been working with all of the boards and agencies and government departments to make sure that they know that there is an emphasis on this particular function and that these reports have to get done. We’ve met with chairs and board presidents to make sure that they...