Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Member for his comments. This budget-making is an issue and it’s a process of making choices, of looking at a long list of demands with a finite amount of resources, and we’ve done that again this year. We’ve been on this budget now for about six months collectively, and we’ve tried to capture as much as we can with the funds that are available, and we’re here to have the discussion now about the pieces, the final pieces maybe that need work or that possibly need adjusting.

I appreciate the Member’s comments about the support for the projects. The liquid...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and his ongoing attention to content and detail.

With regard to being more in debt, I would just point out once again, if you put us on a national comparative scale, we are one of the best managed and best run jurisdictions in the country with our debt to GDP ratio and the amount of interest to revenue that we are paying to service our debt. Most of our debt is self-liquidating.

We actually have about $150-some million or $180 million of actual debt that’s not, at this point, self-liquidating. We made a conscious point during extremely...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are three that are staffed, one is vacant. So there’s four total. Three staffed, one vacant and none of the incumbents have indicated they’re prepared to move; therefore, they will go on to the government’s Affected Employee Program. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member raises a concern that we should be putting more money into social programs, specifically health and social services. When I was Health Minister for five and a half years, I made the comment repeatedly that if you doubled the budget of health care, we’d be back within a year or a year and a half saying we need more to do all things for all people. I don’t think, looking to the fact that other jurisdictions are spending 40 to 45 percent of every dollar on health care, not social services, not housing, not anything else, is a sign of success. The reality is...

The Premier and Cabinet provided direction to the government from two departments to go back to their organizations and look at what could possibly be decentralized, and in a meaningful way that cohesive units or positions that would make sense that could easily function outside of Yellowknife. The BIP office was one of the suggestions brought forward. Some of the other departments were holding off pending the outcome of decentralization, for example. ENR and ITI, for example, are heavily caught up in that they go over land and water and resource development. So those will be looked at later...

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Mr. Chuck Tolley and his wife, Mrs. Muriel Tolley, and one of their pride and joys, young James Tolley, who has the hard job of looking after me as my executive assistant. Welcome to the Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2013-2014. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Assembly started with a four-year budget plan, the first two years focussing on fiscal discipline to build our cash reserve in order that in the final two years we would have an enhanced infrastructure budget. The budget presented today is the second budget of the 17th Legislative Assembly and represents a cooperative approach, enabling us to meet the objectives of our four-year plan.

We have been consistent in our message that the government’s fiscal plan must include operating surpluses to fund infrastructure and pay down short-term debt. While we are prepared to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to be able to introduce a constituent and friend from Fort Smith, Mr. Keith Hartery, visiting and contemplating becoming a nursing student to add further to his service in the North. Welcome. Thank you.