Michael Miltenberger

There was a supp done in 2007-08 to cover off the $800,000. They were short out of their supp reserve, a portion of last year. They put $800,000 in out of it to keep their utilities figure where it was so it was dealt with in both years.

As a government we’ve already made a decision that we were going to stand back from the $30 million in revenue that we were going to generate through possible tax increases. So at this point, given the economic circumstances, we don’t see any type of new tax regime as having much appropriateness at this particular time. Once again, we’ll bring forward a very basic paper on the potential of equity positions by governments, does it make sense, is it affordable, and if it is, would we even want to consider it given all our other pressures. Thank you.

We will look forward to having that discussion early in the spring here as we sort out going forward into 2010-11. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve committed to get a document done, a basic discussion paper that I’ve committed to share with the Members. Clearly, if we look at this area we have to be prepared, as the Member indicated, to consider everything. We’re going to have very limited capacity to take an equity position in anything, I would suggest. However, we will do a paper, lay out what may be entailed and what our capabilities are. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, those two figures were money that was put towards both the Stanton and to Inuvik Health and Social Services Authority as an offset to help them cover some of their costs and mitigation measures that they weren’t able to implement. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we should be able to put pen to paper on this within a month. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have that number, though we do have the number of deficits, but I don’t have that specific number out of the $10 million.

We have contribution agreements. We have the accounting criteria that are followed when we make contributions to other organizations that should be met. Accountability issues then are expected to be complied with so that we can account for the money that we do spend as a government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not wanting to chew anybody’s cabbage twice, I’ll just thank the Member for her comments and indicate once again that we’re interested to look at making this system as effective as possible for all of us, and that my own sense is, being around a while, is that these costs are going to be incurred, it’s just a matter of how we account for them, how accurately we can do it and how far ahead we can. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have a return to written question asked by Mr. Abernethy on February 20, 2009, regarding a meeting to discuss the NGO funding policy. The Department of Municipal and Communities Affairs and the Financial Management Board Secretariat have developed a resource booklet titled Program Guide for Managers: Funding for Non-Government Organizations. The need for this booklet was driven by the valuable work done by Volunteer NWT’s Finance Action Group. Their report both highlighted the need to ensure NGOs had clear and thorough information about current GNWT funding policies and flagged...