Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated when we previously met, we are of course looking for the advice of committee and Members. This is a new process, this is the first year. So we had the discussion over do you budget estimates into your actual budget or do you wait for them to come back.

I would point out, as well, that the growth of government is probably the lowest it’s been in this budget than it’s been in many a year, thanks to the work that was done in the last budget and carried forward to this budget. We’re very sensitive to trying to control our costs, especially now where we expect...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are opportunities over the life of the fund for communities to apply for assistance in a number of project areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is one of the cases where the department was instructed to come back once the funds had been expended and there was an exact amount. The costs aren’t the same from Collective Agreement time to Collective Agreement time, nor are the folks that we hire to be negotiators or the costs that they may charge. I’ll maybe ask Minister McLeod, responsible for HR, to speak a bit more about the process. Thank you.

Municipal and Community Affairs will be before this House soon. The issues about the type of arrangement, the funding arrangements, the formulas, which I believe are very generous, are there for review. We have built a 9 percent increase into the budget. We have given, though the Member may say it is neither here nor there, 16 cents a litre. I would suggest the pressure we were getting from the Members themselves about bringing that price down would indicate that 16 cents a litre is still nothing that could be sneezed at in this day and age and that we are constantly looking at ways to be as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance, and Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to FMB.

Mr. Chairman, during this time period we were faced with extremely high rising and extremely high fuel costs before they peaked out and started to come down. A lot of the budgeting was done trying to compensate for those costs that were going up in some cases on a monthly or sometimes even daily basis and reflects that pressure of that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. This document outlines additional appropriations of $17.833 million for operation expenditures and $6 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Major items for operation expenditures include:

$5.1 million for costs associated with Northwest Territories residents receiving hospital and physician services outside of the Northwest Territories;

$2.8 million for the increased costs associated with the new contractor between the Government of the Northwest Territories and NWT...

What I’d like to suggest as a first step would be that the Member and myself and the deputy sit down to talk about the issue, frame it out thoroughly, see what’s possible, and then map out next steps from there.

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to update Members on the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers Meeting held in Whitehorse earlier this week. I attended this conference along with the Member from Weledeh, Mr. Bob Bromley.

A range of issues were discussed at the meeting including municipal wastewater effluent, climate change and strategies to reduce packaging and encourage manufacturers to take greater responsibility for the products they manufacture.

I am pleased to advise this House that after six years in development, the majority of CCME members endorsed national standards for municipal...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest that on these issues where the territorial government deals with the federal government, that the positions we are trying to make sure are consistent and one and the same so that we don’t send out confusing messages as a government. Thank you.