Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. When it comes to the vacancies there’s any number, a host of things that could affect those particular jobs and you’d have to go over them almost position by position. Is it maternity leave issues? Is it a transfer assignment issue? Is it one where it’s difficult to fill and we’re doing a contract arrangement? As a government we haven’t fully funded the benefits for departments. We fund $17 million and it’s actually $23 million, so there’s a 6 percent spread and departments have been told to fund that from within. So what departments have done historically is looked at...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The purpose of Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Borrowing Authorization Act, is to increase the short-term borrowing limit from $275 million to $300 million.

The amendment is being proposed in order to provide the short-term borrowing authority needed to make a $25 million corporate income repayment on March 31, 2015. The current limit will be exceeded by approximately $12 million once this payment is made. On April 1, 2015, the GNWT will once again be within the current limit making this a short-term cash requirement, however a necessary one. That concludes my opening...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll get the deputy to respond. We do have five operational pilots that I think are proving out the case, but I’ll ask the deputy to expand further on that. Thank you.

As I indicated as clearly as I could in the budget address – I thank the Member for raising the issue – on a go-forward basis it’s going to be absolutely imperative that our expenditures don’t exceed our revenues and that we are putting in place the pieces that we need to have to ensure that everything we do keeps us under that operational ceiling. The short-term borrowing limit is something we want to free up as well. Three hundred million, $275 million, I mean, if we are able to hit our fiscal plan, we’ll have it, but we won’t be necessarily required to use it, barring more catastrophic...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened to the Member’s statement about bullying with interest. In regard to his question, the answer is yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular line item is one that has been funding a lot of the work that we’ve done on caribou, all the surveys, all the work that’s been done across the North for just about all the herds, trying to stay on top of things. It helped fund our involvement in all different regions with all the different co-management boards and in the unsettled claim areas.

After April 1st we’re going to be working very hard internally to see how we can cover this off from within. So it did what it was intended to do, but we haven’t had that money added to the base in ENR, so our...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve been practicing fiscal discipline, the use of passive restraint. We’ve capped forced growth at very low levels, and those levels might, in fact, be required to drop further as we move forward. With the passive restraint targets, we’ve done things like Finance has done, which is gone through its own operation to make sure our house was in order and things like the Territorial Power Support Program. We’ve laid it all out in the main estimates and all the other documents that are going to be coming out of public accounts.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Member will bear with me…

---Laughter

…I’ll try to answer that question. If the Member has a specific example about what particular type of education program he would suggest, I’d be happy to consider that, as long as it is not too unbearably expensive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just assuming Great Bear. We’re talking Port Radium? We’ll commit to get back to the Member on the issue of remediated sites, waste sites. I’m thinking, but I don’t have the list before me, that that might be one of the ones that the federal government still has responsibility for. But we’ll double check that and we’ll get that information back to the Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are two things. I’m assured that the 13 percent rate increase wasn’t put onto the backs of the ratepayers and cost about $20,000. Thank you.