Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to present the last budget of the 17th Legislative Assembly, I would first like to thank the Members of this Assembly, who, through various standing committees, have worked with the Cabinet towards achieving the priorities of this Assembly within the limits of our fiscal framework. It is a credit to our system of consensus government, as the many successes and accomplishments of the 17th Legislative Assembly and the numerous challenges met and often tough choices made are because we worked together. This budget looks to conclude the work of the 17th Assembly and prepare...

Thank you. The role of a Minister is very difficult, that fine line between fulsome responses and being accused of not answering the question, so we try to err on the side of answering the question so that we can remove that complaint.

In regard to the Member’s specific question, the community of Inuvik has indicated to us in writing that they would like to see a very major gathering of this type that the Member talks about in Inuvik. Instead of the oil and gas show, they would like to convert it, not this coming year but next year, into a gathering that’s going to bring together all the folks...

Yes, there are discussions underway. The reason the Western Arctic Geomatics Centre is going to Inuvik is because of the fibre optic line and the work and opportunity that’s going to be created by having them located there. The college has been in meetings, there’s a working group forum. The Germans, among others, have offered up 20 percent of their volume for data processing in Inuvik. So, there are training opportunities, there’s going to be other opportunities related to service development, value added secondary industry opportunities. When you look at what happened in Kiruna, Sweden, $100...

That is an issue that bedevils every jurisdiction that has a lot of resource development, like Alberta. Probably many of us have been on planes, I know I have, when there’s a shift change coming out of Fort McMurray. So it is a challenge. What is happening with Dominion Diamonds, for example, they’ve taken that issue head on and they are doing away with their incentives and paying of travel back and forth to force the issue. It’s that kind of courageous corporate action that we’re hoping will bear fruit and add to our 2,000 in five year success. Thank you.

Health and Social Services, for example, is engaged in a transformative exercise to address that very issue, looking at avoiding duplication, the back office improvements, efficiencies, and move away from multiple disconnected boards to a more efficient one-board model. So that’s one example.

As well, we know there’s an interest and there’s a recognition between departments on the infrastructure side, where departments are now collaborating on building infrastructure that we need in communities: garages, warehouses, those types of things. We’ve had discussions with Deline, for example, where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would point out this is my third go-around in the Northwest Territories and we did three roundtables in Yellowknife last government where we brought people in. What has become clear to me – and it’s credit, I would suggest, both to having small communities and a small government – a lot of the concerns that I’ve heard going from community to community in the regional centres is very consistent with the concerns I’ve heard raised by the Members in this House. A lot of them focus on almost identical issues.

The people are very, for the most part, well informed who show...

There are two tools that are available that are in existence and have been for some time. Of course, the first one being the Business Incentive Policy which provides northern preference, in some cases local preference. Then, of course, there’s the opportunity from time to time, if all the right conditions are met, where negotiated contracts will be considered.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not wanting to get ahead of my budget address, I will make the observation that projections are for flat revenue growth between now and 2019, 2020. Anticipated growth of about less than half a percent, which means that the challenge for us is going to be to make sure that our expenditure growth does not exceed our revenue growth so that we can in fact maintain our Aa1 credit rating and all the other good financial indicators that we do have, like our debt to GDP ratio.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, February 6, 2015, I will move that Bill 43, An Act to Amend the Borrowing Authorization Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Those are questions currently under review, not exactly the way the Member has phrased them in terms of a formal department or getting rid of all the distributors other than the Power Corporation. We are doing due diligence on those questions and I’m not in a position at this point to answer specifically because we haven’t concluded the work. Those are complex questions. There are economic questions; there are regulatory questions; there are policy questions and legal questions that we have to be clear in our minds before we formally stand up and take a final position on that issue, but that...