Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will spend what is needed, so the volume will depend on the temperature. For example, when I came in here Tuesday from Fort Smith, it was about 40 below, and when I came over the hill every smokestack at Jackfish was going flat out with a great big plume of smoke, so it depends on the consumption.

There have been some projected savings with the cost of diesel. Diesel hasn’t come down as much as the price of oil. We’re tracking that. We’ll account for every penny and litre that we use and burn on an as required basis.

Ten million dollars has not gone into the NTPC...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Program Review Office I think has, if my memory serves me correctly, four people. We have 5,000 employees, about 11 or so departments, quite a number of significant sized other agencies, colleges, power corporations, Crown corporations and the sheer volume of things that need to get done require that we need to bring in, from time to time, outside resources because it’s physically impossible for that small number of people to do all the work that’s needed, the work that they’re currently doing as well as try to address some of these bigger, broader issues. Thank you...

Mr. Speaker, this process is started. We’ve been using passive restraint and fiscal prudence discipline. We’ve been working on that. Things have changed in southern jurisdictions that have affected our formula, the original escalator in terms of the money they spend, and other things that are dragging down our formula overall. Our own-source revenues are growing at about 3.7 percent. They’re projected to continue to grow. But when you look at some of the fiscal problems down south with the larger provinces, other provinces where they have severe challenges with their own budgets and debt and...

That issue of some type of enhanced encouragement to address the issue the Member has referred to, increasing our population through birthrate, we’ve had some initial looks at it. We haven’t reached any definitive decisions yet of how we would do that in a way that would really promote that and it would actually show value. We know that in Quebec, I think they offered $3,000 per child. It’s something that’s on our to-do list. We’ve been focusing on some of the more immediate things, but it’s something that has been brought forward.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would request the indulgence of the Speaker and the House. Listening to the debate on the point of order, I’m not sure if the Member’s comments triggered a point of order and the question that he asked me. Am I still trying to answer that same question?

One of the issues, if I may digress just for a second, one of the big issues of great, great interest in Inuvik, of course, was the fibre optic line that is now under construction. That’s going to have a major impact on Inuvik and it’s an $80 million investment by the Government of the Northwest Territories that’s going to look at Inuvik as a major remote sensing site for satellite remote sensing and the fact that we’re going to tie in all the communities on the way down with fibre optic connections or microwave. So that is another big piece that came up and was discussed extensively in Inuvik...

This round of budget consultation will be just a shade over $40,000. I would also submit to this House and to the Member that a lot of the suggestions that we get from the people out in the communities are not “just give us more money.” They have all sorts of good concerns. How we hire people, for example. The need to not create roadblocks in that hiring process, creeping credentials, lack of a really good equivalency, slow turnaround in how we respond to people. We, as well, have started the 2,000 people in five years initiative. A lot of the things we are talking about, people are talking...

Very clearly the Member has identified a very important issue, the issue of personal choice, personal choice as it relates to a number of things. As the Member indicated, there are four basic choices that are driving a lot of our costs that are easily changed. That’s not abusing alcohol, don’t smoke, proper diet and exercise. Those four things, if they were managed properly through proper personal choice, would have an immediate impact on our bottom line.

Simple things like babies being born healthy without being affected by FASD, for example. So, the departments of Health and Social Services...