Michael Miltenberger

Sorry, Mr. Chairman, if I’ve misstated titles. I thought I said Mr. Moses. The Member, Mr. Moses, said about the Dempster Highway, raising that concern, I just wanted to confirm that, in fact, with the Building Canada Fund there’s going to be some fairly significant money on an ongoing basis to address that issue. We’re also intending to be able to address the road from the airport into town in Inuvik as well as that airport building.

So I thank the Member for his comments. We have all the pieces in place; we’re just waiting for the final signed agreements on the Building Canada Fund. That will...

We have a very stable tax regime. We have committed not to raise taxes in the life of this government or the previous government for that matter. Income tax, corporate tax, we haven’t affected the taxes on motive or non-motive fuels, and we have as a government, if you look at our list of subsidies, at least $200 million worth of subsidies that we put on the table across government to support and assist Northerners.

I thank the Member for his comments. His concern about can we afford to accelerate the Inuvik-Tuk highway and the potential lost employment and extending it out over the year, the bottom line concern about the project is to get the job done. We want to keep it to budget, $299 million I think is what the budget is. The reason we went to a negotiated contract was to maximize the involvement of local contractors and local employment, which the project is delivering, I believe, in spades. But at the end of the day, it’s not a social program. The concern is to get it done. If we can get it done in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize to the Member opposite. Not recently.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the issue that the Member started his statement on regarding fiscal management and responsibility, we have, over the last eight years, managed our way through some extremely traumatic financial times, including the major downturn in 2007. As we have pointed out, we have still not rebounded from that, but we manage to navigate our way through those difficult times without any program cuts or layoffs and we continue to invest in capital.

We give, in every case possible, as much advance notice as we can. For example, when the fire season was going, we sent...

The key focus I think we have to keep our eye on is we are going to invest something in the neighbourhood of $350 million to do a major retrofit, expand the footprint and service capacity of the Stanton Hospital by about 40 percent and modernize it into the 21st Century. It’s a big operation. There is going to be more staff coming on board.

As we move forward with this process, we will continue to inform everybody. The CEO has already met with staff. The process is not finalized. The final agreement, contract, hasn’t been signed. As those issues become clear, we will sort them out.

We are very...

Thank you. No, it does not. Not in this year, not in the next year. It has no impact on the existing capital plan. As we’ve indicated from the start, this project, the Stanton Hospital and the fibre optic line are large, unique projects that are being dealt with outside of the traditional capital plan, which is focused on all the projects that have been on the list that have been reviewed extensively through the committee process. Thank you.

It’s a hypothetical situation posed by the Member, but we have very clear processes as an employer on how we deal with affected employees. We will use those procedures and policies to the full extent to ensure, should there be, if there is, maybe, that that eventuality occurs, we will ensure that every step is made to address the issues raised by the Member.

Thank you. This project, of course, is funded $200 million by the federal government, $100 million by ourselves. The Government of the Northwest Territories, we’ve got that funding flow starting to work.

In response to the Member’s question, it’s not an advance. It’s going to be from money spent for work done that we are of the opinion of having had one year under our belt and seeing the work that was done by the contractor, got through the start-up issues, got the equipment going, got the staff online, local staff, got all the processes and procedures figured out that this year they will be...

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to update Members and the public on our fiscal situation and discuss the ways we are addressing our challenges during the remaining life of this Assembly.

To date, 2014-15 has included a number of fiscal challenges. The most severe fire season in NWT history has cost $55 million, or 3 percent of this year’s budget. A record 64-year low water levels at Snare Hydro required the government to intervene with a $20 million contribution to the NWT Power Corporation to ensure higher electricity costs of 13 percent are not passed on to NWT residents and...