Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What a historic day yesterday. Devolution has arrived after a long and a hard-fought battle. That we’ve reached this point is wonderful. I am in full support of devolution and very happy. It’s not something I thought I would see during my tenure here at the Legislative Assembly. I offer congratulations to the Premier, the Aboriginal governments and all the hardworking GNWT negotiations staff, past and present, who brought us to this point.

Today I’d like to follow up on an exchange that I had last week during budget deliberations with the Premier, and recent comments by...

Thanks to the Minister. It’s good to hear that we’re making a base adjustment. I’m just wondering, when we give approval for appropriation of funds, basically after the fact the way we are doing here from what it sounds like, is there a financial impact on us? Are we spending this money and getting reimbursed at a later date? Are we paying interest costs or whatever? Basically, is it costing us money to be out this $4.7 million? Thank you.

That pretty much answers my questions. I’m done. Thank you.

Thanks for the information from the Minister. We’re almost at $19 million in the hole, so to speak. I appreciate that we have unforeseen costs periodically, but I would have thought with a reserve of $10 million and we’re now $19 million in the hole, that means we overshot our budget by $29 million. Are there specific large items that we can reference that caused us to be so much in the hole or is this an accumulation of a number of smaller things that have added up to this deficit of $19 million?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a general question with regard to all of these expenditures. These were unforeseen in this budget year, that’s why they’re here. So to the Minister, I understand that we have a contingency fund or we have a reserve for both infrastructure and for operations budgets. So a couple of questions. What is our reserve for the 2012-13 budget year for operations and how do all the items in this particular supplementary appropriation affect our reserve fund? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Aumond, for the explanation. That’s all, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 43-17(4), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2011-2012, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 43-17(4) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

---Carried

I move that consideration of Tabled Document 45-17(4), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2012-2013, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 45-17(4) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.

---Carried

So I guess the next question I have is: What is the Premier’s, what is the government’s expected outcome from this public engagement and consultation that is going to happen over the next two months?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask a question about this special warrant. It would seem to me that we should have had a better understanding of the costs of our winter roads. We should have been able to gauge ahead of time that we were going to have this expense. Why did we need to do a special warrant for this particular work?