Okay, thanks. And finally about the new IT position, is this a time limited, like a term position, or is it indeterminant? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. For that detail, I'll turn to the deputy clerk, please. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the deputy clerk.
Mr. Chair, this is a position that the board has approved for a period of two years. As an independent entity, the Legislative Assembly manages many of its own services internally, and there is currently a need for more specialized capacity in IT, so this will be funding for the first year of that position.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Is there any further questions? No further questions, please turn to page 14.
Legislative Assembly, Office of the Clerk, $12,085,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Agreed? Thank you. Moving on to the Office of the Speaker beginning on page 16, with information items on page 18. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 17.
Legislative Assembly, Office of the Speaker, $567,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to statutory offices, beginning on page 19 with information items on page 21 to 23. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 20.
Legislative Assembly, statutory offices, $4,253,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Members, please return now to the Legislative Assembly summary found on page 5, with information items on page 6 to 7. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions, committee, I will now call the Legislative Assembly summary.
Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, total Legislative Assembly for 2026-2027 Main Estimates, $26,633,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the witnesses for appearing before us. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chamber.
Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 449-20(1), 2026-2027 Main Estimates. We will now consider the Department of Finance.
Does the Minister of Finance wish to bring into the House witnesses?
Yes, please, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chambers.
Would the Minister please introduce her witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on my left is Bill MacKay, the deputy minister of finance. And on my right is Tram Do, director of corporate services.
Thank you, and welcome. The committee has agreed to forego general comments on the Department of Finance. Does committee agree to introduce the detail contained in the tabled documents?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity summary beginning with directorate starting on page 160, with information items on pages 162 to 163 is. Are there any questions?
I am going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regards to the NTPC line under directorate, it has been removed entirely, and I'm just wondering if the Minister can confirm whether contributions to NTPC are expected to continue in future years to offset increased costs, or does the department have a long-term plan to minimize those contributions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, being realistic I would expect that there's a very reasonable chance that there will be still a need to continue to support the cost of power and by providing contributions to NTPC that eliminate when there's, for example, low water events, so on and so forth. But that said, Mr. Chair, it certainly would be the long-term preference, and therefore plan, to avoid having to continue to subsidize power. So it starts to bleed into efforts that are being made within the strategic infrastructure, energy and supply chains division, specifically under energy, so I won't get into too much detail, but it's that bigger picture that will ultimately provide greater resiliency, greater sustainability of the energy services which will reduce reliance on diesel which reduces volatility and provides, again, ultimately a better -- a better, more secure system. And when we achieve that, then there's less need to be continually subsidizing power. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Minister. I guess just from a pragmatic point of view then, since this item is no longer existent in these main estimates is this, then, an area that would be covered by the larger cushion that the GNWT has projected into this year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I'm just realizing, Mr. Chair, although the director's pointing it out, that maybe I misunderstood the Member's point here, that they're -- partly that the -- there are still going to be continuing expenses. They are moved over to the Office of the Comptroller General. It's in the broader sense that the comments exist around whether or not, you know, the Government of the Northwest Territories writ large will need to continue to offer subsidies, but there are still ongoing specific subsidies that do now exist in a different division. Sorry, Mr. Chair, I'll just pause at that and maybe ask if I could go back to the Member. I missed the second part of her question. Apologies.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, and forgive me if any of these questions are off point, but it's sometimes hard to know where to ask business plan questions so I am going to direct some of them here and hope that we're on the right page for it.
The first thing I wanted to ask about was the macroeconomic policy analysis. That policy I know is being used to assess projects and provide a macroeconomic lens to projects as they're brought forward and something I've wondered about, and talked to the Minister about a fair bit, is whether we'd be better off using macroeconomic analysis to inform our actions at a higher level rather than having staff produce reports about projects that they're already bringing forward.
So can the Minister help us better understand how the macroeconomic policy analysis is being used and whether we've considered changing the analysis to give us kind of more high-level direction in terms of what sort of projects we should be bringing forward as opposed to assessing them after they've been brought forward, if that makes sense.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the question does make sense, thank you. So the macroeconomic policy framework, this is something that was first established way back in 2007. It wasn't necessarily being brought up to a decision-making level or well-integrated into decision-making processes or arguably well-known within departments that were charged with providing the kind of information that then goes forward for decision-making. And so this is part of a process here now to bring this lens in for decision makers when they are deciding whether or not to advance or to accept a decision proposal. It is for the public, Mr. Chair -- I will be mindful of time, but it is something that has 14 different criteria upon it that look at different types of consequences. So, for example, the likelihood of an economic impact on a small community, the number -- you know, job impacts that there may or may not be. For instance, whether or not there's likely to be economic growth as a result. And yeah, so there's a number of different -- as I say, 14 different lens criteria. And I'm happy to have them -- I think we can probably put them forward here if they're not already available online among the other FMB materials that are available online. What we are doing now is having departments fill those out when they bring forward decision proposals, and that then puts them through the deputy minister's committee but more importantly it brings them to the financial management board so that when we're evaluating the decisions that are put before the FMB that comes with the macroeconomic framework. I take the Member's point, that if we integrated that somewhere earlier on that that might give a different -- you know, a different lens. The question is at what point in the decision-making would we do that? There are policy processes, particularly on the capital planning side, but -- you know, for example, that determine whether or not a project should advance.
Better stop there, Mr. Chair. I know the time's getting short. So I'm happy to keep having this conversation with the Member. At this point, this is a much more integrated framework than what it was a few years ago. But, again, it's continued to evolve. I think it's better than it was, and maybe it needs to evolve again. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North. My apologies, Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I -- well, I guess Yellowknife North isn't a lake but I said -- I always say it's easy to get the lakes of Yellowknife mixed up because there are quite a few of us.
Mr. Chair, the next thing I wanted to ask about is, you know, it's clear the carbon tax offsets has come down significantly. What isn't clear to me is where our carbon tax revenues are at with the change. Because I know that obviously the carbon tax on residents has been eliminated but we still have an industrial carbon tax. What kind of revenue are we still bringing in from that, if any at all? And how is that being used? Is it -- can the Minister help us better understand that? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Over to the director, please.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The net carbon tax revenue for 2026-2027 is projected at $4.8 million, and that figure is a net figure which means the estimated gross carbon tax of 28.66 less the large emitter rebate, approximately 23.86, for a net of 4.8 million, and it is in the revenue summary page of the mains. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, so that's a pretty significant revenue decrease that's happened. And I'm just wondering how are we managing that. I mean, how is that going to affect our programming? Maybe this isn't the right department to ask the question, but it's just one that occurred to me.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, build in any revenue changes to part of the fiscal framework that we have in terms of understanding what are the total revenues, what's the spread between revenues and expenditures. How that, in turn, impacts the operating surplus which could impact, you know, what number of projects we want to advance under capital in a year or can make a decision obviously to enter into a deficit position, mindful that there is parameters within the fiscal responsibility policy. So it is exactly part of that bigger picture, is that when we know that there's going to be a significant change like that, you do need to adjust accordingly. So yeah, it's not, you know, on the scale of hundreds of millions. It was a $14 million net revenue. Now it's 5. So it is a decrease, but it's also not one that is so substantial as to, yeah, completely create a huge gap.
One last comment since I'm on that topic, Mr. Chair, that was -- when there is a huge swing, it can impact the adjustment of the territorial formula financing grant which does come in and can adjust based on a significant revenue loss on a three-year average, moving average. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also note that the contributions to the Northwest Territories Heritage Fund have fallen off a cliff. Can the Minister help us understand what happened there? Is that just a decline in resource revenue, or is there more to that story?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Mr. Chair, let me put that one first to the director, please.
Thank you. I'll go to the director.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Resource revenues are projected to decline to approximately $6 million and of the $6 million, 50 percent goes to the federal government and then the remaining goes to the fiscal benefit for Indigenous governments, 25 percent. And then of the balance remaining, 25 percent goes to the heritage fund. So the resource revenue decline is based on projections that are provided to us with the department of ITI in terms of resource revenues projected, I guess, over a five-year term. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
