That is a fairly sweeping question to ask so I am going to take some time to answer it if that is okay with you, Mr. Chairman. We got into this government two years ago. We had $150 million problem. We had, in fact, a $230 million problem because of gross expenditures that were over $40 million a year in the social envelopes. No question about that. We had to undertake unprecedented change against all odds that were facing us. People did not want to give up wages. The NWT Construction Association did not want to give up capital. No one wanted to give up programs, et cetera. So we had to make tough decisions, and we made the tough decisions where we took the monies from each of the programs and each of the envelopes in government. We tried as much as possible to protect social envelope. We have an obligation and responsibility to protect your weakest link. We want to make sure that people on income support, the people on low wage, et cetera were being protected and contrary to what we have heard over the last two years. The
fact of the matter is we only took 1.9 percent of the total social envelope budget out of that budget while we had to take the rest of it out of areas that were stronger. Yes, we had to take it from the capital budget. Where else would we have taken it from. Health care? Did not want us to do that. Education? Did not want us to do that. Public, sure as heck did not. So, somebody had to make the tough decisions and we had to make them fast because if we did not make them fast, today we would be sitting with $200 million accumulated deficit, paying about $40 million in interest payments, et cetera. So these decisions were difficult and they did clearly have an impact on the investment community, on employment of northerners, et cetera.
I do not think that we have secured our financial future. I think that all we have done is balance the budget, and we have ensured that for our future generations and for my kids and my neighbour's kids at least there is not going to be any debt while this Cabinet is in office. What we have got to do over the next 18 months or two years that is left is do exactly that. Create an economic environment that provides new investment to replace the government dollars that are no longer there. Let me remind everybody, the federal government cut us $60 million on an annual basis. Forced growth was costing us $40 million because of population explosion, health care, education, social and income support, et cetera. These are costs that are not controllable. These are costs that in some cases we are legislated to pay for. That was the dilemma that we were facing, all of us and we all cooperated, however, reluctantly some of us, cooperated to do exactly that.
Where are we today? Today we are in a position where we have a tiny, tiny surplus of $9 million that is going directly to the accumulated deficit. We are moving forward with Mr. Kakfwi's department and others to try to find ways and means to secure and improve the economic conditions that exist in this country. To do that, what are we going do? It was pretty darn obvious to most of us, and certainly to me that if you have less government dollars and if the government, historically, has been the engine of the economy and growth in this country, including Yellowknife, with office buildings, and the towers that are up there which all came about because of government spending, then we have to find alternatives. To find alternatives, you need to provide an investment climate on a level playing field that is going to attract, outside money coming north to make it work for northerners. That is what we are trying to do, and that is what some of us have been trying to do for the last two years.
What did we do? We did not increase the corporate income tax. We kept it at the second lowest in Canada. We made no increases to the personal income tax, we kept that at a fair and reasonable rate. We are going regulatory reform in an effort to cut red tape, so that small business and big business can proceed and get out there and replace government jobs that we can no longer can afford. We reassigned $16 million and levered it to $32 million in an employment strategy for those on the bottom end of the scale, the people who need it the most, the ones who do not have jobs. We have moved aggressively, and everybody knows what my position has been on the diamond valuation and sorting and the diamond industry as a whole. We are under discussions with Mr. Martin, right now, in an effort to increase the tax window for this government, so that we are not penalized every time we manage to improve our fiscal position by the nonrenewable resource industry. We are trying to move effectively forward with division to ensure that has adequate levels of funding so that the two new governments can operate and function with a level of comfort and a level of service and standards that we have become accustomed to.
It is certainly my intent, with the support of the Premier and my Cabinet colleagues, to move forward very aggressively on trying to create an investment environment that will bring new and existing money into the territories and make it work for northerners. On the more, on the smaller side of the scale, we went out and we did the Aurora Fund, which brought in somewhere between $25 to $30 million new investment capital. We are out there right now on a second Aurora Fund in an effort to find new capital dollars for northern business. We are examining, and I do not want to divulge it now because I have a budget to do in January, but we are examining some tax structure that may make this a more attractive environment. We are looking at the possibility of bringing forward some tax credits and RRSPs, if they are invested in small business, et cetera. The difficulty for all of us was, and the fact of the matter is, historically, government spending has been the engine of the economy, and it was very difficult for many of us, including myself, to make the adjustment that it no longer is going to be.
I think we have a fairly aggressive plan in place to hopefully provide an environment, because that is what governments do, provide environments, for the dollars to be replaced by some form of investment dollars whether it is in the form of tax windows with a nonrenewable resource base, in particular, our friends in the diamonds, or whether it is to invest in a small business, like some of my colleagues in the House here, or others out there. It has been an uphill battle because there is an environment of unease, which I recognize, particularly in the investment community because of the dramatic changes that took place both in the budgetary exercise and now with the unease and uncertainty with respect to division.
It would be difficult at the best of times to create a stable, creative, investment environment. Never mind the fact that we are cutting and now dividing. It is not as cut and dried as I would like it to be, but certainly there is a genuine effort on our part to try to address it as quickly as we can. I do not know whether that helps my colleague or not, but it certainly gave me the opportunity to get it off my chest. Thank you.