Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are trying to think of any way we can to attract doctors here. We are not unique in our shortage of physicians. I think I mentioned before that the province of Alberta is looking for about 330 positions right now. We think that about 15 to 16 would probably solve all of our problems here in the North.

We feel that the switch from fee for service to salary, where we can go out with the comprehensive package, which includes benefits and time off and predetermined salary, are all things that will be helpful in recruitment to us.

As far as other measures our department is taking, we are looking at a bursary program to encourage either southerners or northerners who would commit to return to work here, assistance while they are receiving their training and university. On that, there is just one more incentive that we are looking at to try and attract physicians to the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. She did mention that we are trying to do whatever we can to attract doctors here, and, Mr. Speaker, I would say that that is certainly a band-aid solution to the problem. I appreciate that in this emergency, the Minister has to do whatever she can and obviously we are not going to be able to graduate northerners tomorrow.

I am curious about this bursary. Can the Minister tell me exactly what type of bursary they are looking at and outline the criteria that somebody would have to meet in order to qualify for this?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The Honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I cannot give exact details on this because this is not something that I have at my fingertips here. I think the general intent of it is to, in a manner of speaking, sponsor students that are in their postgraduate work in medical school, provide them with financial assistance in exchange for them returning to provide those services in the Northwest Territories for a certain period of time. We hope that a certain number of people in that situation would put down roots and end up being long term residents and long term resident physicians in the North. I hope that that helps. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly think that we have to look at people who are willing to establish residency here and set up roots and I think that is the approach to take.

Is the Minister aware, though, that under Student Financial Assistance, even under the new program, which I admit is very good by Canadian standards, 12 semesters is what a northern student is eligible for. That does not get anybody into med school.

Has she taken this into consideration? Would this be over and above those 12 semesters?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The Honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I believe it would be and it would be in specific relation to medical school training as opposed to more general degrees in university. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Final supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to provide this House with an update on the bursary that she is looking at and table the bursary when it is developed? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The time for question period has expired. Item 7, written questions, The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a written question to address to Mr. Handley, Minister of Finance. Please provide the following information:

1. The total amount of potential revenue projected annually by the proposed hotel tax;
2. The total number of bed spaces used in calculating the projected hotel tax revenue along with the number of operators who would be required to submit the taxes to the government as well as the community breakdown of the location of the operators and the bed spaces;
3. The average or/and range of the price of the room at retail, used in calculating the projected hotel tax revenue;
4. The total amount of the cost that will be involved in administrating the hotel tax, including, but not limited to, the salary and benefits for any PY used, the cost of instituting and administrating any information collection and computer systems, cost of office space and other incidental expenses, and cost of enforcement;
5. The total amount of revenue raised by the Government of the NWT by way of payroll tax, not hotel tax, for the last three fiscal years;
6. The total amount of the cost involved in administrating the payroll tax, including, but not limited to, the salary and benefits for any PY used, cost of instituting and administrating any information collection and computer systems, cost of office space and other incidental expenses and cost of enforcement;
7. The total number of employees from whom the payroll tax was collected in the last three fiscal years; and
8. The total number of employers through whom the payroll tax was collected in the last three fiscal years.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Item 7, written questions. Item 8, returns to written questions. Item 9, replies to opening address. Item 10, replies to the budget address. The Member for Frame Lake, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted the Minister presented the budget speech with a fair degree of optimism. I would agree with that optimism and I welcome that approach.

Mr. Speaker, in the North, we have tremendous potential. We have tremendous potential in our people, in our land and resources. With proper and careful development of all of those, we have a really bright future.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we face significant challenges, but we must strive to beat those challenges. I would like to say that I welcome the progress of the Premier and the Minister of Finance, who have appeared to have made, in building the partnerships necessary, to find the revenues we need to balance our budget and to make the important strategic investments that are needed to get our economy going.

As the Minister of Finance has admitted, there was not a lot of room for flexibility. This was pretty much a stand-pat budget, without much in the way of new initiatives. However, Mr. Speaker, while we have a tight fiscal situation, we should not let money become our only focus, or even our major focus. After all, without a strong government-wide commitment to a literate, healthy population, new money still only provides a band-aid solution. Even small investments can make a big difference in this area.

We need to see a strong government commitment. A real commitment to social well-being.

In the budget speech, the Minister spoke of four key areas identified for investment, and our territorial agenda for children and youth and to support for parents and families. Programs for expectant new mothers, early childhood care, and Mr. Speaker, literacy programs.

Mr. Speaker, the commitment to social well-being cannot just be a wish list, for it is not really a commitment.

In his speech, the Minister talked about, and I quote: "An early childhood development action plan." Then, Mr. Speaker, he went on to say, " I hope that this government will be in a position to implement new initiatives in next year's budget."

Mr. Speaker, in all four of those key areas, we need more than just hope. If it is important enough to talk about in the budget speech, if it is important enough to develop an action plan, then there needs to be a commitment by the government to take action. That may mean that there needs to be a process to reexamine and reset priorities if necessary and that process should be set up, Mr. Speaker, so that the public understands how it will be done and how they will be involved.

Mr. Speaker, the Finance Minister spoke about our fiscal situation still being tight. I am concerned that we still have the debt wall looming. I am concerned that revenues have grown from $716 million last year, to $751 million this year. Thirty five million dollars in growth and we are getting a onetime $35 million payment from Nunavut, yet we are showing a cash deficit in this year's budget of $28.5 million the same as we had in last year's budget.

Mr. Speaker, while we have every reason to be optimistic about reaching a deal to see more revenues, who knows how much we are going to be looking at and when those monies will start to flow.

I guess my question has to be, have we put all of our eggs in one basket?

The Minister told the House that we could hit the debt wall in 18 to 24 months. Knowing that, Mr. Speaker, we need to be sure that our spending is well targeted and that efforts are being made to bring spending growth in line.

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that I was disappointed to hear the hotel tax initiative being floated in this budget speech. The Minister noted that he had outlined this initiative to committee. When it was first brought up in committee, I explained why I thought it was a bad idea.

Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories is a high cost travel area. We need to look for ways to bring down the cost of travel, not for ways that are going to drag the cost up. The five percent will bring in only $1 million net. It is hardly worth the aggravation. What about the drop in business? What about the potential impact on Northern employment?

We can pay lip service to regional capacity building, but what about the significant impact such a tax will have on travel for training? This tax will likely take more out of Northern pockets than it will out of the pockets of tourists, further driving up the cost of living in the North and, Mr. Speaker, the cost of doing business in the North.

I would be surprised if more than half of all hotel nights were not, in some way, paid for by the Government of the Northwest Territories, its boards, and its agencies. Mr. Speaker, that means that departments, boards and agencies might be paying more than half of the gross amount collected in this tax.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, this is a hidden reallocation of funds from different departments to tourism.

I believe we do need to invest in tourism. We need to make a significant investment in marketing tourism. We need to do a better job, but the government could more efficiently reallocate funds by just setting new targets for departments.

Let us take the same amount from the departments that they will be spending on this new tax, and transfer it directly to the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development so that they can use it for new marketing programs.

The net amount will likely be very close to the net amount that will be received from the tax right now, and it would avoid the cost of setting up the bureaucracy and to administer the new tax, and it will not scare tourists away with the new higher costs for accommodation.

Mr. Speaker, I heard some rumblings that there might be consideration for a change to the payroll tax, and I have to say that I do think that this is one area where the Minister had some opportunity. I think he should have brought forward some ideas here.

I think that if government wants to look at a tax, it will have some important effect. Increasing the payroll tax is an option that needs further exploration. I think, Mr. Speaker, that we should look at, rather than a one percent tax, at increasing it.

With all of the economic activity that is talked about as just on the horizon, this has the potential to raise significant new revenues.

Then, Mr. Speaker, I say we use this new money. Let us use it to reduce the cost of living for Northerners. Our cost of living is notoriously high. Let us use these new revenues to bring down our cost of living by dramatically increasing the northern residents deduction on our income taxes. This in effect lowers our taxes, something that governments across Canada want to do for their residents. This will encourage more people to move to the Northwest Territories, rather than flying in and flying out for work, which would mean that this government not only collects increased tax revenues from people who live here, but a bigger grant from Canada, since we get so much of it based on the size of our population. Mr. Speaker, put together, these two initiatives would likely receive more support than the ill-conceived hotel tax, and have a much bigger fiscal impact in the long run.

Mr. Speaker, in his budget speech, the Minister highlighted the achievement of maintaining service levels, yet as we are all aware, funding cuts to municipalities took place. These will likely mean service reductions. It is hardly right to pat yourself on the back for maintaining service levels when cuts to funded agencies have meant that they will have to reduce service levels.

In his budget speech, the Minister complains also unilaterally about the $55 million cut to our Formula Financing Grant imposed a few years ago by the federal government. Now, he and his Cabinet colleagues have done exactly the same to tax-based municipalities, unilaterally imposing cuts. Mr. Speaker, these cuts were imposed several months after these municipalities have set and approved their budgets.

Mr. Speaker, this is the wrong way to do things. We want to see responsible decisions made, and that requires long-term funding stability. Other jurisdictions have been able to guarantee municipalities from one to three years notice of funding changes. It is time that this government made the same sort of commitment to our municipalities.

Mr. Speaker, I am also concerned about cuts in the area of capital. In the 1996-97 fiscal year, capital made up 15 percent of our total expenditures. In this budget, Mr. Speaker, we have cut capital to seven percent. That is less than half as a proportion of the spending in the 1996-97 budget. With cuts like this, Mr. Speaker, we are putting off a day of reckoning to solve a cash problem. I am afraid that this will lead to much higher repair and replacement costs down the road.

I think it is also important to remember, Mr. Speaker, that there is a social cost this year for these cuts. This will reduce the number of jobs in communities in the North. In many places, our capital program is the largest job generator. This means we are going to drive up the costs of income support and dependents in our communities.

It is also causing a problem for northern business. We have used the Business Incentive Policy to encourage growth of business. New cuts in spending, or now these cuts in capital spending will put some of these businesses at risk. We need to address this problem quickly.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I would like to congratulate the Minister on not having responded to the fiscal pressure with drastic cuts. That would not have been the right way to deal with them, and it would not have been acceptable. I do recognize that we have limited flexibility in our fiscal situation, and I appreciate the government response in some areas that Ordinary Members have highlighted to date, such as the response that we start funding in the student and youth employment programs, and the most recent announcement of partial restoration of funding for the Skills to Work Program.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have seen some positive responses from this government, and I congratulate them for that. There are areas that can still be improved. I hope that this government will continue to be responsive as we go through their budget in committee of the whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Item 10, replies to budget address. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have had the opportunity to hear some of the plans that are put forward in the 14th Assembly by the Finance Minister and his colleagues. We have, as Members of the 14th Assembly, worked together on the document called Towards a Better Tomorrow. There have been many comments made during committee review of the departments to-date. There will be more as we go through it. Unfortunately, we have not had a chance to go through the whole thing before we could do this, but with the information available, I would like to make a few comments.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard many positive messages being sent out to the people of the Territories, to the businesses of the Territories, and the businesses in the southern jurisdictions. Now I understand the need for the positive message to build on the business opportunities of the Northwest Territories. However, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to put a touch of reality into our good news message we are trying to get out there.

Mr. Speaker, in the Finance Minister's Budget Address, he speaks of the substantial development that is out there, and he says we are on the brink of substantial development. In fact, that may be the only light on the horizon, Mr. Speaker. Right now, besides some shuffling of the deck, as they say, and redoing of the numbers, we still have a deficit budget. Although in his budget, he talks about a $12.3 million deficit, when we take all the numbers together, in fact we are at a cash deficit of $28.5 million at the end of this fiscal year. That is including a $43 million increase in the taxation.

Mr. Speaker, what are we going to do the next fiscal year, when these one time funding amounts are no longer there for residents of the Northwest Territories?

Now, I am not saying we should have come in as a 14th Assembly and do what was done in the previous Assembly. As a Member of the 13th Assembly, I was not happy to go back to my constituents to tell them of more reductions. At the same time, I was not prepared to saddle the future generation with a debt of today's government. If this picture does not brighten on the horizon, we will indeed find ourselves as a government looking to more reductions.

I was hoping that in the time we have had together, we would be looking at changing the way government does business, not necessarily reductions for the sake of reductions or meeting targets. We have seen that. We have seen that in capital. We have seen that in job reductions of the people that we had under our employment, but we have not seen that in the red tape. Today, the duties and responsibilities for employees are still there. We just have less employees to do the work. Work that was done by two people is now done by one.

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to do something, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say are we doing the right things? Now, I am not saying that we go back and look at strategies, because that does not work. I, myself, Mr. Speaker, have spoken in the previous Assembly against doing more strategies, and more plans and updates because there have been many of those done before. It is time to put things into action.

Mr. Speaker, on page 7 of the budget speech, we talk about investment in early childhood development. We talked about the Healthy Children's Initiative. We talked about a territorial agenda for children and youth, and an early childhood development action plan. We have talked about how we have called for the full restoration of the CHT funding. Mr. Speaker, all this tells me is that we are going to do more plans. I think yes, the Healthy Children's Initiative is a good one, and there is some good work that is coming out of there. Let's follow up on it.

You have heard about the territorial agenda for children and youth that is being developed. In response to my question earlier, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment talked about working with his colleague from Health and Social Services on children and youth. Are we going to positively come out with some measurable results, or are we going to sit down in another year's time to talk about the further initiatives and action plans we need to develop?

It is time to quit developing these action plans and implement them. Let's aim for results. If we need to look at government structures as they exist today and say maybe we do not need as many departments, then that is something we have to seriously look at. We cannot continue to talk about government expenditures and we look out from government, and not look in.

Something I stand by is if we are going to lead, we have to lead by example. As a Member of the 13th Assembly, I chose to do that. The example, Mr. Speaker, I was one of the many Members who supported reducing the pensions of Members of the Legislative Assembly. One of the first things we did, as well, is we took a seven percent rollback in wages and benefits. That was leading by example. To date, Mr. Speaker, in this Assembly, we are leading with press releases. We are talking about how good it will be. My concern is we have put a lot of our eggs in one basket, that one basket being the federal government and royalty revenue sharing. Yes, I agree we need to pursue it. However, I am concerned we have put too much emphasis in one category in one area.

I believe that development will happen, Mr. Speaker, because the aboriginal groups are now ready to take on that development. As I heard when I was in Fort Liard from Chief Deneron, as he spoke to the people and to the guests that were there, he worked on an initiative for about ten years without the support of government. It was not until the last year, two years that this government was able to start helping out. Now that is not a good record.

We talked about trying to increase education of those so they can be employable. In fact Mr. Speaker, in the Delta next year, we are going to have great demand for people in the seismic area, and businesses are going to start building up once again. Are we ready? Are we investing? We have heard the Finance Minister say that we need to make investments. I agree. They need to be calculated investments. One of the areas I saw and have much disappointment on is knowing that the Aurora Campus facility in Inuvik, one of the first things this government did was pull that off on the capital plan side, just when we need to develop our infrastructure to try and take advantage of the situation we have. People will be hired and working by the time we get this facility up and going. They might help take it down, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as government, we have heard it said, and I have said it myself as a previous Member, the government cannot be the engine of the economy. That leaves us in a really difficult situation, and I agree we need to at least supply the fuel. That is the assistance, when it comes to the aboriginal groups or to the private sector, as they look at developing businesses in the Northwest Territories.

We have already heard of the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories. Will we be able to stand up at the end of this term, or the end of this year in this budget and say to anybody in the Northwest Territories we have helped them to be able to sustain themselves in the communities? We have seen the price of fuel go up, gas, because of the cuts to the municipal communities, taxpayers in municipalities are probably going to see a tax increase. So it is not getting any cheaper to live in the Northwest Territories. What are we going to do about that, Mr. Speaker?

Well, I think we have to create an environment. How we might create an environment...unfortunately, it looks like the idea of taxes is being bounced around. We need to do more consultation with our communities. Those are the ones that are going to be doing this and explain it to them how it will either benefit them or how they will pay. I have yet to see a government introduce a tax that is tax neutral or revenue neutral. There is always a gain for government. Knowing our situation with revenues it is hard not to agree with some form of increase in revenues, and whether it be in taxes one way or another, because we just cannot afford to do what we are doing.

One of the first things we did in the 14th Assembly is we gave an increase to teachers and to support staff in the school. Yes, it is a critical area to invest, but as I said earlier to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, is there in fact going to be something we can measure at the end of this, or is this just money on top of other money? What are our outcomes? We have heard about the graduation rates. We have heard about the quality of education. Are we setting goals to correct those, Mr. Speaker?

Now not to be totally negative, Mr. Speaker. I have to give some credit to the Finance Minister for continuing to trudge on and give the good message and go to Ottawa and say we have to have control of northern resources in the Northwest Territories. Nobody here would deny that we need to do that, but I also encourage my colleague across the floor that he needs to spread out a little bit of the planning, plan B if this does not come forward.

Previously to the budget being tabled in this House, the Finance Minister replied to me saying that in fact we had a ten month window before we hit the debt wall, our borrowing limit. He came back and responded to my colleague, Mr. Dent, and said in fact now we have 18 months to two years before this happens. It was interesting to see that $35 million dropped out of Nunavut's basket into ours to help this one-time situation. He did not hear anything about it beforehand. We had this one-time increase in corporate taxes, which hopefully will not be totally gone in the future years, especially as we see development happening in the Northwest Territories. So how are we going to take advantage of some of the situations that are there? Whether it comes to increasing corporate taxes, not by increasing percentages, but increasing opportunities and building on business in the Northwest Territories.

The Business Incentive Policy talks about helping establish businesses in the Northwest Territories. The fact is, companies from southern jurisdictions can still do work in the Northwest Territories and beat business in the Northwest Territories, although not as badly as they used to, we must admit. Our companies have fought hard and well to establish themselves in the Northwest Territories and compete. However, it is not without some form of subsidy, whether it is front end or back end that we have to put in place to keep the businesses surviving.

Where do we go from here? Do we continue these, even though we can really measure the results of those, like the Business Incentive Policy? Are we going to do another study? I believe that I have heard that mentioned a couple of times. We have to look at it again. How many studies have been done and nothing comes out of them? If we do not intend to change anything, lets not study it, Mr. Speaker. That comes not only from Business Incentive Policies, it comes from any policy within the Government of the Northwest Territories. If in fact the decision is already made that we are not going to change things, then do not study it. I believe that we can find somewhere in the area of hundreds of thousands, probably millions of dollars in the area of studies and plans and evaluations. So I would say that if you do not plan to change it, do not study it.

We have heard from the people of the Northwest Territories that this government does not function properly and does things that are high cost, ineffective, and duplicate. We have some of our own examples. Our first response is yes, we agree with that and we need to put a plan together and strategize how we are going to do this.

Unfortunately, our time is running short, Mr. Speaker. Can we strategize even more? Can we take a year to put another plan together? Hopefully the Minister has had some time and his staff, who have been running ragged, as we hear, have had some opportunity to put plan B together or start to structure a plan B. Because, Mr. Speaker, I will not be very happy when it comes to the second budget of the 14th Assembly and find out that I have to bring more bad news to my community and that things are not proceeding as they were planned.

Accountability, Mr. Speaker, is something we are going to see come up time and time again in this Assembly. Because that was one of the key features of this 14th Assembly and it will continue to be, until we are done in our time here. How will we be accountable to the people of the Northwest Territories? Not only does this Cabinet need to be accountable to this Assembly here, but in fact, we are all accountable to the people in the Northwest Territories for our decisions. How are we going to measure accountability?

We have heard in this House the shifting that can happen from one department to another. It goes back to having rules in place, having areas where we can say that there is a structure that is solidly enough in place that if somebody goes outside of those lines, they will be called up on their activities and they will be held accountable for those activities.

We have heard some news come from the other side of the floor in some of the questions about accountability, about how there seems to be a lack of measurements in there when it comes to our Ministers and deputies. I know that at the end of the day, the Minister is accountable for his department and the action of his department. That is the way I see it.

During our time going through this, we have heard questions and we will continue to hear questions about how Ministers will hold their staff accountable. It is no good, Mr. Speaker, to give me a document, give me something that I can read and read to my constituencies and not have something measurable after the time period.

We know that we cannot change the results of education overnight. We cannot change the business atmosphere in the Northwest Territories overnight. But I think that if people notice that we are doing the best we can and we are giving them the goods up front, straight forward, that they will be able to buy into us, and buy into the story that the Northwest Territories is a place we can invest in and we can achieve positive results. It is no good to put a story line down and before you close the book, it all falls apart because you could not bind it together, because it was all on one story line and the story fell short.

At the end of the day before you could say they lived happily ever after, the author came along and said it is time for a rewrite. Being the federal government, Mr. Speaker, ultimately, they hold the big hammer. We do not even hold a comparable stick to fend off the actions. We have heard much positive news, and I hope and pray that the work this government is doing in Ottawa will benefit the people of the Northwest Territories so we will see positive results. Mr. Speaker, come the second budget of the 14th Assembly, if we have not achieved measurable results on what has been put forward, I guarantee the Minister of Finance, I will be in his face. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 10, replies to the Budget Address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Legislative Assembly that the Standing Committee on Social Programs has reviewed Bill 6, An Act to Amend the Nursing Profession Act, and wishes to report that Bill 6 is ready for consideration in committee of the whole as amended and reprinted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.