Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So very clearly as with most capital projects, the capital dollars are important, but the big dollars are the O and M. Have they done an analysis of the number of new PYs? Are there new jobs? Is there new training as well to go with the equipment and new other facilities, or are the existing staff just going to be able to be trained to start providing service once again? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try and keep my comments fairly short. I would like to say that since I have been in the Legislature, we have heard an awful lot about the lack of money that this department has to do the job that they have to do with maintaining, let alone building, new highways.

One of the things we have heard a lot about is Highway No. 3. I think that Highway No. 3 drives the whole process. I know that of all the questions that have been asked in this House about completing that highway have always met with some opposition from various locations. The department was caught as to how they were going to fast-track this process. Obviously, they have found a way to get around it by satisfying other areas as well as Highway No. 3.

I think there are a lot of questions that remain to be answered about how they are doing this. When Mr. Handley talks about one million dollars for tourism being an awful lot of money, raising $15 million through tolls on the highway is an awful lot of money. Borrowing $100 million and paying it back is a lot of money as well. I think that to borrow it through a user-pay system leaves a lot of unknowns out there, and to a certain extent, there may be some gambling involved. We could probably say that in certain areas, our education system or our health system is badly in need of an overhaul as our highways are.

I live in Hay River, and it has been suggested to me that we have a nice highway all the way into Hay River. I kind of look at it from a different perspective than maybe somebody in Fort Smith or somebody in Yellowknife. That is true. I have stated that in this House before, that we are fortunate in Hay River to have a nice highway coming all the way into the community.

I would also like to say that is probably part of the reason that I went to Hay River, is because of the location. When the capital was moved to Yellowknife, that probably would not have been my choice either to put the capital where it is, where it is not accessible by land for at least two months of the year and sometimes ever longer. However, so be it. Money drove it in those days and money is driving it today.

I also wonder if the capital was not where it is, whether there would be such a push to finish highways to resources as what there is right now. Part of the gamble in the money that has to be paid back is that we still do not know how it is going to affect the clawback. We do not have that answer yet. We certainly do not have the answer on the accumulated affect that it is going to have on the residents to put out a carrot or whatever that you are going to pay back residents for a little bit of cost of fuel, or give them $300 or $150 back. It is a help, and it maybe entices some people to vote for it.

I know that anybody who has seen their propane or electrical bills just about double this winter will tell you that $150 will not go very far towards eliminating the year-round impact that it is having on them. They have not heard all the impacts yet that are coming down, apart from the highway user fees that are going to get trickled back to the consumer.

I would suggest that in the chart that was put out as to what the impact on Hay River residents will be as compared to other residents, that might be a little bit misleading also. I would suspect that a pound of butter will go up the same amount in Hay River as it will in Yellowknife when everything is said and done. It might be a part of Hay River paying as much for getting less, so I do not see it as being a non-concern for Hay River residents.

We heard very loud and clear when we went around doing consultation on the hotel tax that people are very reluctant to see more fees coming their way and having to pay more. We heard it loud and clear many times that the cost of living in the North is already high and we are in a very weak competitive position to try to attract more people here, more workers and more residents. It looks greener when you look at the other side of the border and to go down for the services you are getting and the price you have to pay for them.

I think there is a lot of work that has to be done there and a lot of certainties that have to be cleared up before I can support this on behalf of residents to see what the impact is going to be.

There is also an area that concerns me about the amount of work that the department is planning on doing in such a short period of time, as to how much northern businesses and northern workers are going to benefit from the work that is going to be done here. I do not know how much work, equipment and employees we can supply to get all this work done in that short a period of time. Are Northerners going to get as much benefit out of all this work as is possible? I guess that remains to be seen.

Those are mostly the areas where I have concerns; the amount of work for Northerners and the amount of impact that this is going to have on our residents themselves. I certainly think that it is going to be a much bigger impact than what is being put forth. Although I agree that we have to improve our highway system and once they are in place they will be beneficial to everybody, I still think that we are doing some of the work for the federal government and making it a lot easier for them to say no to us when we are out there trying to get extra money from the federal government. If they can push us and get us to raise our own revenues and tax our own people, I do not see them doing anything different. I think that is probably the way it will be and we are probably setting the stage for that. Those are some of my concerns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member's concerns regarding the NWT construction industry's ability to respond to our need for capital improvements on the highway is not really our concern, as it shows that in the past, our expenditures were in fact at the same level historically as we are proposing now. As a matter of fact, I believe that in the mid-1990s, we were spending a similar amount of capital funds on Highway No. 3. Interestingly enough, as we approach Yellowknife and the expensive sections of the highway, our capital funding was falling dramatically because we did not have the funding here. It was not a question of the ability of our construction industry to meet our needs. It was really a question of our ability to come up with capital revenue. I do not think we will see a problem where we get such major projects that our local contractors cannot handle the job.

We are hoping, and I think that is a legitimate expectation, that the contractors would in fact be able to respond. If not, they would be willing to expand because this is not a short-term proposal here where we are just talking about one or two years of major capital expenditures. We are spreading this over a number of years.

There is no doubt, as the Member suggests, that everyone is going to have to pay the cost. It is really a situation of public expectations of level of service versus cost of service. That is what we are getting into here. In order to meet the demands that the public is placing on us, we have to do something on collecting revenue in order to cover these costs. Some people may look at this as short-term resource revenue sharing with the federal government because in fact the money or revenue that we would be receiving through the toll in the mining or oil and gas industry would have been revenue that would have been heading to the federal government as royalties or taxes. We are just taking first crack at that revenue before it ends up in the federal governments coffers.

So should we in fact in the future have resource sharing? Future governments could consider at that time whether they want to continue with the toll charge. So that is basically the plan at this time. I know the question of Hay River and what effects it will have on Hay River, even though Hay River for one thing, is right at the border. So the impact there, as far as the cost per kilometre, is going to be very different than what it costs, for instance, in Fort Good Hope or Yellowknife. Definitely.

Even right now, if you go to Hay River, everything is cheaper there than it is in Yellowknife. I know that. I have had the opportunity of making expenditures there. I find that hotels, cost of living, meals in general are quite different from the cost that I was paying myself in Yellowknife. So I did appreciate the low cost of living in Hay River.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Something that has already been mentioned in relation to other departments is cumulative impacts of fees, costs and taxes that the government imposes on people in order to deliver services. This budget is no exception. However, to a degree perhaps greater than most, there are several areas of new or progressing costs in the area of government services, Mr. Chairman, that seem kind of alike.

Of course, the one that stands out the most, although it is not technically before this committee or Assembly to approve, would be the toll on highways which, in direct or indirect ways, would be an expense that people would have to deal with. However, we are also looking at this government wanting to bring in a five percent hotel tax. This is at the same time as we are all facing rapidly changing prices for energy of all kinds, automotive fuels, heating fuels and electricity bills.

So in that area and in general comments, Mr. Chairman, I would try to bring some attention to what is going on within this budget. The Department of Transportation bills its share of this. So a lot of attention, as I say, has been focused on the highway toll, but I think it is worth highlighting, and we will get to it in a greater level of detail later on.

In the area of airport fees, motor licensing fees, and a number of small areas there that, according to the budget documents, would see an additional $800,000 or $900,000 collected, Mr. Chairman, if these are to be approved. Again, I would contrast those increases to the cost of travelling and the cost of getting around the North to the hotel tax, which will raise around the same amount of money but has received many times the attention that these changes would.

It is also a bit of a concern, Mr. Chairman, that in the same fiscal year, the government is proposing bringing one new layer of fees in and expanding another one, which largely comes from the same pocket and that is the traveller around the Northwest Territories.

So it is a cumulative impact that concerns me, Mr. Chairman. It is something that I am trying to hold to, to something that I said when I was campaigning and that was that I would be very, very careful and conservative about anything that was going to come along that would increase the cost of living in the Northwest Territories if this government had some control over it. So that is where I am finding a concern.

The other area that I just wanted to double-check was that the government is bringing in $10.6 million this year on the Highway Improvement Strategy, as the first of four years, in the total of about $100 million. So we are being asked to approve that. I guess I am also reminded, Mr. Chairman, that something we are not being asked to approve, we do not have the bills yet or nearly enough information, is the toll itself. So while we can talk about as much as we support or like or are concerned with the toll itself and the impact on our economy, it is not before us in this budget.

We will have to wait until I think June at the earliest, as the Minister has indicated, planning a legislative proposal that would come forward to committee by May. Perhaps then we will look to actually vote on it in June. So on one hand here, we are being asked to approve the start of a very major expenditure, while we still have to deal in the future with how it is going to be paid for.

So having pointed that out, and I think that I have my ducks lined up on that, I am already on record in this Assembly, Mr. Chairman, as saying that I support the overall budget, and especially this initiative, as investment that the Northwest Territories needs right now. Let us not pull back. Let us not hesitate at this time. This is indeed what we need to see here.

With that, Mr. Chairman, that concludes my general comments. I look forward to getting into detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as the Member mentioned airport fees, and I believe some other Members mentioned it as well, our increased airport fees proposals. I suppose you could say that we are just bringing our airport fees in line with the rest of the airport fees in the rest of Canada.

As far as reference to the toll charge legislation coming in after the fact, so to speak, we took that into consideration. However, in order to spread our capital expenditures over the four-year period, we had to make certain expenditures in this fiscal year. That is why we have this $10.5 million in this year's budget, even though the legislation will be before the committee and the House in the next sitting in June. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess there is one aspect of a comment the Minister just had. It could also apply to a lot of other areas of government and that is the situation where the fees and expenses and rentals and things that we are charging in our airports now, even with the increase in here, would perhaps come up to covering about half of the cost. That is something I recall from some of our briefings. So we are not even at the stage where we are collecting all of the expense of running these facilities and we are lagging behind even what our equivalent airports, for their size and traffic volume, collect in parts of southern Canada.

Be that as it may, if there is still this gap between us and southern Canada, to me, that is not sufficient justification to say, "There is some room for us to move. Let us go after it." I think we still have to be very mindful, Mr. Chairman, of our economies of scale, of the great differences that exist in so many other fundamental parts of our economy. We are very different than southern Canada when it comes to ratios, when it comes to economies of scale, the ability of our people to pay for these services on what other Canadians might consider quite a conventional basis. Our poor little government here, Mr. Chairman, just does not have the same conventional access to revenues and discretion that other governments have.

So I guess what I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is where there might be differences between us and southern Canada on costs and recoveries, let us consider very carefully how we are going to go about moving into that area. Our differences in certain other areas are so great that some of these things just do not wash with me. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, just for the committee's information, we are nowhere near a cost-recovery basis and we are not trying to reach there either. Also, this increased fee is not reflected on capital expenditures from airports either. So this is not a program to collect capital expenditure funding. If we are going to be a self-reliant Territory, so to speak, we are suggesting we are going to be the first "have" Territory, it would not hurt that we indicate to the federal government that we can pay our own way. This is just a move, I believe, towards that eventually, and being self-reliant and not counting on the federal government for their transfers every year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I know that after the budget speech, I talked to constituents and they were generally very excited about the fact that they are going to see the quick completion of the highway infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. So I found from my constituents that people were generally supportive of the plan to speed up the paving of the highway. I am certainly concerned about the method in which we are going to do it. I will reserve my indication of final support until I see the legislative proposal later on that the Minister has spoken about.

We have a long list of things that we have to make sure are covered before I can be fully satisfied that we are dealing with all of the concerns. I know that Minister Steen already suggested to other Members that the Minister of Finance would be more appropriate to answer some of those concerns, but I think I would like to lay some of them out so at least they are on the table from me. As we get through this, hopefully we will be able to address them so that I can assure my constituents that this is in fact the right way to go.

I know that first of all, we are going to have to negotiate an increase in our borrowing limit before we can do it. I think we are going to have some discussion about whether or not that is the right way to do things. The feds may feel that as we lose part of the Power Corporation debt that our borrowing limit should be decreased, given that a good portion of our borrowing limit now is tied to Power Corporation debt, which is seen as self-liquidating. I think there may be room to look at tolls as being the same sort of debt though on highways. They do provide a form of self-liquidation. It is certainly something to look at.

Really it is going to come down to what is the impact going to be on my constituents and all the people in the North. The impact on individuals is still really difficult to figure out. I understand that right now we have a large number of trucks traveling the highway for large corporations and we would, therefore, collect most of the money in tolls from those trucks. I think this is a great idea. It is a good idea to get the money from, in effect, the companies that are developing the North and wearing out the highways for the most part. They should be paying for the construction. The question is going to then be, will the credit really offset the cost to the individual and to small business in the North? That is something that I am going to have to wait and see the legislative proposal before I know whether or not it can work.

As other Members have talked about, when you borrow $100 million, you have to wonder about how long it is going to take to pay it back. I think we have all seen the value of resources go up and down. I have been in the North almost 28 or 30 years now and I have seen all sorts of cycles up and down for resources. I have seen the traffic on that highway go up and down in direct proportion to what is happening in the resource sector in the North.

So it is going to be an issue of how long are we counting on getting that $15 million, and is it really a conservative estimate that we have made in terms of the amount of traffic? Have we really estimated the cost on the individual that the tolls will add? Have we thought about other causes? For instance, if there were other causes that might reduce traffic, after all three diamond mines are built, if the price of gold stays low, if we do not have any other prospects for diamond mines and perhaps we see hydro lines from the Snare system into the diamond mines, then we may not see as many fuel loads going into those diamond mines. So if you do not have construction and you do not have a lot of fuel going in, is the whole cost of paying back these loans then going to be on the backs of the private citizen and small business in the Northwest Territories?

We have a lot of questions to answer. I think the initiative is certainly worth pursuing further, and I am encouraged that we are thinking a bit outside the box and looking for approaches like this, but I think we have a long ways to go before we can say for sure we have the answer yet.

With those comments, I have one area of questioning that has been touched on by other Members. Mr. Braden was just recently alluding to it. In the Minister's opening comments, he talks about transportation constantly looking for new sources of funding to enhance its programs. I was quite taken by the one sentence in here that says, "In this, we have been remarkably successful." I am not sure that a lot of my constituents would consider success the raising of fees, but that would appear to be what you are talking about here in your opening comments. Part of the problem is some Members on the Governance and Economic Development Committee may have an understanding of what it is we are talking about in terms of fee increases, but I am not sure the general public does. There There is nowhere in the budget book that points out what sorts of fee increases we are going to see.

Could I ask the Minister, is he prepared to table a complete listing of all of the fee increases contained in this budget we are looking at, so that we can have that for our discussion today and so that it can be made available to the public?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Steen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member has pointed out a number of legitimate concerns with regard to putting this toll in place, the life of the toll and the amount of money that would be collected from the toll over time, and comparing that to the non-renewable resource activity. However, I think we have some fairly strong indicators from the non-renewable sector that they are going to be around for a while. The diamond mines are showing a life of 15 to 18 years based on the present finds. There are more diamond mines coming on stream.

The oil and gas activity has already basically committed itself to x number of years activity in the Beaufort and in the Mackenzie Valley. We do have some strong indicators as to how long the non-renewable sector is going to be around.

The second thing we should take into consideration is that the gold mines have been basically dealing with falling prices now for the last five or six years. We have been subsidizing them even. It is nothing new that we have turned around and started getting some of our subsidy back. I think it is just common sense that we do things like this. When the price goes up, they will be back and we will have something in place to collect back from them if we do not have a non-renewable resource sharing ability by then.

I am sorry, I did not write down the last part of your question. Could the Member repeat himself, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just pointing out that a number of Members have been asking questions about the impact of fee increases on our constituents. Unfortunately, nowhere in the budget book does it list what the fee increases are that are included in this budget.

I would like to ask the Minister if he would be prepared to provide a copy of all of the fee increases which are included in the budget in one table, so that we could have it easily available to demonstrate to the public what we are talking about in the Department of Transportation in terms of fee increases in this next year's budget. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Minister.