Mr. Chairman, if things continue just as they are now and we were not able to make any progress on resource revenue sharing, and if our revenues did not improve, then clearly we would not be able to have a balanced budget during the life of this Assembly. We are counting on two things happening. One is we are still optimistic to make some progress on resource revenue sharing and see some revenue increase on that side. Second is with the increased economic activity, there is every indication that with population growth and increased revenues from a number of various sources, that should also help our situation.

Generally speaking, without a better resource revenue sharing arrangement, I do not predict we will look forward to a balanced budget during the life of this government.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering, does the Minister believe that within the life of the 14th Assembly we will actually see significant revenues flowing from resource royalties to this government?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Depending on the arrangement we would have with the federal government, there could be significant royalties. For example, I think there is probably $100 million worth of royalties and revenues coming out of the Norman Wells area right now. With BHP Mine getting close to having recouped its capital investment in the mine, then we will see considerable resource revenues coming from that mine.

The others, in terms of oil and gas development in particular or the other two mines, we are probably not going to see much of that royalty, at least for the next four or five years before they would be contributing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe in response to Mr. Krutko, I heard the Minister say that he did not believe that the Northwest Territories was going to achieve the same sort of natural resources ownership that Alberta and Saskatchewan did with the Natural Resources Act of 1930. In fact, he said something along the lines of "I do not believe we will get anything nearly so generous."

In his budget speech, he indicated that within a decade, a decade -- ten years -- we could expect to see $200 million in resource royalties flowing out of the North altogether. That is after three diamond mines in operation, he said, a Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and other oil and gas development.

If we are talking about $200 million in total, we are talking about not nearly the same sort of beneficial agreement that Alberta and Saskatchewan saw in terms of the transfer, and we know that we are going to have to talk about sharing revenues with aboriginal governments as well. What does that really leave us in terms of what we are calling significant revenues here?

Mr. Chairman, no, I do not expect that we are going to get the same arrangement as Alberta. I do not think anyone in Canada will get that arrangement again. I still think that we will see significant revenues. In the budget speech, I used a very conservative figure of $200 million. I think a lot of people would say that is much too conservative. In fact, I heard that from the oil and gas people on Sunday.

I do not want to be overly optimistic in predicting how much resource revenues we are going to get. I think that can be pretty disappointing in the end as well. I would sooner err on the conservative side.

How much we will see out of the Northwest Territories? I said $200 million out of existing developments. If we see huge fines, a pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley and continued high prices in the gas industry, then it could be a lot more than that.

I hope that through the negotiations on resource revenue sharing devolution that we see an agreement that is efficiently generous and fair with the federal government to give our government a reasonable allocation, the aboriginal self-governments a reasonable allocation, and the federal government, of course, would be getting some piece of that. To be on the conservative side...$200 million is safe. It is conservative.

I think on the others, and maybe I will have Mr. Voytilla mention a bit of it, in terms of the performance of our formula later on down the road here, looking at what we predict.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly hope Mr. Voytilla's forecasts are accurate in this case. Obviously, that could all change if Canada does slip into a recession. That I guess is the reason for my asking these questions. Do we have the capacity to continue on with the spending that we are doing and the revenues that we might expect conservatively and get through the life of this government and still leave the 15th Assembly a chance to get started?

As the Minister is probably aware, I was quite actively involved in bringing in the Deficit Elimination Act in the 12th Assembly because of fears of building up too much of a deficit. Given the level of own-sourced revenues that we have, any growth in our debt gets to be very problematic because we do not have a lot of different places we can get revenue from.

I was wondering, has the Minister considered whether or not it might be useful to take a look at some long-term planning in terms of heading towards a balanced budget in the Northwest Territories? Is he aware of, for instance, the Tax Payer Protection Act the Yukon has adopted?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am generally familiar with the legislation in the Yukon the Member refers to but I think at this time we have a choice to make. We have a lot of economic activity going on in the Northwest Territories, a much, much different situation than the Yukon, Nunavut or some other parts of Canada.

At the same time we are doing that, we do not have a resource revenue sharing arrangement with the federal government nor do we have responsibility or rights over land and water and minerals and so on. We are moving ahead with all of those, and I certainly have not given up hope in terms of coming to a good arrangement with the federal government and aboriginal governments.

We have a choice now. We can either tighten our belts and cut spending and cut investment and try to get back to balanced books but I do not think that is the right time to be doing that. I quite honestly believe we have to take advantage of the opportunities that are here right now. It means putting some investment, not only in roads where we are doing a major piece now, but also in training and business opportunities. There is too much going on for this to be a time when we would just hunker down and try to save money.

The path we are on is one of making some critical investments, crucial investments, and at the same time doing it responsibly and ensuring that we do as much as we can where we are able to prove results out of the expenditures we are making.

I am not thinking along the same lines as the Yukon Legislature, for example, that directs the government to work toward.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not recommending that we go to draconian measures that might be required to get us to a balanced budget this year, Mr. Chairman. What I am concerned about though is that we do not continue on our path, counting on getting something that may not appear so we get ourselves so deep into a hole that we have no way of getting out.

I have taken note of Minister Handley's comments yesterday in which he responded to Mr. Krutko again by saying, "I think it is something we all have to take a look at, agree if we do not make some progress in the short-term, in the next six months as Mr. Krutko says, then we are probably going to have a pretty steep hill to climb from here on in, in this Assembly."

So obviously Mr. Handley is somewhat concerned about the future as well. I think that if in the next six months we do not see some positive signs we cannot just continue to get deeper and deeper in debt. There has to be a clear light at the end of the tunnel in order to justify this.

All I am saying is I hope the Minister is looking out for it. I would not want him to work really hard at this, but I do hope that he is watching with an eye towards a plan B if that is the way we have to head.

Mr. Chairman, certainly I do not want to get us into a hole either that we cannot dig our way out of. At the same time, I do not want to miss the opportunity for investments here. As I said yesterday, if we do not begin to see some signs of progress on some major fronts, including the resource revenue sharing in the next six months to a year, then yes, we have to rethink what we are doing here because it could be taking us towards that hole.

I am very aware of that, but I do not want to be driven by it either, so we have to invest at this point. Thank you.