Yes I will, Mr. Chairman.

Does the committee agree that the Minister brings in his witnesses?

Sergeant-at-Arms, can you escort the witnesses in?

Mr. Minister, please introduce your witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me is Lew Voytilla, secretary to the Financial Management Board. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witness. General comments in regard to Bill 26, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2002-2003. General comments. Detail. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think one of the things that has concerned a number of Members when we are looking at supplementary appropriations is the amount that we see under special warrants. Those are funds that are approved by the Cabinet and typically spent before the Legislative Assembly has a chance to consider them.

In a previous report, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight, after reviewing the Report on Other Matters, the committee supported the Auditor General's position that special warrants could be used less and the government could come forward with special warrants only where they were urgently needed, maybe to cover a portion of the cost of an expense, leaving the balance then for consideration under the category of not previously authorized.

I just want to take a look at what we have before us today, and almost 15 percent of this bill is for special warrants. Is there any reason why the government has chosen not to follow the suggestion of the Auditor General which was supported by the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight that the government divide up those funds and that only the portion that has to be spent before the Assembly would sit and could look at it, would an expenditure actually be committed through special warrants? The Assembly could then decide to, or could review, the balance of the expenditure before the money was actually spent.

For instance, in this one, we see an awful lot of the bill is made up of funding for collective agreement increases. I would expect that not all of the salaries have been paid to employees in this fiscal year, therefore not all of this money has probably been spent. Why could we not have looked at it on that basis and seen less of the amount accrued as a special warrant and more of it coming through as not previously authorized?

That is just an example. Why could we not see it done that way so that the Assembly is given the opportunity to make comment before the spending takes place rather than after?

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I would still argue that being eight months into the fiscal year it is unlikely that the department would have spent its appropriation for salaries without the collective agreement increase factored in. I think that if the money has not already been committed then when it comes forward to the Assembly, for instance there can be some discussion about whether or not the Members feel that the money should come from the supp reserves or if there needs to be a reallocation of monies from within a department in order to cover those expenses.

That sort of discussion should still be possible for Members of the Legislative Assembly. When something has been finally approved and set out as a special warrant we lose the opportunity to make that argument because the commitment has already been made.

In any case, Mr. Chairman, I think we know it was certainly a position that was advanced by the Auditor General previously and the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight supported that position, so I would like to encourage the government to very carefully examine whether or not they can follow through on that recommendation the next time they are taking a look at a special warrant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. As I said earlier, we do commit salaries right through to the end of the year. As well, we have agreed to provide to the Standing Committee monthly updates on special warrants, so I think by providing those monthly updates it should resolve that problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. We are dealing with Bill 26, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2. General comments. Mr. Lafferty.

Minister responsible for the bill, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I do not know if we want to get into the detail to answer Mr. Lafferty's questions now or if you want to do it when we come to that particular item in this. I will do it either way, whichever way you want.

Mr. Lafferty.

General comments in regard to Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to follow up on Mr. Dent's concern regarding the use of special warrants. It has been raised in previous supplementary appropriation about the excessive use, as some of us would say. Going through this bill, out of 64 different activities or transfers or additions going through here, 64 in this bill, 52 of them are for special warrants.

It has been raised before, as Mr. Dent said, about the use of that, the Auditor General's concerns. One thing, as Mr. Lafferty just touched on was that some of the approvals that are so close to actual session coming into play here, I believe the requirement is that if it is 15 days before or after session then the use of special warrants can be deemed to be an inappropriate time to be used.

When it falls just 17 or 18 days and receiving a special warrant, knowing there has been a concern raised before by this Assembly, you would think that maybe one could hold off and come through the normal process of a supplementary appropriation, not previously authorized.

It almost seems like there is a fear that we are going to say no to something. Give us an opportunity to view the information that is given to us so we can either help the government or maybe help the residents of the Northwest Territories in saving some money, that might be a possibility. It is a concern that we see 52 of the different transactions happening here in this bill fall under special warrant. I heard the Minister respond to Mr. Dent about the fact that the departments would run out of funds when it came to payroll and stuff, I believe.

I may have not caught the specific wording, but departments would run out of funds before this came into place. If we go through this and you look at the additional expenses incurred as a result of finalization of the collective agreement, there are a lot of special warrants for $2,000, $6,000, $7,000, $60,000. Are departments that close to running to the edge that they would be running out of funds? Are we in that bad of a state here as the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Minister Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said before, there may be 52 special warrants but most of them, probably 51 of them, are in response to the collective agreement, a contractual arrangement. Would departments have run out, would activities have run out. Yes, some of them probably would have. Some of the activities are managed very closely.

The regions in particular do not have a lot of flexibility. Since this is a contractual arrangement anyway, and we do commit salaries to the end of the year, rather than bringing it back here twice, we are doing it as one special warrant.

Mr. Chairman, further as I mentioned before in response to Mr. Dent, we have made a commitment to give the committee a monthly update on special warrants so we should not have this kind of discussion again. Thank you.

Mr. Roland.