Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Handley, would you like to bring in any witnesses?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Does the committee agree?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witness in. Mr. Minister, for the record, would you please introduce your witness?

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

Thank you, Mr. Handley. We are reviewing Bill 17, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2002-2003. General comments? Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on the supplementary appropriation, for the record, I would like to state I have some concerns in the matter of the expenditures going over our budgeted items, as we have just passed the budget. It is a theme I have raised on a number of occasions with the expenditures of our government that continue to grow. Realizing this one is a lot of carry-over, so that has helped us out in that matter, so this is not as big as initially anticipated. When you initially look at the number, you think once again that we are well in excess of budget lines. Fortunately, as stated by the Minister, capital carry-overs have helped out the bottom line.

Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, when we look at the overall expenditures of our government, they are going fast, faster than I think most of us would like to see. Although we have been somewhat fortunate with our revenue in the last couple of years, as we stated earlier in the previous bill about the corporate tax filings in the Northwest Territories that had helped us out, those filings are never a guarantee.

If we are to count on the revenues that we can count on as the Government of the Northwest Territories through our own revenue generation and transfers from the federal government, in no time at all we would be in a very serious situation of having to look at where our expenditures are made and what we could afford to continue to expend our dollars on.

That is where my concern comes from, Mr. Chairman. We have a little over a year left in our mandate. So far, we have been fortunate. Hopefully there will be good news again as we go back to our planning cycle for the next budget cycle, as departments are going to begin to do over the summer and we will review those plans in the fall, with more filings in the Northwest Territories.

I wanted to raise my concern at this level to have a supplementary appropriation so soon after passing our budget. I hope that as we move forward from here, and there has been much comment in the House of the increasing capital projects going over expenditures, that the Minister will take the message back to his colleagues in Cabinet and tell them to start digging from within before coming forward for more supplementary appropriations, and drawing down on the revenue side of the picture. With that, I will end my comments, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Those were just comments. I did not hear a question so I will go to Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On a similar line to what Mr. Roland has been talking about, specifically in reference to our debt wall, our $300 million total debt limit, I am wondering if the Minister could advise whether this supp brings us any closer to that debt wall? Does it do it any quicker than the previous forecast or fiscal outlook may have indicated? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no, this is within our plans and allowances for supplementary spending, so it does not bring us closer. However, following Mr. Roland's comments, we do have to continue to be watching our expenditures and also our revenues in order to maintain that balance. This is not taking us outside of our planned strategy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. General comments.

Does the committee agree we are ready to go clause by clause?

We will go to page 5 in the detail book. Bill 17, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2002-2003, Executive, operations expenditures, executive offices, not previously authorized, Cabinet Secretariat, negative $100,000.

Page 6, Executive, operations expenses, Financial Management Board Secretariat, labour relations and compensation services, not previously authorized, negative $1,298,000. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on this issue, in the past, the federal government has been changing how it deals with us in the public service superannuation plan. I would like to get some detail from the Minister. Does this mean that we have now concluded our research in that area? The government was researching the idea of looking at the plan and bringing it, in a sense, to our own plan. Does this conclude that and we are going to stay with the existing system? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, yes, doing phase 1 of this review showed us two things. One, that we would not be able to set up our own plan with a cost advantage, even counting in the $12.5 million. We are better to stay with the superannuation plan. Second, although not a deciding factor but certainly a message we heard from government employees, was that they did not want us to move off the superannuation plan. However, the deciding factor for us in terminating this was simply that every evidence we had was that we could not do it less expensively. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Executive, operations expenditures, Financial Management Board Secretariat, Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I am just wondering if the Minister could tell us what it cost us to carry out phase 1 to determine that it made sense to wrap this up. How much have we put into this before we decided to pull the plug on the reform project?