Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Members of the Assembly, I want to start with a previous response I made to a previous Budget Address. We, once again, have the opportunity to look at the big picture. Let's lookat the fiscal situation that we first had opportunity to look at as Members of the 14th Legislative Assembly. We were told that 74 percent of our revenues come from the formula financing agreement, another seven percent in transfer payments comes from Ottawa as well. We are told if we try to raise our own revenues through taxes and such, there is little impact on our budget. An example is that an increase in taxes would net us 1.5 percent. Without new revenues, the next few years would be characterized by cuts and deficits.
What has changed so drastically that we are now in a position of surplus? Once again, when we first came in as Members of the 14th Assembly, the fiscal project stated that revenues of 2001-2002 would be $726 million in expenditures and expenditures would be $814 million. By year end, we would have a $160 million deficit. We were also told that we would hit our borrowing limit by year end. I recall being told that only source revenues are a small portion of total revenues and increases have virtually no impact on our fiscal situation. Mr. Speaker, in the 2001-2002 Budget Address, Minister Handley states that our short-term fiscal position is significantly improved over last year's forecast from a $313 million deficit to a $23 million surplus and that 2001-2002 he is predicting a surplus of a couple of million dollars. He states from page 5 of his 2001-2002 address: "This turnaround is directly attributable to our successful efforts to constrain spending, coupled with a much more positive revenue picture."
Mr. Speaker, in the detail provided in the Budget Address document, this government spent $47.62 million more than was spent by year end March 2000, $47 million more and predicting $16 million from April 1st to March 2002. This, Mr. Speaker, is considered constraint spending?
Mr. Speaker, this one item I see as a contributing factor of our remarkable turnaround is the fact that we see corporate taxes as never seen before in the NWT. Mr. Speaker, corporate taxes jumped from $7.6 million in 1999-2000 to $102 million in this fiscal year. The Minister goes on to predict another banner year of 2001-2002, $116 million in corporate taxes. If this is the case, why do we need fee increases?
I do recall a statement when we first became aware of an increase in corporate tax revenues, the Minister stating that this was a one-time anomaly. Now we are budgeting it to grow and we are basing our expenditures on it. Mr. Speaker, just over a year ago we were presented with a gloomy picture. We were told that trying to raise revenues from our own sources through fees was not a good idea. Now we are making a high strategy on it. Why such a change in direction? Mr. Speaker, it is obvious to me that our need for a resource revenue sharing agreement will become critical as we set sail for another year in the Good Ship NWT.
Mr. Speaker, I refer to the 2001-2002 budget as a star gazer's budget. I had hoped that Minister Handley's stars were not just someone hanging Christmas lights in the distance. With the information now provided in this Budget Address, it appears that the stars were just late New Year's fireworks going off, as the Minister of Finance has now revised those earlier expectations, expectations that Members of this Assembly bought into. Things were indeed looking rather good by the end of the year 2001-2002. As we were told, we were in a surplus situation. A surplus of $120 million, to be exact. We were told that we needed to keep up with the plan to spend our way through the months to come. The 2002-2003 update shows how much we spent trying to keep up with the ever growing economy as we were now looking at a $106 million deficit Mr. Speaker, that's a whopping $226 million turnaround.
The finance Minister goes on to state that the 2003-2004 outlook will have the next government looking at total debt of $214 million. Mr. Speaker, it appears that the Minister has gone to the well once too often as there seems to be no more water in the well.
---Interjection