He hopes. In our thirst to show how much we can do as a government, we have almost bankrupt the government. Mr. Speaker, I went back to our first official budget as a 14th Legislative Assembly. In that Budget Address, on Page 32, the summary of net debt and an estimated borrowing capacity is given. It shows revised estimates for 1999-2000, an accumulated cash deficit position of $70.328 million. In this year's budget, the numbers show and state, by the end of the fiscal year 2003-04, the next government will be looking at a cash deficit of $85.264 million. Mr. Speaker, in comparing what we've done as a government when we look at the documents, and I look at the 2000-2001 Budget Address, page 25, summary of operations expense by department, total operations expense shows for 2000-2001, planned expenditures worth $756.835 million. Mr. Speaker, in this Budget Address for 2003-04, in appendix B-15, we have a summary of operation expenditures by department, total operational expenditures for 2003 is scheduled to be $923.991 million. Mr. Speaker, that is a growth of over $167 million dollars in O and M increase alone. With that kind of money, we should have been able to pave a few streets with gold.
Mr. Speaker, we have tried to keep pace with the growing economy. We have done it with taxpayers' dollars but, Mr. Speaker, we have left ourselves little room to be able to grow. In fact, as we are leaving this government, the Finance Minister stated we are leaving it better than we found it. How much better than we found it, I'm not sure, as the numbers are awfully close. In fact, because we have increased spending on O and M by over $160 million in those years, we have built an expectation by our residents that they are going to have a certain level of dollars and programs and services. That will quickly eat away at any dollars that we might receive, even the $20 million dollars that has been announced today that we might get in special funding. Hopefully, as the details are worked out, we will find out that we'll get many millions more than that because that is what we are going to need, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, all these expenditures, increased expenditures, that we have approved in this House, and that is why I say Members of this Assembly should have been brought into the picture that was being presented because it looked like it was going to be good for a long time to come but in one year, in the short time, we found ourselves going to a turnaround of $226 million from a surplus of $120 million to a deficit of $106 million, and the year is not over yet. Wait till we see the next supplementary appropriation, Mr. Speaker. How much more will we add to that? All this, Mr. Speaker, in the name of For A Better Tomorrow. I think we should have called it For a Better Today Because Tomorrow Never Comes. I can only hope the assumptions used in the forecast of what this fiscal year will bring turn out to be as good as they are predicting.
Mr. Speaker, we know that budgets are built on assumptions and the finance Minister said he would base his on fairly conservative figures but there are still a number of things that have to come our way that can directly impact on how things will proceed from here. How the government will look in its last days, what we can give to the people of the Northwest Territories and what will be our real lasting legacy. Will it be that the next government that comes into place will be able to do nothing but look at reductions in services and wages again?
I hope not. I hope that we get more banner years of corporate taxes. I hope that the federal government will come to the table but I can recall in the earliest days of our Assembly when we were told that royalty revenue sharing was going to be had and we will get money from the federal government. That was three years ago, Mr. Speaker. We are still negotiating and nowhere close to seeing any cheques being written on the basis of royalty revenues.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to end on a totally negative note, there have been many positives that have been accomplished. We have finally closed the issue of pay equity. We have had signoff on that. I wonder how much that cost us over the many years that we fought with the union on that. If we had settled much earlier, how many millions of dollars we might have been able to save, but that was brought to a close at least during this government. Mr. Speaker, there are again other programs and services that we have enhanced as a government. I say enhanced because we've never really changed our government programs and services. We've altered them from time to time. We've changed criteria from time to time but it has been a long time since any department has had to go back and ask itself why it runs a certain program and doesn't need the dollars it has in its budget to run that program. All we do is add on top of it.
I think it is time to go back to the drawing board as a government. Look into the future and say what is this government going to look like, especially when we tie on self-government and the tables that are happening right now. What is this government's role going to be if we are going to negotiate out the responsibilities and authorities to regional self-governments. Then I think we won't be much more than what the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is to the Government of the Northwest Territories right now. We will have to look at those roles and we will have to ensure that we set up the right monitoring processes to ensure that the dollars being spent on behalf of residents are going to meet the requirements intended.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, hopefully, the well will start to fill once again so that when the finance Minister goes to dump his bucket in, he will find some water there, or in our case, money that he can continue on with expenditures and programs. But I've seen from one hand a very difficult situation that we have come in, go to the very high and look at a very good budget when we have had surpluses. In a matter of a three-year cycle, we are now once again looking at a debt wall that is very close and again, I say, we are not done with our term as Members of the 14th Legislative Assembly. I guess one thing I can say in closing is maybe we better start praying again for those one-time anomalies because we need them and the Lord knows it. Thank you.
---Applause