Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on an annual basis, or as we go through our budget exercise, we build in a supplementary reserve into the business plan to take in unforeseen items that would come forward, and have some flexibility in trying to deal with business of the day as it would come upon us. So in this case, in this budget for 2004-05 we have for operations expenditure a supplementary reserve of $20 million. By approving this budget, part of this supplementary appropriation will take out $8.8 million of that supplementary reserve. So we won't actually be going into debt. Now I share the same concerns as the Member that we are early into our mandate and already taking up almost half of the supplementary reserve, and the message is being sent consistently back to departments coming forward with supplementary reserves that items we feel that should be in the business plan should go back to the business plan process, and a number of them are not being approved on that basis of looking at our budget situation. But to say that we have totally not dealt with the issue of the social side of the scale, on an ongoing basis we are dealing with those things. That is why we have included items such as $2 million for Education, Culture and Employment on the school side of things to make sure that the schools in the North have the resources to have enough teachers because we are feeling some of those impacts. As development happens more families remain in the North, and more children are going to schools. As well as when you have a hot economy, we have to be more competitive in a sense of keeping teachers or healthcare workers and social workers in the North. So that means adjusting our pay ranges accordingly when negotiations do come up. So we are dealing with some of those issues. Now they are round about in a sense of everyday issues, but we feel that is necessary, that we have to put in the cash that is required to maintain an adequate level of service, and we are doing that because we are feeling the impacts of that development already on the social side. We put $950,000 as part of this appropriation for the Department of Health and Social Services that addressed one of the areas of the social agenda, and those were the projects that were started in 2003-2004. The language nests, there is another $877,000 that we initially didn't plan to put in, but because of support from Members of this House, that made it into the supplementary plan. Again, dealing with increased costs of providing healthcare for physicians in the Northwest Territories. So I don't think it is accurate to say that we are not doing anything for the social side. We are in dealing with the day-to-day issues that we are feeling the impacts of that development already in the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to do so, at the same time being prudent with our fiscal situation as we've instructed departments to go back and look internally for what areas they can start saving money, and being prepared for the next business plan cycle. So I agree there is concern around our fiscal situation, especially seeing that our supplementary reserve on the operations side is we are cutting into it by approximately half of it within the first two months after passing a budget. But I continue to urge departments to look internally, as well as put some of the initiatives into the business planning process that we feel are not needed in a critical nature at this point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Floyd Roland on Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Others Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on June 1st, 2004. See this statement in context.
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Others Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Others Matters
June 1st, 2004
Page 674
See context to find out what was said next.