Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, since changing over -- it's only been two years since we've done this change -- we've already noted there are considerable changes. For example, if we had not made the change from our previous policy for 2003-04, we would have been paying approximately over $5 million for our insurance, and to date it would have been in the area...I'll get Ms. Melhorn to get into the detail.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Melhorn.

Thank you, Ms. Melhorn. Ms. Lee, your time has expired. Do you have another short question you would like to get in? Ms. Lee.

Thank you. That gives us a $1.5 million savings. Will the Minister consider using that money to build an indoor gym in Nahanni Butte?

---Laughter

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as part of our program when you go through reduction scenarios, these savings are taken into consideration as we lower our budget numbers. For the 2003-04 year into the 2004-05 there was a reduction target set, as well as in this budget exercise we're going

through. So we don't hang onto the money. What money we don't use goes back into the consolidated revenue fund. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thanks, Ms. Lee, I'll come back to you. I've got Mr. Braden. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got a couple of areas that I would like to explore. One of them is the ongoing challenge that we have to manage our debt and the plan that's been outlined in some detail on restructuring our whole financial management situation. The other area concerns the Department of Finance's jurisdiction over our liquor system.

Mr. Chairman, the business plans for 2005-08 and the budget document that the Minister presented last Thursday outlined a little bit of a scary situation for us on our overall debt situation. Everyone, of course, Mr. Chairman, is familiar with the $300 million debt wall that was set by Ottawa several years ago and that we have to try to live with. Now due to the taxation and clawback scenarios -- I won't go into the detail -- we're going to be pushing a debt of $295 million in 2006-07, if I read this correctly, Mr. Chairman, leaving us about $5 million free board, which is not very much even for our government. So I wanted to ask the Minister, given that there are negotiations, discussions, hopefully a framework coming together for a new fiscal relationship with Ottawa, are we going to be able to see this through before we do virtually hit this debt wall in the coming fiscal year? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess just for the record as laid out in the budget address in the attached document and information to that, we're looking at 2007-08 as going up to the $295 million total debt that we would have in place. It's our goal as we follow through this process and as Members have endorsed their fiscal responsibility policy, to approach the federal Finance department and work with them on dismantling the debt wall and remove that arbitrary figure of $300 million and deal with our fiscal situation as a percentage of our revenues as lined out in that fiscal responsibility policy. I think that before we get to the time when we get that close to the debt wall, hopefully we'll have a couple of things happen. One; that we will have agreement by the federal Finance department that they will work with us on the fiscal responsibility policy and establish a new debt equation, I guess is the way to call it. Two; with the ongoing work with the Premier and the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister's commitment around devolution and revenue sharing, that we would, in fact, be able to establish a new stream of dollars that would help us again in that area and stabilize our funding situation.

So there are a couple of things there. I think the first and most critical part is to work with our federal counterparts in ensuring that they see that what we're putting together in our fiscal plan is that we've developed it, it is a sound one, and that they would agree that the fiscal responsibility policy is an adequate process to allow us to develop our budgets for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, I see this as all quite doable. I'm already on record as being a strong supporter of the new finance program as outlined so far by the Minister, and I certainly hope we do get Ottawa to see us through this. In the event that we don't, has the department got a plan B? This debt wall is a serious matter. There's no real question in my mind that it is going to be something that we will have to pay back. The rules are very straightforward, but I do like to know that we do have some backstop, if you will, if things don't go the way we would like them to go at the right time. So is there a plan B that we're looking at? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess, number one, we're hopeful and fairly confident that federal Finance will see what we are putting together as an appropriate one and they would endorse and work with us on that avenue. Looking at the picture, if things don't change, then, yes, we are going to have to look at our fiscal strategy once again in how we would go forward to ensure we don't go over our debt that we're aware of and have to make some adjustments necessary. There are a couple options in that. One is working with federal Finance again about that repayment plan that they do have set up in all jurisdictions and work on that issue, as well as looking at our fiscal picture as a Government of Northwest Territories, once again, and trying to do whatever necessary to ensure we don't hit the debt wall. We've taken a fairly strong stand on our fiscal picture to date. We've managed it very well, I believe, as we've come together as Members of the 15th Assembly and hopefully that will account for some good work with the federal Finance people to see what we're putting together is actually a viable way of doing business in the Government of the Northwest Territories. But there are a couple of other options that we could work on. Our goal though, ultimately, is have the fiscal responsibility policy accepted and adopted by the federal government. Two is that we have a devolution revenue sharing agreement in place and new revenue flowing to the government, and go on that basis. But you're correct; if those things are not happening as quickly as we've planned, then we're going to have to look at a couple of other options that I've just mentioned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe it's in the Minister's opening remarks that he addressed the review of the NWT Liquor Act, which we're now engaged in over a two-year program, which will have a budget of $160,000 attached to it. Again, I would reiterate my support and my approval of reviewing this really critical piece of legislation. From my perspective, Mr. Chairman, it is far more important that we delve into this from the perspective of liquor's impact on our society and the social consequences of it more so than the fiscal business side of it. But to the review that we're engaging in here, the Minister indicated that the department is heeding cautions that it should not be a large expensive process. I certainly don't advocate anything being any larger or more expensive than it needs to be, but could the Minister give us a bit of an outline based on this description here? Just

what kind of parameters are being placed, what kind of criteria are envisioned for the scope and the scale of this review? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess a bit of history is our goal to try to make sure this gets done and get a legislative proposal back to Cabinet for April 2006. As laid out in the information we supplied, we hope to have this next review phase completed by 2005 for further review. Some of the things we are aware of and know that there's significant work for impacts to people in the Northwest Territories around this area and the terms of reference as we're going forward doesn't necessarily just deal with the issue of finances or dollars and cents, in a sense, of what we do. But we have a fair bit of work in how things would go down.

We discussed liquor sales, liquor licensing, local options, and those are things that, for example, what should the community's role be. Should it be more than it is now? Should the Minister be deciding if a community would have a special prohibition, as we call it, or a time period where they didn't want any alcohol at all, or should that decision be made at a community level? We are also touching on the societal problems, the social problems as part of it, and also looking at the liquor regulations in comparison to other jurisdictions across Canada.

As well, again, another area is the eligibility to consume and illegal sales aspect of where we're going. Then another key, sort of critical area, as a Government of the Northwest Territories is dealing with the emerging self-governments that are happening, dealing with aboriginal self-governments in that area. So those are some of the key areas we're looking to touch on as we go forward.

It's not going to be an easy job. We're trying to contain those costs and we're very aware, once we get to the next process, that it's going to take on a new life in a sense, because as we prepare for legislative proposal and meet with committee members on this and then discuss the work we've done and if we get to the draft legislation process, that, as well, Members will be taking that out to the public review. So there are a number of options that could come out of this as we go forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question on the collection of payroll taxes and other taxes that the department is responsible for in just general terms. Can the Minister tell us about what sort of mechanisms are in place to make sure that those who are supposed to pay taxes pay, and those employers who are supposed to hand in those taxes do? What mechanisms do we have to know that if somebody is not doing it, that they are notified in an expeditious manner? Last fall I had two calls; I can't give names of the employers or the companies because they don't want to be revealed. In one case a business that employs a lot of aboriginal people -- it's a business that's been around for a long, long time -- kept getting notices asking if they wanted to be registered to pay payroll tax. One is a lot younger than the other, but in two instances two different businesses were called upon by telephone by a government employee asking them if they want to register to pay, or to submit payroll taxes when they've been around for a long time, and they had been paying taxes and such. So that just raises questions about what sort of system is in place to make sure that we keep tabs on businesses to make sure we know who is out there, we know who is supposed to pay taxes, we know when they are not paying taxes. So I'd like to know how many people work in this section and how do we ensure there are as few errors as possible? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the area of the payroll tax, we work with at least one other organization and that is the one that would register companies. We work with the WCB to see how many employers there are in the Northwest Territories, because that is who registers companies.

The Member has also touched on a couple of cases. We have had a number of scenarios that have developed in the North around the collection of taxes overall. There was a case that was going before the courts around the jurisdiction of taxation with governments in general; not just the Government of the Northwest Territories, but governments in general. A number of groups had decided that they were going to wait for the outcome of those cases before they would participate within our taxation initiatives. So that may be one of the areas the Member has referred to.

We try to work with groups voluntarily initially, but if that doesn't happen then we go down other avenues. For further detail on that, I will have Ms. Melhorn respond to some of that as we follow through the process of collecting payroll tax.