Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we're talking about the same government that spends almost half of its $1.2 billion annual budget on salaries and benefits to our employees; the same government that does not have a comprehensive human resource plan for the future. We don't have that, but yet we're embarking on developing a framework. To me it's like putting the cart before the horse here. We have to try to get a plan for the future and if we want to get a plan for the future, you start with your biggest expenditure, Mr. Chairman, and that biggest expenditure is the 500-and-some-odd million dollars that this government spends every year off the top. It's gone. Every year. I've talked about this before. How sustainable is that growth at 3 percent a year? It's compounded annually, every year. We pay more and more every year, guaranteed. How long can we afford to be paying the compounded effect of increasing employees? That's where we should start.

Mr. Chairman, I just have to take issue with this and I don't know how else to put it, but if there is a framework... Let's put it this way, Mr. Chairman, if there is a framework, and I'll give the Minister this -- and some of my colleagues that are intent on having a framework in place for us -- let's get the framework. But if we still don't have a deal on resource revenue sharing, what are these three employees going to be doing in a policy shop designed on macroeconomic policy if we've got no money to spend or we've got nothing to gauge anything on? It's all hypothetical. You can dream, and I talk to the adolescent kid. We can dream, we can hope and we can pray. That's all we can do. I mean, let's be realistic about things. Let's get a framework. My colleague from Thebacha talked about getting a framework. I agree. We probably need a framework and we needed it years ago, but we don't need three people sitting in a shop until we have some surety on what our revenues are and we don't, absolutely not. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member asked earlier, as well, a question about is our economy real, do we have a real economy, and talked about the wages and benefits that are paid out to employees right off the top Approximately $500 million is the number he used, and it's probably pretty close to that. Is our economy real? Well, as real as we're sitting here today, and at the end of this process we'll be approving expenditures of over $1.2 billion. That's real. If you want to ask people in communities if that's real, is there job at the school or the health centre or the caretaker's job, is that real? I came from a community that rivalled, I guess, the second largest community in the Northwest Territories for population and when industry shut down, it was all about government and how the government spent that money. There were contractors lined up to bid on the $30,000, $50,000 contracts. Nowadays, because things are so heated in a number of places, we're lucky to get a bidder on a $200,000 contract in some cases. So is the economy real? Yes, it is real. When we talk to the people in our communities it's absolutely real because without that their economies would be absolutely tanked.

In the larger centres we have a different scenario. In our smaller communities they still heavily rely on how this government spends its money and operates in those communities. So I think we have to take that into the lens, the framework we would initiate; and if, in fact, we don't get any royalties or resource revenue sharing, the question becomes even more apparent, is what can we do in the GNWT, in the Government of the Northwest Territories here in this jurisdiction, to raise our own revenues and should we look at new taxes. That's when the macroeconomic policy unit and that lens created would play an even more important role as we make those decisions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. We're on page 3-23, Finance, activity summary, fiscal policy, operations expenditure summary, $1.244 million. First I'll go to see Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The issue I want to talk with the Minister on are federal/provincial/territorial discussions and, I guess, more of the intergovernmental fiscal relationship in terms of the one big issue that's been noted by this House here in terms of the First Nations health benefits. We've been carrying a big load for the federal government in terms of the dispute and the numbers here and that somewhat is hurting our position in the financial terms of the needs and wants in our communities. I just have a hard time believing that the federal government considered crossing us in our discussions and not have any sense of guilt or any sense of shame, I guess, is the word I could put. This small territorial government here is carrying, and for us it's a huge load because it means a lot. For them it's...(inaudible)...because it's a big government and they have lots of money maybe elsewhere, but for us on our budget and the amount of requests that we get in as Members and, of course, you as Ministers get in terms of what we need in our community. I'd like to ask the Minister is there anything new that we can expect in terms how do we deal with this great big shame that the federal government has somehow put on us to carry? We do it because that's what we do in the Northwest Territories; we take care of people. Sometimes we're a little too hard on some of our own people here. We took good care of them, really good, I think so. You don't see them starving, Mr. Chair, in the communities. You certainly don't see them go without food, work. We take good care of our own people here. That's because of that's who we are in

the Northwest Territories. I know that there are a lot of people who request help for medical travel, medical assistance, and we do it. Yet, shame on the federal government for putting this burden on us. We're rich in resources. I think we've got a bigger fight on that issue and I want to ask the Minister how are we dealing with it? I mean this is going to be carried over for next year again and it's going to add up and it's going to be tough on the 16th in terms of how you deal with this in terms, I guess... Is there any way in any type of discussion that we could ask the federal government to take it off our books sort of thing? How do we get this 30, 40, 50 million back from this; $20 million, whatever. Whatever the amount is, how do we get it back so we can give it back to our people? I want to ask that in terms of this fiscal policy and in terms of dealing with the government in Ottawa, the shameless government. Anyhow, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In our discussions with federal Finance we deal with the transfer payments that come directly out of their section into our government and get accounted. Within each department there are some smaller agreements that flow. The issue of the DIAND, and that's where it flows from is DIAND, dollars for aboriginal health flows out of DIAND, and that does not flow through Finance or our discussions on formula discussions. It's a deal directly and each jurisdiction would deal directly with the health side of the equation. So through Health and Social Services what we do is we spend up front the money for providing the level of service we do in communities and then we send those invoices out to the federal government for reimbursement.

Right now we are sitting on about $65 million of unpaid invoices from the federal government to deal with health care provided to aboriginal people in our communities. DIAND has a policy in place at a 2 percent cap, and we spend beyond that 2 percent cap. In fact, it's an issue that I've raised at -- putting on a different hat -- the Health Ministers, Health and Social Services Ministers, about that cap. Other jurisdictions that have aboriginal people in their jurisdictions face the same area, the 2 percent cap. It is an issue. I've raised it with my colleague on the health side, Minister Clement, as well as copied Minister Prentice on that issue and it's something we have to continue to deal with and trying to come up to resolve. In fact, I've even looked at the past 12th Assembly that dealt with this. I believe they were up to about $70 million at that point and were dealing with the federal government. So it's not a new issue. It's gone back and forth, but we do need to deal with this and bring some closure and then get adequacy brought back into the picture. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Yakeleya.

My last comment and probably a question to the Minister is I guess it's no longer the $64,000 question, it's a $65 million question here. Mr. Chairman, would the Minister in terms of his analysis, his policies that they're going to look at, the different scenarios, would this type of an issue here be warrant enough to take to a court to the federal government to litigate and to look at an issue like this that forces them to pay? Otherwise we're just nice guys and we're going to keep taking on this debt load here and keep doing things that we do for our people. I mean we're small in this whole territory and we help our people and we even set some things in place here over the last couple weeks that's helping our people more in the health issues. Again, I would ask the Minister, is there some consideration looking at this in terms of enough is enough, pay up because the people that I represent in the Sahtu really need this help and I think it's really hurting the Member from the Thebacha area too. So I think we need to see some resolution to this issue here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, from the Finance side we've addressed this on a number of occasions along with other jurisdictions and that comes down to what we termed as adequacy of the funds that came out of the federal government to provide a level of programs and services that all Canadians expect. We've addressed that. In fact, that's why we've seen the shift that went from our old formula financing arrangement to a capped amount with a fixed escalator that brought some additional dollars and there were some side agreements on that. I believe these were some of the arguments we made with regard to adequacy with the funding that flowed into the Northwest Territories. That's something we continue to do. Ultimately, it would just clean it up if we had from one funding source instead of a lot of small areas, because ultimately though the people themselves don't see a reduced level of service, that is money that we could have on an annual basis. Now it's not $65 million annually, it's grown to $65 million, but it keeps on growing and if we could take that money on an annual basis, whether it be $5 or $10 million, that would go a long way to providing even a better level of service right now as we continue to get called on by this Assembly and other people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Yakeleya.

Last comment to the Minister, Mr. Chair. I want to say you hurt my people, you hurt me.

That's all I want to say to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I listened closely to what the Minister had replied to me and I'd like to thank him for his reply. I don't want the Minister to think that I don't believe that government is important in the smaller communities, of course I do. I believe it's vitally important, Mr. Chairman, which is all the more reason why I question government spending whenever I get a chance to and I'm critical of government spending in areas where I don't think we're going to get the value for the dollar. I think we have to be spending money in areas where we're going to get tangible results. That's what I believe in. Again, I just don't understand, you know, if we do have a framework, let's say we have a framework, what are the people in this policy shop going to do on a day-to-day basis? Plan how we spend our 180 or 190-odd million

that we have in left field? What are they going to do every day, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the fact is once a framework is established, that framework will have to be applied when direction is given by either Members of this House to Cabinet to look at spending money in a certain area, or increasing revenues, or looking at increasing mark-ups on, for example, alcohol products, or should we look at a carbon tax. All of those initiatives will have to be run through and analyzed and that information brought back to the table so that decision-makers can make decisions based on the most up-to-date and appropriate information. That's some of the pieces we'll have to look at.

I think even more importantly, and the Member is correct, as we spend as much money as we do in our jurisdiction, we have to be spending it as wise as possible and we have to ask ourselves are we putting it in the right places. That's where that shop would come in when we look into how we spend that money, should we invest more money. In fact, if the new government is inclined to go through a zero-based exercise, that lens can be applied as departments come forward and say well we need this money for this purpose, what does it bring at the end of the day, what value is there in there, and that's part of the process that would be applied through this shop. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for a little bit more clarity on this, the existing staff, predevelopment of the macroeconomic policy shop, what they're doing today does exactly what the Minister suggested to me, you know, they're dealing with fiscal policy every day. So what, in addition, would the three macroeconomic policy shop individuals, what would they be doing on a day-to-day basis that the current contingent at fiscal policy wouldn't be able to do? That's where I'm having trouble trying to connect this, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on a day-to-day basis we have set program criteria we have established. Taxes and the work that's done is a matter of making sure when the federal government sends us the amount after they've done their collection and done their tallies to confirm with our side is to look at, again, we'll look at our own-source revenues and a lot of them are established here when you talk about tobacco taxes, liquor, liquor mark-ups, or, for example, fuel tax. All of those pieces, they're established and already in the process. So we have people there doing that and they're very specific to their area. We don't have people stepping back and looking at the big picture over government how are we spending this money and if we establish or increase taxes in a certain area what impact will that have and what is the potential downturn of that. We do when required and if the request comes up today, if that direction is given to us, within Finance we would end up hiring someone outside our shop to do some of this work to help us with it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Ramsay.