Total Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, not previously authorized: negative $28,000. Agreed?

Total Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental

Relations, $28,000 approved.

Financial Management Board Secretariat, Directorate, not previously authorized: negative $119,000. Is the committee agreed?

Financial Management Board Secretariat,

Directorate, $119,000 approved.

Government Accounting, not previously authorized: $3,962,000. Agreed?

Government Accounting, $3,962,000

approved.

Total Financial Management Board Secretariat, not previously authorized: $3,843,000. Agreed?

Total Financial Management Board Secretariat,

$3,843,000 approved.

Total Department, not previously authorized: $6,377,000. Agreed?

Total Department, $6,377,000 approved.

Page 10, Finance, Operations Expenditures, Directorate, not previously authorized: negative $32,000. Agreed?

Finance, Operations Expenditures, Directorate,

$32,000 approved.

Total Finance, not previously authorized, negative $32,000. Agreed?

Total Finance, $32,000 approved.

Page 11, Municipal and Community Affairs, Operations Expenditures, Directorate, not previously authorized: negative $72,000. Agreed?

Municipal and Community Affairs, Operations

Expenditures, Directorate, $72,000 approved.

Community Operations, not previously authorized: $1,441,000. Agreed?

Community Operations, $1,441,000 approved.

Lands Administration, not previously authorized: $30,000. Agreed?

Lands Administration, $30,000 approved.

Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Chair, we’re on page 11, yes? Thank you. Just to make it firm. I couldn’t hear you.

I have a concern to the Premier, or I should say the Finance Minister, on the way we fund projects. In this particular case we have a transfer of infrastructure contribution funding to capital investment expenditures.

What it is, is the money that goes to the Nahanni Butte gym. Before we get too far, I want to firmly state that I’m in support of their project. It’s the process that we go about this in transferring O&M to capital dollars and then transferring it over.

Mr. Hawkins, I don't believe we've gotten to that item yet. It’s under Regional Operations. We're still dealing with Land Administration. It’s further down the list, under Regional Operations, if you can hold your question until we get to that line item.

Sports, Recreation and Youth, not previously authorized: $425,000. Agreed?

Sports, Recreation and Youth, $425,000

approved.

Regional Operations, not previously authorized: negative $575,000. Mr. Hawkins?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't get fresh time on the clock, it appears.

First, as I said earlier, I just want reaffirm that I’m in support of the project. I'm just not supportive of the process of how we do this.

We're supporting a project by putting money into an O&M fund, and then we're allowing it to be transferred over to capital. And it just sounds like a funky or a wonky way of doing the process. We should be up front.

O&M should not be funding capital projects. The spirit and the intent of this all along is to ensure that the community of Nahanni Butte has a gymnasium. Again, I am in support of the project, but the fact is that I don't like the process.

I'd like the Premier to go on record as to why this is the case. Would he be willing to switch it over to what I would consider to be a normal process, where all capital projects flow through a capital process?

Mr. Chairman, the process that’s used has been used for quite a number of years. It is a common process that we use, even when we go into the business planning development stage and to the main estimates that this House would deal with, with projects that fall into the Municipal and Community Affairs area, where the asset that is being constructed becomes property of the community.

This is a result of direction that was given from the Public Sector Accounting Board in 1997 on the way governments deal with their capital assets, and that is when we came into the amortization era of government and how we do business. We’ve implemented those changes through our accounting structures, and it goes back to the area of who owns the asset when it’s completed.

In this case, it only happens with Municipal and Community Affairs because the asset will not be owned by the Government of the Northwest Territories. It will be owned by the community.

Mr. Chairman, the issue of the community owning the asset is not the issue. It is simply how we define projects through a funding process. Regardless of whether the community of Nahanni Butte gets it through the O&M or just a cheque directly from the Finance Minister, I don’t really care, to be honest.

The fact is that we’re funding this project up front before we’re even given a capital project, and on top of that, we’re building a capital project with O&M money. I don’t like the principle of the process that we’re going through. And I wish to put it on the record that I don’t think it’s appropriate that we fund projects before we get them in this way where we just give them all the money and say, “go ahead.”

This is a project for this community. And it wouldn’t change the process if we paid in milestones like we did with any other project. We make the money accessible so it could be drawn down. Again, it wouldn’t change the support of the project, in my view, and it would ensure that we deliver the project, in the fact that we get the asset when they get all their money at the same time. Otherwise, it looks like we’re paying people up front and saying, “good luck — give us a gym.” It makes it difficult for us to bear down pressure if something goes funny.

It’s more of a comment as opposed to a question for the Finance minster, but I’m more than willing to hear his response, assuming he wishes to respond. Like I say, it has nothing to do with being critical as to the project, just the process.

Mr. Chairman, again, the process is one that has been used for a number of budget cycles now. I’ll have to correct that: it’s not only the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that has done this. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment also has infrastructure contributions, and that would be, for example, the schools and the education authorities here in the capital.

Mr. Chairman, the Finance Minister may be technically right, but in no case should we be funding capital projects, in my view, out of O&M money. It just sounds funny. When you go to read it up in the books to find out where the gymnasium is in a potential budget, you’re going to go to the capital budget.

The last thing I’ll say is that just because we do it this way and we’ve done it this way for a long time doesn’t mean it’s right. And just because we do it this way all the time, every time, we’re never going to get a different answer or a different process.

I think our process would be better, further enhanced and a little more transparent from the public’s point of view and their expectations on how we approve projects if it was done this way. That being said, it’s a loan position. That doesn’t mean it’s not right either.

I guess, for the record, the Member says it is not right. In fact, it is not wrong. This is following the Public Sector Accounting Board and how we deal with our capital and its amortization. This also has changed since we’ve gone to the New Deal with communities, where the capital program has in fact been transferred.

There are a number of smaller communities that are still in settlements that are an exemption to that, and there are a few projects that didn’t get wrapped into the original transfer. We’ll see less of these in the future.

Regional Operations, not previously authorized: negative $575,000. Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Chairman, not to be picky, of course, but in Gametì, there’s a gymnasium and it’s funded through Capital Investment Expenditures, not O&M. Maybe the Finance Minister can explain the difference — why we’ve now agreed it’s not right, it’s not wrong through O&M; now, we’re funding through capital. Can he explain why it’s good for one but not for the other?

Mr. Chairman, this one is the result of being offset by a reduction to the Capital Investment Expenditures. So this is, again, a process of back and forth in how we deal with the construction of that facility.

Again, I wish to reaffirm, not just to the Member who represents the community but anyone else out there who’s listening and who cares. The fact is — and it’s not a criticism of the project — now we have the example where the other applies.

Again, now I’ve bought into the Finance Minister’s important song and dance and passionate plea that this is the way we do things; this is way we’ve done things since 1997; and now we do this project through Capital Investments. So just when I get it clear that if we’re going to build a gym in Gametì that I suspect belongs to the community, now if we go look at the O&M budget, it’s not going to be there.

So I guess I’m searching for some consistent practice — again, transparency on the process — so if anyone wanted to look this up, they would know where to look this up in the budget.