Mr. Speaker, the one-time funds I speak of are those adjustments that happened from past corrections to transfers from the federal government. Those are one-time. The Building Canada Fund is cost-shared dollars, and it’s for capital only. There are no O&M dollars attached to that, so that’s something we can’t plan on — making increased expenditures to O&M that will continue to grow with forced growth on an annual basis.
As well, Mr. Speaker, we have to recognize that the last government — and this is the issue…. You’re
looking at the history of the government, where we’ve had to account for one-time funds in the year we receive them, but they really are three-year funds. For example, the Affordable Housing Trust: $50 million spread over three years. So those are accounted for in the year they’re allocated.
We have a number of other issues that are about to impact us in ’09–10. The Territorial Health Access Fund is due to run out in ’09–10. We have housing transfers from the federal government that are on a steady decline until 2033. As well, we have existing problems within our health authorities around some budgeting issues that we need to be prepared to deal with, and if we don’t take the opportunity while we have some flexibility, we will lose that all in years to come.
We recognize there are things that we have to bank on, and bank on, on a basis that will allow us to proceed. If we continue to go down the path we are, where revenue’s going — and I would refer to B3 in the actual Budget Address document…. If we don’t make any changes, we will see big problems in the future.