Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. With that, general comments on Finance. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have so much general comments with the content of the Minister’s opening remarks but the way with which they were delivered, looking down, speed reading, didn’t look up to us once, like are we just sitting here, I suppose, maybe just as a bit of an annoyance to the process. What are we, just a...I hope that when the Minister represents us when he goes to Finance Ministers meetings or he’s trying to put a pitch out there for the Northwest Territories on our behalf out there, as the Finance Minister and Deputy Premier of this government that he shows a little more enthusiasm for his job than what I just witnessed. I know we want to get out of here and get this done but, you know, that was disrespectful. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are all my comments.

General comments, Department of Finance. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The federal government just passed their budget in terms of the funding that’s going to be given to the Northwest Territories. Now, in terms of going forward and forecasting our projects that we want to do in our communities, because the budget has just been passed by the federal government and it still has to go through another process to approval, in terms of the forecasting, would we see some delays in some our projects that we want to do in the Northwest Territories? Are we going to do this on borrowed time or do we have some confidence that projects that we have indicated through the different departments...Are we going to see some delay or are we going to do the projects as we said they we’re going to get done? Because some of the infrastructure needs to be built in the communities because of the seasons. Thank you.

Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just my general comment would be I’d kind of like to hear maybe a little more detail on how the Financial Administration Act, how it’s coming forward and what adjustments will be done. One of the issues that I’ve raised, in the last term significantly, is about trying to adjust and help NGOs on their reporting period and how often they have to report

on their reporting period. Even the Auditor General knows that you don’t always have to audit every federal agency every single year, recognizing that some agencies are better than others and they have to prove their auditing statements sort of different and whatnot. Now that may not be a perfect or accurate description of the scenario, but what the issue really comes down to is NGOs are quite pressed to produce financial statements and whatnot at one of the most expensive times when it is to get them filed, written and in good form for the government, and one of the critical asks that’s always come forward from them is how is the government going to address that and reorganize that problem with it.

I’m wondering if the territorial government could start taking an analysis as to identifying which NGOs spend their money properly, fairly and respectfully, that’s intended to the process of why we lend them the money and maybe come up with a different way of having them file their audited statements. By no means, I’ve never heard from any NGO that they did not want to have their program audited and I’ve never once heard that they didn’t want to file statements in any way, but the issue really came down to things like timing. Because quite often what we’ll see is people who provide programs, whether it’s the Centre for Northern Families...I mean, the question that really comes up in my mind is do I want them to do paperwork and file audited statements or do I want them helping people. I would certainly hope that the answer from the Minister would be we’d like to see them doing the good services that they do, which is helping people.

Mr. Chairman, quite often what I find, in my experience so far, is some of these NGOs do services that the government could not do for that type of dollar. We could not provide the sympathy or empathy that’s required in that service and what we have is longstanding agencies come forward to provide services in both Yellowknife and throughout the North. This would be one way to recognize and appreciate the good work that they do and signify that, yes, our government has financial requirements. And by no means I’m not suggesting in any way that we don’t keep a close eye on that, but I think, especially with these types of things being discussed such as our Financial Administration Act, are there ways to help those agencies, again, focus their time and energies on providing services as opposed to providing paperwork. I think that’s ultimately the crux of my issue on that, is helping them. Because, you know, we don’t have auditors helping people at a homeless shelter, we don’t have auditors helping people at a Salvation Army program meeting. I mean, we have real people helping real people with real problems, and I would rather see their focus on

the area that they’re providing a much needed service.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t really have anything else to add at this time, but that continues to be an issue since I remember I was first raising it about probably four years ago. I certainly would like to see this opportunity get captured under any update and any adjustments be added to it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have to start by saying I somehow suspect and I wouldn’t expect that everybody completely appreciates my style, but I do hope that people listen to the words that I speak rather than look at the style that I present them in.

I want to say that I recognize that it’s a large piece of work here to consolidate these departments and I appreciate that. I think we were generally supportive of this and undoubtedly there are some kerfuffles that will be ironed out as we go here. I think it’s going to end up with some good efficiencies and the phrase that leaps out at me is stewardship over public funds. That’s what this department is really all about.

I see a net reduction of 10 percent and that’s probably not totally real given the $14 million loss in federal funding. So I don’t know exactly where this department really comes in. Next year we can start getting a good sense of that in a relative sense from year to year.

I see there are a lot of increases in different things. The Territorial Power Subsidy Program, of course, has been a concern to me and to many as it increases quite rapidly. I think, as a government, we’re wrestling on many different levels to deal with that situation. I’m looking forward to making some progress on that.

One thing that particularly caught my attention in the Minister’s opening remarks was ensuring that the Duty Travel Policy directives are clear, well understood and usable in order to properly control, monitor and report on GNWT travel. I have this brought up repeatedly from constituents as a concern and it’s a very difficult one. I appreciate that and I’d like to hear more about what the thinking is, how we can, indeed, finally get a handle on this and begin to actually control and manage it. Yes, if we can get a clear, transparent annual report out to the public, that will go a long ways in terms of our credibility with our public.

Leaping ahead through the comments to the reference to changes to our tax system that might advance our economic, social and environmental objectives. I think that’s something we need to do.

It, again, is a thorny undertaking but needs to be done. We have some short-term initiatives in place and undoubtedly we’ll be coming up with more. But I hope there’s also a longer-term strategy that’s got some critical analysis and thinking in it and it gets laid out and adopted, as well, during the life of this Assembly. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that potential.

Of course, devolution and resource revenue sharing is something we need to always be thinking about. I think most of us are on record with solid support for a heritage fund for the Northwest Territories. That’s all the general comments I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Are there any other general comments? Does committee agree that we’ve concluded our general comments?

With that, before we move on to the department’s estimates, I’ll ask the Minister to respond. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, let me indicate, for the record, that I work very hard in my job as the Minister and I have a deep and abiding respect for the institution in which I serve. While I’ve heard the Member’s for Hay River South concerns, I don’t necessarily appreciate them, but I will give them the consideration they deserve.

In regard to the projections for capital and projects, at a recent deputy ministers meeting of Finance across the country the federal government indicated that they hoped to have the money ready to roll and flow by June. What the actual criteria are going to be for the different funds has yet to be finalized. We are also going to have to deal with the issue of capacity in the North, because we have one of the largest capital plans ever prepared to roll out this coming year.

This weekend we are going to be having a meeting with NGOs to talk about volunteerism plus NGOs. There’s a special meeting to deal with some of the funding and financial policies. It will be an opportunity to look at some of the issues raised by Mr. Hawkins.

In terms of the increase to the department taking away the money from Housing, that it’s sunsetted, it’s about a $6.4 million increase over last year.

We look forward to being able to provide, as we do work with the Program Review Committee, good information as we can possibly pull together on travel. Last year it was about 12 to 13 million dollars spent on travel and about 80 percent of that travel

took place in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. With that, if you can turn to page 5-7, operations expenditure summary, department summary. We’ll defer that and move forward. Moving on to page 5-8, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Any questions there?

Page 5-9, information item, revenue summary.

Page 5-10, information item, activity position summary. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be consistent, I was wondering if we could get a breakdown on these positions with the P1, P2, P3, disabled and for all the activity position summaries throughout the department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have the package here with sufficient copies for all the Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. If you can give that to the Clerk and we can get it circulated. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wonder if we could have permission to go back to page 5-9.

Does committee agree we go back to page 5-9?