Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to provide a few general comments to the opening address. First and foremost I will say that I am pleased, as a number of my constituents are certainly pleased, that there are no new taxes in this proposed budget. People are finding it difficult through the cost of living that we’re working through in Yellowknife. I can only imagine that is amplified in the communities, undoubtedly. That’s certainly well-taken news, if I may define it that way.
People are concerned about taxes the government may be flirting with. The expression is mixed, of course. A hotel tax may bring in new benefits, but exercising caution. A carbon tax being flirted with, as well, and again the general constituents who have stepped forward to provide me advice and guidance on this particular issue stress that caution needs to be exercised before we put a new burden on the average consumer, who is almost at the breaking point as it is.
The big fear, of course, from another side of the equation, is the supplementary health benefits and how that will proceed forward and look. There has undoubtedly been many calls of support for reform
on how we provide our health benefits. That said, in a fair and collective manner. I wish to take that point clearly to the government that this budget is presented and as the working group continues to make forward through our health programming, that they need to make sure that message is understood, that fairness is an important priority throughout.
Highlighting in the budget an additional $150,000 through SFA I think will be well received by our students, and often I like to say our students in university are the future taxpayers of our health care dollars and we should always make sure we support them correctly. In all honesty, they are our guiding gems towards our future and we must make sure that the compass rose always points to a way to support them. Critically, we have to be there for them and they will be here for us when it’s their turn to step into the leadership roles.
I see that there is going to be a continuation of a support of the tourism industry and I think that’s welcome news. I know the sector is still trying to find new ways to diversify as well as to attract a new clientele throughout the world. It was interesting bringing the mayor of Edmonton up. He talked greatly about the unexplored market of Edmonton being a primary target or focus of our tourism campaigns, which I will bring up on further days to discuss in detail. Although it falls under the broader scope of ITI, in the direct scope of our NWT tourism organization, but I know ITI provides them both with guidance and advice and certainly much needed programming dollars. There are many other areas that could be helped.
Just continuing on ITI, additional money for a marketing campaign into this new year is probably very significant. We’ve all looked at the challenges of our decreasing population and that affects all throughout the North about trying to get qualified people here to do the jobs that we need and we need a lot of people here, because I think a lot of skills are not being met and the demand there defined the pool of resources of human resources is very thin. I welcome the new or cranked-up national marketing campaign.
I believe strongly, as the Finance Minister had mentioned, about the child advocate position. I think that is a new way of doing business and certainly the right way of doing business. I think that establishing an Office of the Children’s lawyer makes a lot of sense. Sometimes when you say these things, you often wonder what took us so long to do such an obvious step, and that’s just the way things sort of roll. The reality here is, I think it’s a great initiative and if used properly, could do wonders.
As I said in my Member’s statement yesterday, as well as many other colleagues of mine, I’m still concerned about the underutilization, if I may
describe it as that, of our Program Review Office. Although I spoke at length yesterday, I still think that office has a lot of promise and can do a lot of good work. I’m just concerned on what’s come forward thus far.
As far as the surplus goes, I would not think of a surplus of $7 million as a lot of money when comparing it to a $1.3 billion budget. Truly it could be described as a drop in the bucket, but the reality says it’s more like dew on the side of the glass, it’s so small. One serious supplementary appropriation due to some horrible fire campaign we have in the summer would quickly draw that down. We need to protect communities, we need to protect people. That one example alone could eat up that whole surplus in a moment’s notice. That’s one example. There could be many others. Now not being the time or place, but the reality is we all know there are many other examples.
It was highlighted in the budget, and even I made mention of it yesterday, about the $41 million in drop of corporate tax rates. I did spend some time yesterday trying to highlight doing business better, because if business changes on us, such as a drop in corporate tax rates, how are we able to respond without cutting and slashing? That’s always the big concern of everybody, is there’s sometimes only one way to respond and it’s not a very pleasant way. I’ve often articulated our need for a revenue stabilization fund and I know that we will be seeing a Heritage Fund come forward one day, but I really think we need to be directing part of our projected surplus into a stabilization fund that can protect our revenues. As highlighted again, when we lose $41 million in corporate taxes, we’re able to respond quickly and safely to build stability through our system without sending shockwaves throughout.
Of course, we often forget about how lucky we are with 75 percent of our federal transfer being our money in the bank, but that also leaves us a very small zone to find revenue through our taxation and service fees.
Another area I’d like to highlight, although I welcome it under the principles of cost of living, where the government has made some adjustments to power rates throughout the Northwest Territories, we should not forget Yellowknife’s power rate was about to drop off due to the rate riders, although the government red circled it at its higher rates. It’s done a cost of living shift onto government as opposed to the end user. I only hope that adjusting the power rates -- although I’m very nervous about how they did this -- I welcome the fact that the target is to make things like food cheaper in the communities. We don’t have to look too far for examples of what frustration that’s caused around the world. Take a look at Egypt; there is one primary example of food costs
and crisis added together under the perfect storm of frustration. People express that with grave dismay.
Mr. Chairman, $925,000 is committed in this budget to support community employment and, I’ll be quite honest, I think that’s such a great thing, because if we can empower people to be healthy, employed within their own communities, that will create great synergies throughout the northern small communities, which makes a lot of sense. That also takes pressure off the Yellowknife region or even regional centres, whether that be Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Simpson or Fort Smith, where people are coming into those larger centres desperate for opportunities. That allows different types of pressures to come off in the larger communities.
As this is just an opening comment, I just want to thank the Finance Minister. I think, by and large, as many have said, it’s sort of a status quo budget. Not a lot of shocks, not a lot of surprises. I think we’re probably pretty safe with this particular budget. As I’ve highlighted, the big issue for me right at this particular case is the fact that are we prepared for any sort of financial shock and how do we work to prevent that. The efforts we put on focusing on that I don’t think have truly borne any fruit.
As I said earlier about the Program Review Office, I think some of the things that they could have proposed and we’ve been asking for is more detailed information on synergies we can create. For example, board reform, I don’t think, in principle, was a bad idea. It made a lot of sense, but it seemed as if it looked like lumping them all up and doing it all at once. That could have been a good economic way of doing business smarter, more efficient, but the problem is it seemed to be this is the way or nothing. I’ve often proposed, and I’ll suggest again, that small initiatives showing that they can work makes sense. Work with the communities, work with the Territory, industries, associations. I mean, people will work together in finding ways to find efficiencies.
I just want to leave on a last note, Mr. Chairman, as I had said yesterday that we can be caught up in the details of how to do things, but I think we have a lot of people who have a lot of skills and we have to empower them with the surety that we’ll stand with them, we’ll stand with the managers who are willing to make good, reasonable decisions. It’s unfortunate that politics sometimes get into the concern about who to blame and who to pay on a particular decision, but, Mr. Chairman, the real issue is to ensure that we stand behind our public service to make good decisions. As colleagues have said before, we’re spending too much money on contracts and whatnot. I think we could rely better on our public service to make those decisions and I support that. Give them the
direction and they’ll find a way to save money and run programs better. Thank you.