Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments on this department will be mainly on the revenue summary and the projections that are projected for this year’s main estimates. I’m looking at most of them and most of them are showing a positive side. I’m looking at the difference from the revised estimates and main estimates, and I’m showing an increase of $132 million. My question is: If those numbers don’t materialize, where will we be without that?
I’d like the Minister and the department to maybe explain where some of these projections are coming from. The Minister has indicated in his opening statements that $55 million will be coming from corporate income tax revenue, which is a phenomenal amount from what I can see, and is well above what’s happened in the last couple of years. I’m interested in seeing where those numbers come from.
As well as in the taxation area of the eight items that deal with taxation, some of them show an increase, and my indications are that the economy in the Northwest Territories is on the upturn, a bit, but that seems like a very optimistic projection in taxation, as far as I can see.
I also wanted to put my comment in there, as well, about the amortization within departments given to Finance and how some of that stuff was a cookie-cutter approach to the costs. A lot of times it was repeated. Like my colleague Mr. Dolynny indicated,
it’s phenomenal that that could happen, and would happen, and most likely was done out of a quickness of projections, I think.
My biggest concerns are the revenue. If that $132 million doesn’t show up, what position does it put us into for years to come? It creates our positive $74 million that the Minister indicated in his opening address, to what could be a negative $50 million, so there’s a big influence there in where those projections and how solid we feel those projections are.
That’s everything.