Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have many comments. It’s hard for me to put them into sort of a cohesive commentary, but I’ll do the best I can. There have been a lot of comments in the last couple of days. We heard from the Premier yesterday in his sessional statement, we heard from the Finance Minister earlier today in his statement, we’ve got the opening remarks from the Finance Minister, we’ve got comments that have been made by members of Cabinet over the last month to two months to three months about expenditures that we will have to endure, I guess, for lack of a better word. I am seriously concerned that our fiscal strategy is in peril. Basically, I think it’s gone out the window.
There has been reference to some of the work in terms of energy and so on, and reference to things that we were working on four years ago. We were working on energy stuff four years ago and we have spent millions of dollars in the past four to five years, basically to no avail. We do not have any projects that will give us more generation and/or will give us greater transmission capabilities and I appreciate that we have to do some research, I appreciate that work needs to be done, but I think, for me, it’s symptomatic of whether it’s too narrow a view or whether it’s looking too broadly and not looking behind to see what it is we’ve left behind. But we tend to spend money and it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Admittedly, the fire season was definitely something that was out of the ordinary, but we should be prepared for extraordinary circumstances like the fire season that’s costing us around $55 million. On top of that, within the last month, month-and-a-half, we’ve been advised that we’re going to spend an extra $20 million to reduce our power rates, and I’m all for that, that’s great, I don’t want to pay any more for power than I am already, but where is that money coming from? It’s not part of our fiscal strategy and I don’t believe that it’s something that we had waiting in the bank for us to spend. So I’m quite concerned that our fiscal strategy is being impacted by recent decisions and by recent circumstances like the fire, and that albeit we have a strategy, I don’t think the decisions that we’ve been making have been made in light of our fiscal strategy and in light of our finances. It’s mentioned several times; I think the Minister’s opening remarks stated that we have limited fiscal resources. Yes, absolutely we do and I know we have a big, long list of infrastructure needs, but
again, I’m concerned about the decisions that we’re making.
A statement this morning, the Minister said we cannot rely on receiving resource revenues from the same sources forever, and that leads me to my second point, which I think I’ve mentioned every year, it doesn’t relate specifically to infrastructure, but we do not seem to have any appetite to go after a new source of revenue. If we don’t have any new sources of revenue then we are bound to keep our infrastructure budget low, presumably low, but to keep our infrastructure budget down to what apparently, according to our fiscal strategy, is acceptable. Again, I have a problem with the fact that we are within our fiscal strategy.
It’s stated in one of the statements within the last few days that we’re not going to increase taxes. I think it may have been the Minister this morning and that that commitment was made four years ago and we’re not going to change our mind. Well, circumstances change and if we lock ourselves into something that’s four years old and the circumstances change so that it’s a different set of circumstances today, surely to goodness we should open the box and consider whether or not we should change the decision we made four years ago. I have a difficult time that we will forever, at least until the end of the 17th Assembly, say we’re
not going to do anything about taxes, we’re not going to increase taxes, we’re not going to increase taxes.
Just in general, I look at the summary of our infrastructure investments in the tabled document that we just received and between the current year’s capital estimates, which is $222.7 million, we’ve now in 2015 capital estimates gone up to $277.9 million. So some 55 to 56 million dollar increase, and if our resources are as limited as we are led to believe, why did we maintain our capital budget at an extra $50 million? I know it’s because we have all kinds of needs, but if our needs are needs in terms of financing and the fiscal strategy override putting money into infrastructure, I think that’s something we ought to be looking at. It’s a question which I don’t think we were even given an opportunity to consider. We were simply informed that the capital estimates would be $125 million.
The focus in this budget, for me, is weighted too heavily on economic development and on transportation projects. The highways and winter roads is $108 million out of our $277.9 million. That’s over a third, or equal to a third, and that’s too high. Like Mr. Bromley, I believe that we put too much money into projects, which presumably are going to assist us with economic development, and we’ve put not enough money into infrastructure, which is going to assist our people. I’m thinking about schools, I’m thinking about health structure, and I know there’s some money in there, but I don’t
think the same emphasis is on those kinds of infrastructure investments as it is in highways and economic development.
A couple of things; the Stanton project is absolutely necessary, it needs to be done, but I am quite concerned that we seem to be committed to a P3 route. What little research I’ve done on P3s for hospitals doesn’t show me positive results. It’s totally a mixed bag, and I would say I saw more negative results from P3 projects for hospitals than I saw positive. I’m a little regretful that Regular Members didn’t have an opportunity to have greater input into the decision to go P3. We were presented with it, but we didn’t really have an opportunity to consider and to grow that advice or our own opinion as to whether or not P3 was the right way to go.
The other thing I wanted to mention, and what I see as a lack in the budget, is infrastructure for housing, and I know there’s a lot of money in housing, but I don’t know that we are targeting the money for housing the way that we should. I’m particularly concerned for housing for seniors across the continuum from supported living right through to absolute extended care. It’s a huge issue here in Yellowknife and I want to say, as an aside, that Yellowknife facilities do not just serve Yellowknife residents, they serve the territory, and I take a bit of an offence by the Minister’s response that Yellowknife lobbyists get things for Yellowknife that seem to be only for the benefit of this city. That’s not true in the least.
The other thing that we don’t have and it’s a policy that we have not to increase our public housing units. Again, that’s an issue here in Yellowknife, the wait list for public housing is huge, but we heard earlier this morning the wait list for public housing is huge also in other communities. I think it was Mr. Blake who was commenting on that. Yet we have a policy that we will not increase our public housing numbers, but we have many, many residents who need access to public housing, and specifically single people are at the bottom of the list and forever stay there. They never get to move up.
I just have a couple of questions. One question has to do with the borrowing limit. We have been told over the years that we want to maintain a $100 million cushion between what our borrowing limit is and what we actually borrow. I’d like to know, at this point, with all the changes in our fiscal strategy that we are expecting or have so far undertaken, where are we at with our borrowing limit? I’m presuming we’re going to go over it, but I’d like confirmation on that.
My other question has to do with the reserve. We set up a reserve with both our operations budget and our infrastructure budget. I’d like to know, and I guess this is a this year question, but where are we at in terms of the reserve for ’14-15 infrastructure
budget? I’m presuming, again, that that’s all used up and that we are well in the hole.