Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The written correspondence we have from NTPC was September 25th . Oh, sorry.

August, August 25th . Sorry.

If we’re hearing correctly, it was August 25th , which is almost one month and a day

when the press release and also the press conference was being held by the Cabinet. As I said, I’m trying to figure out what was so pressing, the fact that it was one month that transpired between that information and the decision that everyone heard on the 26th of September. I guess

the question, Mr. Chair, was there an imminent deadline that the PUB needed to have an answer by?

This was in the tail end of summer and in the heat of the fire season. The Power Corporation had followed their process and notified the PUB, and we are aware of that as well. Then the issue came to be what was the impact gathering Cabinet to have those discussions and what would be the response and the need to review what was we thought the most feasible way to proceed, and what did we need to provide to the PUB to give them the assurance that whatever decision that was made would make NTPC whole in terms of the money they were requiring and that we were going to get through that rate rider.

Of course, we didn’t hear a date here from the Minister, so I guess we’ll leave it to the imagination. It was sometime between August 25th and September 26th which is the

announcement of this amount of money being authorized or promised by Cabinet without any appropriation. I’ll leave it at that. If the Minister doesn’t want to answer the question, that’s fine. Maybe other Members might get back on that and try to pry that information out.

The question is: How pressing was the issue? Why were things deemed so fast moving that we had to circumvent conventional wisdom of a process that we all enshrine and we all believe in, which is consensus government? I don’t see where the pressing need was. I don’t see where things were moving fast where this decision had to be made on a Friday and had to be announced that Friday and circumventing the program. Unless the Minister really wants to clarify that, I have a hard time understanding and believing where the pressing value was and where things were moving fast.

I’ll leave it at that, but my other questions have to do with the fact that I’m assuming that this $20 million is coming out of short-term borrowing, and if so, can we get confirmation? Is this indeed coming out of short-term borrowing and what does that mean now to our short-term borrowing limit, which I believe our cap is at $275 million. Where does this appropriation land on that threshold?

The issue of pressing and why we did what we did, I mention to the Members that when you’re in their chair and responsible for, as the government, dealing with the issue of cost of living, forest fires, unexpected expenses like this and very many other urgent fiscal balls you have in the air that, yes, things do become pressing, and they become pressing in the context that I just laid out, and they require a timely response.

I appreciate, once again, that Members don’t think we subscribe fully enough to the protocols that we’ve agreed to. I’m saying that we had touched the bases we needed to touch. We’re recognizing here the concerns on a go-forward basis. It’s not like we’re avoiding answering the questions.

Well, there was a question there that did not get answered. I asked about the short-term borrowing line. I’ll leave it to the Minister if he wants to elaborate more, because I think that’s an important question. If, again, the Minister doesn’t want to answer that question, just maybe he can indicate that.

We are borrowing that money from short-term borrowing and it would be nice to know where we’re sitting on our short-term borrowing line of credit. But I think conventional wisdom would prevail, and I think the public is smart enough to understand that we can talk in soliloquies about the greater value of

good and evil. We can talk about things that are always ongoing, but the issue of “pressing and urgent” usually means that there’s a deadline or a date that this government had to adhere to.

Again, I’ve asked twice now. I’ve asked maybe three times now, was there a deadline or a date that this department, this Minister or the Cabinet or the Premier had to adhere to so that this decision had to be done on a specific date, given full well this information was in their hands for well over a month? I guess, again, I’ll leave it to the Minister’s purview to answer that question, but I’ll still allow the question to stand regarding short-term borrowing and how does that affect our short-term borrowing line.

I apologize to the Member for not answering the question. As he was asking about short-term borrowing, my short-term memory left me there for a second and I need to get reminded by the deputy what the question was.

There was urgency to deal with the process. There was urgency to provide assurance and reassurance to the people of the Northwest Territories where there was a growing sense of urgency, demands that something had to be done and, in addition to trying to touch the bases we needed to touch, deal with the NTPC, deal with the PUB. We took all those factors into consideration and responded as we did.

In regard to the short-term borrowing and the $275 million cap and what the $20 million will do to that, I’d ask, Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, that the deputy be allowed to respond to that.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Deputy Minister Aumond.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Aumond. Next I have on my list Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Aumond left off where one of the questions that I wanted to go with regard to the $20 million that we’re borrowing. I heard him say that we will need $15 million in this budget year and then $5 million is expected after March 31, 2015. If the question’s been asked and I missed it, I’m sorry. But why are

we being asked to approve $20 million in the 2014-15 budget year, which ends March 31, 2015, when $5 million of that is going to be used in the 2015-16 budget year? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the explanation, but it doesn’t give me much comfort. I’m being asked to approve more money than what’s actually required in this budget year. We’re committing to do that, to ask for some money for a certain program or service and ask for more money than was required in a budget year. I think the Minister responsible or Cabinet would laugh us out of the room.

I appreciate this is a bit of a different situation, but it seems to go to a number of decisions that have been taken over the last six months to a year that pretty much tell me that I don’t have much of a hand in anything that’s going on here. I’m beginning to feel that decisions that are made by the Executive. We’ll tell you about it as a Regular Member, but don’t expect to have any input and don’t expect to have any opportunity to provide your views. That’s my perception. I hope that’s not what the intent is, but that’s how I’m feeling.

This $20 million as well as the money that is going to have to be spent for fire suppression is a huge

amount of money. I’m not sure if Mr. Dolynny asked the question or not, but how much are we going to have to borrow and what is going to be our borrowing cost? I’m presuming that we don’t have this money since these two expenses are outside the budget that we approved February/March. So, I am presuming that we have to borrow the money. Is that correct that we have to borrow the money? If we have to borrow the money, how much are we borrowing and what is it going to cost us to borrow that money? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to assure the Member here, Ms. Bisaro, that we’re fully invested in the process of consensus government. I can tell you that the last six months I have felt at times like she says she is feeling now, is day after day that we would be constantly bombarded with rising costs with all the fires and the impact and the huge amount of territory that was burned and the communities that were at risk and knowing that we had to spend the money. So we did that. I said at the time, this is not the time to argue about money. It’s not the time to worry about where the money is coming from. We’ll spend the money and we’ll sort it out, so here we are sorting it out. The Member does have a say, not so much on the special warrants on the $20 million.

We’re here before the Assembly asking for the authority. The money hasn’t been spent yet. We made a decision to do that. We’ve come through the supplementary process. We think it’s a critical issue that we’ve made the right decision on. The Member has the full right and we’ll be looking to the vote here hopefully in the next number of hours or in the next day or so on that issue.

I’d ask the deputy to speak to the amount being borrowed and the interest charges and those specific numbers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. The other two questions I wanted to ask here, I may have missed it when I had to step out. I think Mr. Aumond mentioned our cash position and that was one of my questions, was where are we at in terms of our cash position? We have a Borrowing Authorization Act which allows us to borrow up to a certain limit. Will we reach that limit? If we do, then what do we do?

My other question has to do with our borrowing limit and the $100 million cushion that we are trying to keep in our borrowing limit. I would like to know, in the 2014-15 year are we going to go under that $100 million limit? If it’s not this year, will it be in the 2015-16 budget year? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, to our cash position, where does this borrowing cost of $12,000 to $15,000 put us in terms of our Borrowing Authorization Act and our limit there? Thank you.