Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on general comments of the Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures). No. 2, 2014-2015. Sorry. You’re not out of time, Ms. Bisaro. I apologize. We will go back to Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had two minutes left. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the government’s intent, but somebody dropped the ball and I appreciate that the Minister has suggested that yes, maybe they did. I do appreciate also that there are times when decisions need to be made quickly, but I still believe that there is still an opportunity, even when a decision is made quickly, to let Regular Members know what that decision has been.

As to his question about my questions, yes, I will raise them later on. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I will take that as a comment. Maybe, Minister Miltenberger, do you have a comment?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will wait and respond to the Member’s questions as best we can when she raises them when we get to detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Bisaro, are you done?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Even though I have 45 seconds, I’m done. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we’re on general comments on Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures) No. 2, 2014-2015. General comments.

Committee has agreed to go to detail?

Committee, we are on Tabled Document 155-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2014-2015. We will go to page 3. Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures) No. 2, 2014-2015, Department of Executive, operations expenditures, directorate, previously not authorized, negative $4.206 million.

Total department, not previously authorized, negative $4.206 million. Agreed?

Committee, Department of Human Resources, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $23,000.

Total department, previously not authorized, $23,000. Agreed?

Department of Finance, operations expenditures, deputy minister’s office, not previously authorized, $20.037 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I enjoy the consistency across the years.

So, $20 million, $20.037 million, we have had some discussion on this, I think, but I just want to note that this sort of expenditure and this specific one is totally consistent with the impacts of climate change. It’s a consequence of the extreme weather events that are happening globally with increasing frequency and severity. The NWT doesn’t have any special dispensation, so these sorts of things we can expect again with increasing frequency and severity and we need to be able to plan for them.

Scientists have warned about this for decades and Canada and our Prime Minister are now globally recognized for their costly and deadly failure to react responsibly. This $20 million cost that is coming out of our peoples’ pockets today is just the most recent example of the direct cost to the people of the NWT and to the environment of climate change. If we want to go even more recently, we can go to the people of Tuk and talk about the failure of the barges to make it down the Mackenzie River with the freight and what that’s going to cost to complete that transportation project.

Although the Minister says that this was done to protect ratepayers, in fact, costs come out of our citizens’ pockets. This $20 million comes out of our citizens’ pockets one way or another, one pocket or another, either as ratepayers or as taxpayers and it affects services that we are able to provide and our long-term financial health.

This expenditure does nothing, absolutely nothing - $20 million more than – absolutely nothing to address the problem, the underlying issue of the high cost of power, but $20 million spent in a different way very well could have. That, I think, is the issue we’re talking about.

I disagree, and Cabinet can go and make this decision and send us an e-mail to let us know that they made this decision. That is not satisfactory.

Such unilateral decision-making is not only arrogant and an example of short-term thinking, it misses the opportunity supposedly assured by consensus government for all of us in this House to put our minds together to work out the best possible solution to an issue and come up with the most effective use of the relatively scarce dollars that we are dealing with. That’s what this is about.

Mr. Bouchard, Ms. Bisaro apologized for referring to some of the infrastructure stuff. Do not. I would suggest do not do that, because it’s related. It’s coming out of the same piggybank, as we will hear later.

These climate change impact costs are mounting. When combined with other, perhaps, fuel-based decisions involving $60 million, in addition to this $20 million, in addition to another $50 million that we will be talking about later today, even my math tells me that’s way over $100 million. We are struggling to maintain a cushion in our debt limit of $100 million. This is hugely significant to the programs we are able to put into place for our people and the future services we provide and the financial health and options that we will be leaving behind for the 18th Assembly.

I’m not interested in any remarks from the Minister on this, but I’m going to leave him time, if he wishes, and this is a foregone conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Thank you for those comments. Mr. Miltenberger, would you like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the Member’s assessment and we have been talking about this for quite some time now, about the impacts of climate change and global warming and extreme weather events. We have been dealing with the costs to us, as a government, now for quite some time. I think back to things like having to replace all the wooden piles as the temperatures warmed and they thawed out and turned to, basically, mush. Either change the piles or replace the buildings, not to mention all the other impacts. So, I agree and we are going to be working collectively here to deal with that.

In regards to the concerns about the process, I think we’ve covered that issue quite thoroughly with the first three Members’ concerns, so I won’t chew peoples’ cabbage for the fourth time. I will just leave those comments stand. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on my list I have Mr. Dolynny, followed by Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am listening to the Minister’s replies not only to my opening general comments, I also heard the Minister reply to many other colleagues here today. I want to hone in on certain key terminology that

was used by the Minister. The Minister is very good at sticking to a set of scripts, and he’s very attuned to his nomenclature wording. But he uses the term “there was a pressing value before Cabinet,” and he uses the terminology of “things were moving very fast,” and I’m going to come to those two terms again in just a minute here. But ideally, what we have before committee here, again, is not because we don’t believe the $20 million help offset and support ratepayers. It’s the fact that there was a process, and it’s this process to which we are talking about that has failed, and it failed miserably. We did not address the element of surprise to which Members here are not accustomed to, and it clearly violates the canons and the guidelines of consensus government, and I will ask, is “moving fast now” the new conventional wisdom of Cabinet. Because things are “moving fast,” we need to agree on spending decisions that we don’t have a choice or an opportunity to comment on.

I want to zero in on this pressing value, as indicated here by the Minister, and things are moving fast. When did the Cabinet get notification from NTPC or the Public Utilities Board as to this amount of money that was going to be hitting the ledger or that was going to be passed on to the ratepayers? When did the Cabinet, when were they aware that there was going to be a problem?