Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll try to take that on a positive note and not parts of it and say, well, it’s a bad budget but it’s not that bad, as opposed to it’s not bad in the colloquial vernacular meaning eh, it’s pretty good.
In regards to the hydro – in fact we indicated this before Christmas – we have work underway both for a technical review as well as a business case review of the power system plan, if the route is technically feasible, getting some solid cost estimates and then working on the business case once we have some of those numbers in.
Further work will be done on that process but, once again, just to reinforce the fact that it’s all a moot point if we are unable to successfully conclude our discussions for a $1 billion increase to our borrowing limit.
I appreciate the Member’s comment that we’re prudent in our planning for devolution, and the $9 million which at one point was more than that, but has already been eaten into as a contingency fund as things have come up that hadn’t been anticipated to help offset that.
There have been a number of references – the Member has a fondness for the term when she’s talking about Cabinet – any money that’s not allocated is a slush fund. That is not the case. It’s there, most times coffered and identified for specific use. If it isn’t, then we have to come back and report on it.
I appreciate the idea of the support for the initiative to increase the population and look at these key areas. Yes, there is lots of detail to come. We’re building support for the idea. There’s support there from industry and the chambers as well as some of the Aboriginal governments that we’ve talked about it with. We look to fully engage, as well, with committee. As Mrs. Groenewegen said, she had
many ideas of her own that she thought would be beneficial.
The issue of the reallocation for kindergarten, you referenced lack of consultation, and the Minister has indicated that they worked closely with the board superintendents along the way to minimize the impact and try to carry out this initiative. I’m sure there will be more detailed discussion when Education’s budget comes before this House.
We struggle for efficiency as a government. Yes, we do have cost overruns and government continues to grow in size – we have well over 5,000 employees – but there is also considerable demand and pressure to grow. The governments that I have been involved in, in the nearly 40 years now that I’ve been in the workforce, it is much easier to grow government than it is to shrink government, unless it’s a traumatic experience like 1995, where you wake up one day and you’re $150 million short and then we have to be draconian. It’s an experience and there are only two of us remaining in this House who lived through that as MLAs, so we’ve tried to hit the middle ground.
The discussion over kindergarten in terms of the allocation and the lack of consultations sort of typifies the process we go through when, in theory and abstract, we want to look and be efficient at the internal reallocation, but it’s a process that has its own very in-depth scrutiny once it’s done. Then you hear from a different constituency, usually the providers or the folks that are involved – in this case Education – and there’s money moved around. So it’s a challenge that we continue to try to address.
With regard to the process, maybe our second-last August together it might behoove us to gather around the table in Hay River and have that discussion. Thank you.