Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a bit of a preface, I guess. This was my second opportunity to review the public accounts and each year it adds to the learning, it makes it a little bit easier. I still struggle with some of the accounting

language and some of the ins and outs. My colleague mentioned debt and net debt and that’s a difficult concept to get the head around, but I do want to thank the office of the Auditor General; their staff were extremely helpful to us. They’re still teaching us how to deal with the public accounts and we’re learning every time we do them.

I would like to make the first motion, Madam Chair. I move that the Minister of Finance provide the Standing Committee on Government Operations with the interim public accounts by August 31st of

each year, to assist in the committee review of the government’s business plans. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion, Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I’d like to just comment a bit on this and on the timing of the public accounts that this report references. The completed public accounts were tabled on the 23rd of October of 2013 and the deadline for tabling of the public accounts is the 31st of December of

2013. So this was only the second year, I think, in quite some time that the public accounts had been tabled in advance of their deadline. So we were really pleased that the government was able to do that. In addition, we were able to get an embargoed copy of the interim public accounts and that’s the government portion of the public accounts, it doesn’t include all the education authorities and the health authorities and so on, but we were able to get the interim public accounts as a committee on the 12th of September in 2013 and that was in

advance to the business plans that we were about to discuss. It certainly made things a lot easier for us, gave us information ahead of time, it was very close to the mains and, in future, if it’s at all possible to get them earlier that would be a preference of committee. Getting the public accounts, even though it’s only part of it, but getting it within a couple of days of when we’re going to discuss business plans makes it pretty difficult to go through that whole document.

I do want to say that the government, in the last couple of years, has done an excellent job of advancing the timing and the completion of the public accounts. This motion asks for them to be completed by August 31st of each year. This is a

repeat of a motion that we made last year as a committee, or a recommendation last year, and it’s not to suggest that the government is not doing a good job, they are, and we are gradually getting closer and closer to that August 31st deadline, but

as a committee we felt it important to put this

recommendation in to indicate that August 31st is

our preference. If we can ever get there, that’s certainly a better time than receiving it any time after August 31st . That’s the background to the

motion.

Thank you. To the motion.

Question is being called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to just speak to this motion as well. The public accounts include all of our arm’s-length entities. It includes our Crown corporations. It includes our health authorities. It includes our education authorities. There are many, many authorities which complete the consolidated public accounts. We have all the government departments and then we have all the other authorities. Some of those authorities have a fiscal year end which is June 30th , and that makes it rather difficult for the

government to get the consolidated public accounts done by August 31st , which was what I was

referencing earlier; however, they’ve done a very good job of doing that.

In each of the two years that we’ve gone through the public accounts, there have been entities which have not met their statutory deadline for reporting or for having their audit done, so we wanted to make sure that that was noted. In this past year there was one entity, and it was the NWT Housing Corporation, who did not meet their deadline for the completion of their audit. That certainly was an improvement over the previous year when we had rather more than that. I can’t remember exactly how many. But we feel, as a committee, that any entity that does not meet their deadline for their audit should be reflected in the public account so that if somebody in the public wishes to go to the public accounts and see how various entities are doing they can see that, oh, yeah, last year the Housing

Corporation didn’t meet their deadline for their audit. Sorry, Minister, but there it is.

---Interjection

They were building houses. Sure. You still have to account for the houses. That’s the background on this motion.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Ms. Bisaro summed it up quite well. Again, there is a fiduciary obligation on behalf of all of our stakeholders to report their financial statements to public accounts and to this government, and as Ms. Bisaro mentioned, the Housing Corporation… Actually, there were four that did not meet the criteria, and I wanted to make sure that that was clear. We had Aurora College that required an extension. We also had NWT Business Development Investment Corporation that also needed an extension date, and we had Northwest Territories Hydro Corporation who also required an extension date.

The purpose of this motion is clearly to put on notice all associated public agencies that they have an obligation and that they have to make sure that they get their affairs in order to make the public accounts deadline. That being said, I can tell you that should these public agencies fail to meet this obligation criteria, I can only assume that in future public account audits the committee might request these agencies appear before committee or their designate to explain why. We’re basically giving all these agencies a heads-up. This is a requirement that will be from the Government Ops committee to make sure that, again, affairs are in order, these are solid dates, they are given fair warning, and these are the rules of the game, and we’re hoping that all public agencies will adhere to them.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.

Question is being called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Yakeleya.

Madam Chair, I have a motion. I move that the Department of Finance continue to work with the Auditor General of Canada and GNWT departments, boards and agencies toward the completion of both the interim and the final

public accounts at the earliest possible date each year.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question is being called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have another motion. I move that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation submit its annual report within 90 days of the fiscal year end; and further, if this does not prove to be possible, the Housing Corporation should seek appropriate approval for an extension to their deadline and provide the House with reasons for the delay.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order.

Question is being called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Dolynny.