Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too want to make comments on the budget address. On page 11 of the budget, titled Looking Ahead, when we look at the first paragraph on page 11, it paints a bleak picture of what possibly could happen in the Northwest Territories. Our revenue growth is basically going to be flat to 2019-2020. This is what’s coming up for the new Legislative Assembly next year.

Our revenue coming in will not increase very much, but our expenditures, as Mr. Bouchard talked about, are increasing. We want more. Communities are asking for more. Our needs are being challenged by the less revenue that we have coming in.

The way I look at it, something has got to give. We can’t sustain this way of doing business and operating our territory. More and more is being asked of the Assembly, being asked of the MLAs. We’re a territory. That’s $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion, as stated, comes from the federal government. Our dependency on the federal government is great and we’re just raising $425 million from our own-source revenues.

I’m glad that there are no new taxes coming in, but when you look at it, certainly as the Minister said, we are being pushed to the edge of a cliff, but who is pushing us? We don’t want to operate on our toes going forward.

I think it’s going to take a whole new mindset and attitude going forward on how do we maintain what we have now, sustain that and look at everything. Nothing is safe anymore in the operation of this territorial government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my statement is on the need for increasing housing units within my riding in the Mackenzie Delta, especially in Aklavik and Fort McPherson which have a waiting list of up to three years.

As I mentioned in our last session, this government has done a great job over the last number of years replacing units, although we now need to shift our attention to adding units that are needed in our small communities, as I mentioned.

Our goal is to increase the population in our territory by 2,000 people over the next few years, yet our smaller communities have a shortage of housing. Within our budget that was addressed today, it is nice to see $1.6 million put into housing to increase 75 units, but that’s for Inuvik, Hay River

and Yellowknife. What about the small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Item 5, reports of standing and special committees. Item 6, returns to oral questions. Item 7, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Jackie Milne in the visitors gallery today. She is the promoter and achiever of many things in all things agricultural. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce, to you and through you, someone who does attend a lot of our proceedings here from the riding of Range Lake, Mr. David Wasylciw.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to also introduce constituent Jackie Milne, who also, as Jane indicated, is the face of agriculture in the South Slave and working on a lot of exciting projects down there. She’s a go-getter. If we could divide her up into a few more and multiply Jackie in a couple of industries, that’s for sure. She’s a go- getter; she’s enthusiastic.

I’d also like to recognize Tony Whitford, a good friend, as well as Darrell Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like my good colleagues here, I too wish to recognize one of our favourite territorial constituents, Mr. Anthony W.J. Whitford, and he certainly was one of the people I was thinking about as those who have survived the day-to-day struggle with cancer.

As well, I’d like to acknowledge Darrell Beaulieu, the CEO of Denendeh Development Corp. As well, he is our BDIC chair and we could be talking about his resume here all day.

Sitting next to him is Margaret Gorman, who probably is the lady that makes it all happen and I’d like to thank her for attending, too, today.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Mr. Beaulieu and Ms. Gorman. I’d also like to recognize Tony Whitford and thank Tony for some of the advice that he’s given me over the years.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to take a second to recognize Mr. Darrell Beaulieu. Darrell is also the chair of our Business Development and Investment Corporation and I know Margaret Gorman is with him from DDC. Welcome.

It often doesn’t get said, but I want to recognize Anthony W.J. “Tony” Whitford. He is my predecessor in the riding of Kam Lake, the last guy to serve as the MLA for Kam Lake. Welcome to the House.

As well, Jackie Milne. I know others have said she’s a real champion of agriculture here in the Northwest Territories and I want to welcome her to the House, as well as David Wasylciw as well.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Welcome everybody here in the gallery. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings here today.

Item 8, acknowledgements. Item 9, oral questions. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask a question to the Minister of Finance. On page 11 of the budget address in the fourth paragraph the Minister talks about the fiscal sustainability, meaning that growth in the total operations and maintenance budget, including compensation and benefits paid to employees, must not exceed our revenue growth.

I want to ask the Minister if he could explain to the House what ideas or what things can be considered to not exceed the benefits and compensation to our employees due to the lack of our growth in revenue.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, one of the biggest single costs in the government is in fact what we pay for our staff of over 5,000 employees, so having affordable compensation packages are going to be critical on a go-forward basis. As well, we have to clearly collectively look at the vacancy rates and then, by extension, as we’ve talked about but very rarely, move in a comprehensive way. Look if we have to make choices as part of programs and services and what’s critical and more of a priority to us, and if there needs to be some retrenching of our mandate, what would that be. Those are the areas that would be included. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister of Finance, given the situation in which we may be in on a going-forward basis, does that

mean everything is on the table with regards to the number of employees we have, compensation and benefits and programs and services that we’re going to deliver and sustain in our communities and that it might mean that we’re going to have to freeze or pause on our hiring with our employees in the Northwest Territories?

Yes, if we’re going to do this in an even-handed, comprehensive way, all things will be on the table. We need to look at all solutions and how creative we can be. Things that the Member has touched on would be some of those factors to be considered. We can leave no stone unturned as we look at fiscal sustainability and, at the same time, honouring our commitment to protect the programs and services.

We have to come to a hard decision about limits to growth, how big a civil service can we afford. Even though we’ve had restraint, every budget, including this one, has some positions in it. Every MLA, myself included, pushes hard to get government jobs in our communities and in our constituencies, which is all well and good through decentralization and those things. Every Member has asked, even though they know what our budget constraints are.

We need health centres, housing. You name the issue; we need those kinds of investments. So this is not a task for the faint of heart, but it is one that we’ll have to apply ourselves to. Thank you.

I think the Finance Minister has clearly laid it out on page 11 and he has had some discussions with us, and those are the choices that the Finance Minister has written about, the difficult choices that the Assembly will have to make.

I want to ask the Minister, given this reality, when will this exercise start to happen or we’ll start to see some beginning of what we have to start making decisions about?

Mr. Speaker, this process is started. We’ve been using passive restraint and fiscal prudence discipline. We’ve been working on that. Things have changed in southern jurisdictions that have affected our formula, the original escalator in terms of the money they spend, and other things that are dragging down our formula overall. Our own-source revenues are growing at about 3.7 percent. They’re projected to continue to grow. But when you look at some of the fiscal problems down south with the larger provinces, other provinces where they have severe challenges with their own budgets and debt and balancing their books as well as what the federal government is doing, it means we’ve been on this for a while.

So it starts now. I mentioned to the press this morning, we already have in Fort Smith the local housing folks on strike. We know we have collective agreements coming due, starting right away with

the Power Corporation, and very shortly after that as we move forward into the 18th Assembly just

about all the collective agreements are going to come due. We’re going to need to sit down and negotiate fair but affordable agreements that are going to reflect the need to keep our expenditures and our revenues in sync. We cannot have our expenditure growth exceed our revenue growth. That discussion is going to happen and that will lead to looking at how we manage the programs and services, things like vacancy rates, if we have to make choices, what are they? But there are very real things that are now underway and this budget, we’ve been setting the stage for that and this budget continues to lay out that plan.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.