Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments on the overall applauding of the work of the government and his continued support, which has been there right from the start, in terms of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link. We are of a like mind that if our very conservative estimates prove to be wrong and that we’re going to generate more revenue and it’s going to be much more fruitful than what we anticipated, then what we would fully intend to stay on the track that the Member has recommended and that we get on, which is pay it down sooner so that it is paid for sooner.

The FAA is work that we are very committed to as well.

The maximizing tax revenues through tobacco and fuel the Member has raised over the years. Good points, and we still have, while there has been some improvement, as he has noted, there is still work to do. One of the reasons that we’re redoing the Petroleum Product Tax Act is to give us better tools and legislative framework to monitor the petroleum product side of the operation, which is a big number.

Third-party medical recoveries are an issue that the Minister of Health will be in a position to discuss in more detail.

While we have done work on a Revenue Stabilization Fund, the big challenge, very basic challenge, is where do we get the money to put into such a fund at this juncture?

In regard to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, they tend to pick one or two

things that we get graded on. One of the ones that sticks in my mind is that if we didn’t have a legislation that spoke to red tape, then you immediately got a low grade, and I would say I would easily hold up the improvements we’ve made here in the Northwest Territories both with devolution and the cutting off of 5,000 kilometres of red tape, the timeliness of how we are doing our business, the investments we’ve made to make our online services available to cut down the time it takes people to do business, the work we’re doing on raising the population, the taking advantage of the Nominee Program to make sure that we have staff for those hard-to-fill jobs, the placing of government service officers in the communities to perform a one-window service function. All those are totally disregarded by the CFIB.

The Member may consider this a very significant issue. I mean, we look at it, but I’m very, very comfortable and pleased with the amount of work we’ve done and we continue to do in terms of making our government more accessible, more efficient, more tied into the 21st century, and we can

demonstrate it all over, there is no recognition. For example, the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link is going to put fibre optic connections into all the communities. It’s going to incredibly improve our efficiencies. It’s going to allow everybody that has that tie-in to be able to do all the online work that now is only available in the larger centres. For example, the business opportunities, the time it’s going to eradicate from tying up businesses trying to do business right now that don’t have those kinds of connections. That issue, their grade, it’s there, but I must confess, it’s not what I go to sleep worrying about and it’s not what I wake up wondering what we’re going to do about because I know we have an amazingly progressive and ambitious plan with this budget.

As I speak about this budget, if I could use the Member’s analogy about the iceberg, well, this iceberg is sitting on the table here. Tip, base, everything in between is here. It lays out all the work we’re doing as a government. There’s nothing that’s hidden. There’s nothing that’s not visible. We’ve taken it out of the murky water of day-to-day business and we’re here, as we are every year, to get approval of it. Debt is part of the business that we’re in and we manage our debt, we make strategic investments, and how much more debt can we afford?

We’ve laid it out. It’s very clear in our fiscal sustainability policy that we can’t go more than 5 percent of revenues go towards paying interest. We’re capped at 5 percent. That figure is now 1 percent. So, do we have capacity? Yes, we do.

When you look at our numbers, $2 billion, almost, of a budget, half of our current debt of about $700 million is self-financing through rates, through tolls.

So the actual money we borrow as a government for a $2 billion corporation, the actual borrowing room we have is $400 million.

So we don’t have a lot of debt, and our job as legislators is not only to mind the money on a daily basis but to have a vision for the future about how we build a territory, especially post-devolution. We’ve been on a track to build the economic conditions that are going to promote economic development. We need to invest in economic infrastructure to do that. We are in the risk management business. That’s what we do, all of us.

I would suggest, for example, if we put the Deh Cho Bridge out for tender or RFP today, it would come in way over $200 million. Even the Fibre Optic Link, when it flicks on and we go live, if you put that project back out for tender, you would never get it for the same price. I’ve learned that over the years, things we put off today because they are too expensive that we know we have to deal with down the road, always come back to cost us more. That means more money that we have to spend.

One of the good things coming forward, as I mentioned in my budget address under the new FAA, we are going to come forward with a debt plan every year to the House. Once that bill is approved, it’s going to put that whole piece of the budget on the table, short term and long term, all the borrowing we are considering for the year. So we are going to address that. We know it’s an issue and we think that’s going to be a step in a direction I know the Member has been an advocate for, which is transparency, accountability and visibility. So we’re going to look at that.

I would ask the deputy to speak to the issue of the collective bargaining and the balancing of the numbers that the Member mentioned, the discrepancies. Mr. Chair, with your indulgence, I would ask Mr. Aumond to respond.