Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute which is widely considered by many to be Canada’s most influential think-tank. It is Canada’s trusted source of essential policy, intelligence, distinguished by research that is non-partisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review.

In April of this year C.D. Howe released a study, titled “By the Numbers: The Fiscal Accountability of Canada’s Senior Governments, 2015.” This study is based on the premise that a reasonably capable and interested non-expert should be able to read a government’s budget documents and year-end public accounts to assess whether the government is meeting its promises and commitments. Working from this premise, the study analyzed the budgets and public accounts of Canada’s federal government and provincial and territorial governments in order to assess the quality and clarity of their financial recording.

According to C.D. Howe, the GNWT’s quality of reporting tied with Quebec as the third poorest in the country, earning a D-plus grade. This study concluded that the GNWT public accounts were consistent with public sector accounting board standards and it did, “save the Northwest Territories from getting outright failing grades. yet its budgets would bewilder our idealized reader with multiple presentations of revenue and spending figures that no non-expert could possibly reconcile with the headline figures in their public accounts.”

As a member of the Standing Committee on Government Operations that undertakes this challenging exercise every year, I can personally attest to just how accurate these findings are. We hear repeatedly from this government, in almost every speech and every Minister’s statement, how committed the GNWT is to accountability and transparency. Yet if this commitment is not followed with meaningful actions to ensure the public and legislators have the information needed to independently assess the government’s performance, then this is merely lip service.

A D-plus grade on financial reporting from an esteemed Canadian research institute should be a wake-up call to the Minister of Finance that it is time to up his game and put serious effort into improving the quality of GNWT’s financial reporting.

Later today I will be looking for a commitment from Minister Miltenberger to do just that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.