Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not to the substance of the budget dialogue but to the process, I would like to say that I applaud the Minister for his efforts to consult with people in the communities. It is always a debate, to dialogue or not to dialogue, to consult or not to consult, because we don’t have any way of realistically predicting how many people, how many constituents, how many people in the communities will actually be interested in taking the time to come out and speak with the government. Perhaps there could be some tweaking or adjusting done in terms of the timing of the consultation if people feel that the input could be put to better use if we had it earlier on in the process. So, those are things that we could think of.

But the fact is that for the last three years the Minister of Finance has taken his staff and he has gone out to the people in the Northwest Territories. If they did not avail themselves of that opportunity to have input, that is their choice, but we as a government have, I believe, a duty to consult and we made those efforts and we made that investment. So it’s hard now, after the fact, to say that we shouldn’t have done it because of poor turnout. As Mr. Bouchard said, in Hay River there was something conflicting that night. I didn’t even make it to the budget dialogue that night as there

was something else going on in town, but I can’t remember what it was.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to also say that for myself as a part of this government, I am happy to have someone like Mr. Miltenberger in the position of Minister of Finance. That is not an easy job, I can tell you that I’ve been here as long as he has and I could not do that job. It is something that after the number of years that he’s been doing that job… I was saying to his brother at the airport the other day, that Michael – oh, I should say Mr. Miltenberger – almost makes the job look easy. But I know it is not easy and it is leading a team, and we as a government have credibility when we speak to our counterparts and our other Ministers across this country when that portfolio is handled by someone who has the ability to do it well. So I would like to thank him for his years as Finance Minister and say a job well done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, once again I want to talk about the problems families are facing with their power bills and how they relate to the cost of living. So, what better area to focus in on today than the subject of power companies having specifically tuned to their franchise purchase agreements with the communities in the North?

Families taking care of families matters to me most, and that’s something I think most of us know every day here, is we worry about our constituents and we don’t lose sight of that. So, keeping that in mind, I’ve been looking at the franchise agreement process, and what I’m noticing is franchise agreements can easily be described as, or even somewhat compared to, sole-source negotiated contracts. In fact, the similarities are so close I’m not sure anyone can really tell the difference between them. So if a person isn’t a contract expert or certainly an administrator, I don’t think they can tell the difference.

So now that we’re starting to put our finger on the problem in the right way, looking at it with the right eyes, whose interest is being served? Well, let me draw the House’s attention to a particularly great Member’s statement made some time ago here that puts the finger on the problem. It was a statement that drew the attention of the Cabinet’s increasing practice of awarding lucrative contracts without any competition. So, I quote the Member of the day: “I’m not suggesting that the people who have received these contracts are not competent. I’m not suggesting that they’re not offering a fair price. What I’m saying is that there’s no way to be sure of

either of these things if we do not use a competitive process like a tender or an RFP. This is particularly true when we are sole sourcing contracts to individuals with very close ties to government.” Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Member, MLA Ramsay, for that particular quote and passage provided on February 23, 2010.

What the issue really comes down to is we need to find ways to create a competitive environment that helps drive down the cost of power for Northerners so we can afford to live here, because the cupidity of these sole-source contracts are so aggressively sought after, people dare not let them go.

However, if we cannot create an environment of a robust competition, then we simply need to have the courage to break up the monopoly, because the Power Corp Minister said quite nicely the other day, this is an “essential” service. We must find a way to protect the public’s interest. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we should be fighting for. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. I’d like to welcome everybody in the public gallery. Thank you for taking an interest in our proceedings here today.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement today with questions to the Minister of Finance. This government definitely needs increased revenues if it’s to shift to a sustainable foundation and continue providing a sufficient level of services and programs to people it serves. We’ve heard of a plan to attract 2,000 new souls to the North. To date, we have seen neither the plan nor the souls.

The global economy is, understandably, stalled and our big investments in giant infrastructure provide little economic return. Five percent on $2 billion worth of diamonds exported from the NWT seems too little.

What real opportunities for increased revenue is the Minister of Finance pursuing? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One quick word about the diamond mines. We have a GDP of about $3.6 billion a year. Of that, half of that comes from the diamond mines. So when you look what they pay in royalties, but you have to combine that with all the money and

value added that comes into the territory, that if we didn’t have those diamond mines and the $1.6 billion or so that they contribute to our economy, we’d be having a considerably more difficult conversation in this House.

The approach that we are taking in an area that has some of the highest costs of living in the country is to look at trying to build the strategic infrastructure that’s going to help create the conditions and provide the tools for continued economic growth that will expand our tax base as a result. I point to things like the $80 million commitment to put in the Fibre Optic Link which, if it holds true as to what happened in Kiruna, Sweden, we’ll see over the years an added value to the community of Inuvik of hopefully over $100 million a year. If we get good at it, the value added in terms of jobs could be anywhere in the neighbourhood of 400 jobs, if Kiruna, Sweden, is any indication.

It’s that kind of investment that we see as where we want to put our attention and invest our money, as opposed to at this point looking at expanding the taxes on Northerners. Thank you.

I think the fibre optic line is a good project and probably our best and, unfortunately, our only example. The 400 jobs the Minister speaks of are obviously far beyond any estimates I’ve seen provided by Cabinet, but I do support that project.

Obviously, the GDP that the Minister mentions is a false measure. It has been well recognized as a false measure. We know that over half a billion dollars, the Minister tells me, in wages are being sent out of the Northwest Territories. That all goes to the GDP, right? So how real is that?

One possible enticement for people who might be considering a move to the NWT, though, and a reason for those already here to remain, would be lower income taxes on low and middle income brackets. There are many aspects of this that would have to be examined, but the Minister seems to write this off out of hand.

How has the Minister considered this possibility in a plan to attract new residents and their intended transfer payments? Mahsi.

We’re looking at our initiative, as noted by the Member, where we’ve committed to provide an actual formal strategy that links together all the pieces that we’re doing on our 2,000 folks into the territory in now four years. We see that as, once again, a way where we can bring people into the territory.

The issue of changing the tax rates, more taxes on the higher income, lowering it on the lower incomes, we haven’t. I’ve made a decision, we’ve made a decision that we want to focus on building the tax base. So we haven’t spent a lot of time looking at how much we would need to raise the

taxes on the high income, lower them on the lower and middle income. If it’s to be revenue neutral, that’s one thing. If it’s to put a whole bunch of new revenue in the pockets of the government so that we can spend it on other needs, then I would think that would be a fairly significant increase. We’ve tried over the years to raise our corporate taxes. We raised them up to 14 percent. I think that lasted about a year. We’ve quickly changed back to a more competitive rate as there was an absolute flood of equity and investment out of the Northwest Territories to file their taxes in other jurisdictions where the rates were more competitive. So it’s a very delicate balance. Thank you.

Obviously, the Minister has got a hope and a prayer for revenues, but I think we need a little more than that. You know, the hope that people are going to move here because we want them to move here is not going to get us what we’re looking for. We need some real action on revenue. Increasing taxes on bad behaviours, or sin taxes they’re called, are always popular and we’ve done a little bit of that. The increased revenue is useful and any decreased demand on costs of the bad behaviour is welcome.

The inclusion of fossil fuel use for energy generation and transportation could be considered in this light. When was the last time this House reviewed the Petroleum Products Act, and how will the Minister go after this potential opportunity? Mahsi.

To dismiss out of hand the initiatives to become more efficient in our hiring, to empower our people to go down south on hard-to-fill positions to be able to make on-the-spot job offers, to make us more competitive in terms of how we do that, to say that the Nominee Program that will hopefully increase the number of seats available with the expedited process, cut the times down to six months would help bring, hopefully, hundreds of people into the Northwest Territories, plus their families is not worth the effort, I think doesn’t do justice to the complexity and the going back to the issue of let’s just tax the small diminishing population that we do have in the hopes that somehow we can generate the amount of revenue that we need. What we need is an expanded population, expanded tax base that’s going to create more tax revenue, more people with jobs, families here using our services, driving up the quality of living in the Northwest Territories and giving us the capacity to do things we need to do.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I agree this is complex and there’s a complexity to this that can’t be addressed in this format, but this Minister is not coming forward with discussions on revenue generation. We’re not

having any of that. There’s no analysis being done. To do analysis requires an unbelievable effort on part of committee. Currently there is no tax levy on natural gas and propane in the NWT. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, had it gone ahead, would have been powered on natural gas without a penny of tax collected by this government, and this situation, this travesty remains true today. Not surprisingly, no other jurisdiction subsidizes such fossil fuel consumption and foregoes revenues in this completely inexplicable way.

Would the Minister at least consider closing the policy gap and protecting our people by establishing a revenue opportunity to help with costs incurred from that activity, even though he’s refused to do so to date? Mahsi.

Once again what I will commit to do is I’ll commit to put a paper together that I’ll share with committee that will lay out some of the challenges when it comes to raising some of the taxes, which we have looked at in terms of petroleum products and motive and non-motive fuels. It’s not like we dismiss it out of hand, but we have to look at the balance and the cost impact on the economy. I will share that with committee and we can have a discussion if committee wishes to ask us to appear before committee. If there is a consensus, we will look at including that in the transition document, but in this budget there’s no intention to raise taxes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the 2013 Alberta Achievement Tests, they talk about factors that give our smaller communities and larger centres test results. One of the biggest factors that brought our percentage down was the children’s attendance in schools.

I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, in order to raise the level of success for our young people, what is the department doing along with education boards in communities to ensure that children go to school, stay in school and bring their grades up? Right now, the biggest factor is children not attending school.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular area is a prime focus of my department to improve the overall education system in the Northwest Territories. The students learning and success will improve if attendance rates also improve. The Member is alluding to that. Ensuring students attend regularly is a shared responsibility between the school boards, ourselves as the Department of Education, families and the community at large.

We are doing what we can. Within Educational Renewable and Innovation, we want to focus on students’ well-being through safety and care as school practice and nutritious food in our schools and also enhancing the school/community relations through elders in schools, residential school resources, staff training and also providing personalized quality of education through focused inclusive learning supports, career orientation and distance learning programming. Those are just some of the key areas we’ve initiated within our department and we will continue to make those improvements in our educational programming. Mahsi.

I do wish the department all the success in their initiatives to raise the level of attendance of our children for them to go to school. Is the Minister looking at

some innovative ways that the school itself can do to get the children and parents saying it’s important that your child gets the proper amount of rest, so they can come to school fresh and be ready to hit the school work? Is his department working with the educational boards to do a one-time initiative as they did a long time ago and get the teachers to go and visit the families at their homes, sit down with the parents, talk with them at their homes rather than have the parents come to the school and meet with the teachers? Can we do a reversal on that?

We are discussing both of either the parents going into the school system or the teachers going into households to talk about attendance as well. Parents and guardians are encouraged to ensure their children attend school on a regular basis, Mr. Speaker. When an individual misses one day a week of school over the life of high school, it equals one year without school. That has a tremendous impact. So there should be attendance of 90 percent or more. That’s our target that we want to achieve. We are working very closely with the school boards to achieve that. We are developing various action plans geared towards how we can improve attendance in our school systems. Mahsi.

In today’s life, students bring with them lots of issues to school. Some of these issues they have they need support on. Is the school now looking at ways to help the children with their emotional and mental issues, so they can have support other than to hold onto them and not deal with them? That sometimes prevents a child from attending school. Is there support for them such as counselling services in our small schools for the kids?

The quickest answer would be yes. Again, we are working with school boards to establish those kinds of support mechanisms. Again, poor attendance is a symptom of underlying issues such as students being disengaged in learning, negative feelings within our schools towards students or families, a sense of not belonging and the safety factor is a huge issue. It’s a priority for school boards. Our prime focus on student well-being through safe and caring school practices, providing nutritious food in our school system. Those are fundamental and what we’ve heard from our elders and educators in the school system that we must provide to our education system in the Northwest Territories. Those are areas that we will push forward on. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Colleagues, before we go on today, we’ve been going through eight questions and eight answers today and it takes 15 minutes. Your preamble and your responses, if you could tighten it up a little bit for the House, thank you. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.