Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I can, I am going to take a moment to go back to the Heritage Fund, just because I think that we need a little bit more clarity on what steps the government has taken. I think that I am seeing it differently than my previous colleague from Frame Lake has. I recognize, also, that I am a member of the Board of Management, and we have a fiduciary responsibility every year to manage the pension plan of past, current, and future members. If I am understanding this correctly, I think that this is the intention of what we are doing here in terms of going out to the third party. I would like to ask the Minister of the department: is this, in fact, an RFP that has gone out to actually seek investment fund managers? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Debates of March 6th, 2019
This is page numbers 5203 - 5254 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going. View the webstream of the day's session.
Topics
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Really, what we are doing is we are trying to seek out some expertise that we clearly don't have in-house. Right now, again, you can correct me in a moment if I am wrong, but our money is just simply sitting in a fund, not allocated to any kind of investment portfolio and not generating any kind of interest. It is my understanding that we are going to seek investment expertise to spread this fund around in some form of investment portfolio, with the intention of generating additional profits or revenues to the fund. Is that correct? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Kalgutkar
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is exactly right. Currently the fund is sitting in investments that are earning less than 1 percent a year, and the intent was that, when the fund got to a balance where it made sense to have a third-party advisor looking after the funds, we were always intending to do that. This was raised by MLAs several times in the past. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Will the fiduciary oversight still remain with the government? I know, for example, again, the Board of Management is the oversight for fiduciary responsibility on the pension, even though we have actuaries who manage the fund. Will this agreement with the third party make sure that all fiduciary responsibility and decision-making remains with the government? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Kalgutkar
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct. The overall operation of the fund will not change, other than the general mix of investments might change. There will be an annual report. There will be audited financial statements that will be signed and audited by the OAG. The whole responsibility that the Member is referring to will not change. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
Thank you, and I think that I just got the answer to my last question, which was going to be: will this be audited on an annual basis, and will we see annual reports that will get tabled in the House? Just for confirmation, maybe we will get the Minister to answer that question. Thank you.
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
Thank you. That is all I have on that particular item, but I have a few minutes left here. I would like to move over to line item Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link on page 151. Can we get clarification as to the significant increase from $7,643,000 in the 2017-2018 actuals to the now almost $14 million from the 2018-2019 and the 2019-2020? Where are these funds allocated to? What is this going toward? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Kalgutkar
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you look at the 2017-2018 actuals column, if you look at the block of numbers that say expenditure category, there is an amount that says $5.3 million for interest. As part of the 2017-2018 actuals, that $5.3 million is part of the $8.9 million that is under the deputy secretary of the financial management board, but in error. So, if you pull out that $5.3 million now allocated to the $7.6 million, you will get a comparison to the rest of the fiscal years. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
All right, and so the question, however, then becomes: where is this nearly $14 million being dispensed to? I mean, I can't see a description as to the allocation of the $14 million. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Kalgutkar
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The allocation is made up in several areas. The biggest tranche of money is paid to the Northern Lights Fibre Consortium for the debt-servicing payments and the annual maintenance that they do on the fibre line. That amounts to about $11 million per year. Then there are land access fees that we pay to the Gwich'in and to the Sahtu, which is about $2.6 million, and that makes up the balance of the majority of the $14 million. There is also some environmental monitoring that we have to do, but the big portion of the cost are those two areas. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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Cory Vanthuyne Yellowknife North
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe, without having to go look and if one of the Minister's colleagues has the answer at the top of their head, what form or how much generation of revenue do we, if at all, generate for our government off of the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line? Thank you, Mr. Chair.