Well, that's a dark note on which to end the evening, Mr. Chair. So we don't -- the supplementary reserve is a tool by which the budgeting process is meant to look at having some additional funding available for the emergent expenses. You know, more like the contracts that get signed off cycle and for which there may be a contribution component, you know, things that emerge, opportunities that come up where the department might need to, you know, expend funds beyond, you know, the deficit of the MTS for instance. It's really not meant as an emergency fund per se. So I'm conscious of the point being made that this is speaking to whether or not we have the fiscal capacity to plan for an emergency response, and I would agree that there needs to be fiscal capacity to deal with an emergency response. I can say back with COVID, we did increase the sup reserve significantly during COVID because of the extraordinary nature of that and the known -- the fact that it was known going into that second year that there would be those overages, but while it may well be that this coming summer season is biblical, it may well be that it's not quite such a tone and that it may be something lesser. So, again, the sup reserve is meant to be the tool. It's not meant to be something that departments can count on. It's not meant to encourage departments to come back. It's -- it really is supposed to reflect our fiscal capacity. And it hasn't increased since 2019-2020 when it went from 20 to 35 because our capacity hasn't increased, which, again, is not to say that we wouldn't necessarily need more fiscal capacity in the form of an operating surplus from which we could draw emergencies. So that -- we were projecting $178 million in an operating surplus back at the beginning of the 2023-2024 season. Obviously that gotten eaten up over the course of the summer, but that's where we found that cushion was within that kind of fiscal planning. Thank you.
Caroline Wawzonek on Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 27th, 2024. See this statement in context.
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 28th, 2024
Page 307
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