Can the Minister indicate why?

Let’s actually speak about all the numbers, shall we, because we’re kind of dancing and skirting around the issue. As I said, ATCON has a holdback of $696,707, plus this government has a holdback with Ruskin and ATCON for over $958,000. Clearly, we’ve got two pots of money here that could be used to pay the bills that are outstanding to the project. Will the Minister commit to paying this bill?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to chime in here with my colleague Mr. Menicoche. What we’re hearing here today is absolutely hogwash. We’ve got a northern contractor here, the only northern contractor left that has yet to be paid for the work and services they did on the bridge, and we’ve got a referee program that we’ve clearly documented and the government has said we agree with the terms, we just don’t have the money left.

What kind of message are we telling our contractors out there? Please do the work for the government and we’ll pay you when we think or when we feel?

The Minister talks about ATCON and monies left over. Let’s talk about the facts. I’ve got correspondence from June 26thsent to my office from the department that clearly says that the terms of the agreement with the Government of New Brunswick, who secured the ATCON letter of credit, that these funds were to be used for deficiencies in the project caused by ATCON. From the Minister’s own words to my office, we have an amount of $690,707. Why isn’t the Minister using those funds and putting a little pressure on New Brunswick to pay our bills?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today marks the final leg of my journey to a tabled document brought before the House on September 29, 2015, called Measuring GNWT Fiscal Performance and Accountability.

Public reporting, by all accounts, is the last measure of fiscal performance, because if you can’t show your work or report your work properly, then really who cares? So, reporting should be timely, clear and comprehensible to the average person. Although there has been some general improvement over the years, in 2015 the C.D. Howe Institute sums it up best in saying, “On the quality of reporting scale, the Northwest Territories earns a grade of D plus. Although the PSAB-consistent public accounts save the Northwest Territories from getting outright failing grades, 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.”

To that end, I cannot argue with C.D. Howe Institute, and I also give the McLeod government an equal D plus grade when it comes to public reporting.

There you have it, Mr. Speaker. A complete six-day review of the McLeod government as it pertains to measurables of their fiscal performance and accountability. So, to recap the McLeod government report card: operational and capital growth spending, B minus; on taxation management, A; on population growth management, C; on debt and borrowing capacity, C; on workforce growth management, B minus; finally, on public reporting, D plus.

Again, I want to thank all resource staff for their report and fact-checking all my numbers. Bringing this much needed public information in an easier to understand document was a goal for me in my first year of office and I was glad I was able to fulfil that task.

It is my hope this formal evaluation format will be used by future Assemblies as a means to measure our fiscal performance and accountability for the people we serve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I liked the Minister's reply. I know they're doing lots of work behind the scenes and I applaud their actions and I encourage them to continue.

We know that this appropriation before us, this ask is a part of that two-part process. The overall number I believe is $2.9 million that will be projected in its fullness that we're dealing with a much smaller amount here, the $22 million, over $22 million. I guess, by what mechanism are we, as Members of this side of the House, able to follow and somehow account for where that money will be spent on exactly, and if that money is not needed, how do we know that money will not be returned? What are the mechanisms for how this money will be accrued, especially as I said, this is a two-part process, there's going to be more money in the next fiscal year. Again, I'm more inclined to find out how are we able to follow proof of performance in this money being spent on diesel costs? Thank you.

So, again, things are coming down to some more clarity. That's an August 31^st deadline that Members were made aware. Prior to that I can assure Members here and those listening in, Regular Members of the committee here weren't fully aware of the severity and the gravity happening behind the scenes. Of course, we all understood there were low water issues. I mean, we're quite observant in that regard, but Members were somewhat handicapped, as I said, in terms of having this type of information. Now that we have this information and now that we're discussing this here today, I guess my question is, as a Member of this committee, how did we deal with low water issues for the last year since the last time we put a $20 million subsidy back in the hands of NTPC? In the last 12 months, what has NTPC done in order to control its demand management of diesel and what were those savings and how was that quantified? Thank you.

Everything that we do here is to provide facts for the public to understand the money that we're spending on their behalf, and as the Minister indicated, there was correspondence given to Members. I don't believe that information, in terms of public utility letters, is in the public domain. But I know that Members on this side of the House received some correspondence just in the last week or so, which puts Members in a bit of a handicap situation because we weren't made aware of the correspondence to and fro between the Public Utilities Board and the department. Can the department confirm if this is indeed true? Is there any proof that the department shared high-level information with any of the committees here, both EDI, Economic Development, or Priorities and Planning with respect to pertinent information leading up to the appropriation and the announcement in the early part of September? Was there anything given to committee members to believe that there was something imminent in the works? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It gives me great pleasure to finally get to this part of the budget, which has been talked about here in the media for a number of weeks at the end of August and early part of September when residents were notified that the government took a lead action in trying to mitigate the low water expenditures or low water issue at Snare and Bluefish and took it upon themselves to give a bit of a bird's eye view of what was about to come here today. This has been big in the making and I'm glad we are finally having an ability to talk about this appropriation in its full consideration.

First and foremost, just to give a bit of a background, I'll allow the Minister to maybe give us information indicating... The Public Utilities Board had a hand in offering, from what we heard in conversations on the floor of the House here, extensions.

Can you give an idea of what exactly was going on between the department and the Public Utilities Board in terms of these so-called extensions during this last drought season and what did that mean in relationship to the appropriation we have here before us today? Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister's offering. I will take it with much enthusiasm. Unfortunately, it may not help us a lot today. It's important, as we said, on a go-forward basis that Members on this side of the House, if we're dealing with any type of appropriation, it doesn't matter the dollar figure and especially when it does matter with specific large numbers, such as we have before us, that Members are well informed to the point that we can make good decisions for the people that we serve. I take this information with respect and I look forward to the expedient performance of the department in following through with what they're offering. Thank you, Madam Chair.