Whitehorse Yukon

Monday, April 25, 1994 - 1:30 p.m.

Page Number 2249

Speaker:

I will now call the House to order. We will proceed at this time with silent Prayers.

Prayers

DAILY ROUTINE

Speaker:

We will proceed at this time with the Order Paper.

Introduction of Visitors.

Are there any Returns or Documents for tabling?

Are there any Reports of Committees?

Are there any Petitions?

Are there any Bills to be introduced?

Are there any Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers?

Are there any Notices of Motion?

NOTICES OF MOTION

Mr. Abel:

I give notice of the following motion:

THAT this House condemns the recent actions by the Government of Canada to cut funding for Yukon First Nations community health programs; and

THAT this House urges the Government of Canada to reconsider its position in relation to the Brighter Futures program and agree to enhance rather than cut this important program.

I also will give notice of another motion:

THAT the Yukon Legislative Assembly urge the Hon. Ron Irwin, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, to present the Yukon Indian land claims settlement legislation to the Parliament of Canada, and

THAT the Yukon Legislative Assembly urge all Members of Parliament to give expeditious passage to the Yukon Indian land claims legislation, which will protect the rights and interests of Yukon First Nations and allow the Yukon Territory to progress toward the 21st century, and

THAT a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Hon. Ron Irwin and the Right Hon. Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada.

Mr. Millar:

I give notice of the following motion:

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Government of the Yukon should not attempt to gain access to the Yukon workers' compensation health and safety fund for the purposes of financing the day-to-day operations of government.

Speaker:

Are there any Statements by Ministers?

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Canada/Yukon Infrastructure Agreement

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I rise today to announce the signing of the Canada/Yukon infrastructure agreement.

Under the agreement, Canada will provide $2.189 million dollars over the next two years to help fund infrastructure projects across the territory. In municipalities, costs will be shared equally between the federal, Yukon and municipal governments, and in unincorporated communities, costs will be shared on a 50/50 basis between the federal government and the Yukon government.

Yukon government officials are presently working with representatives from the Association of Yukon Communities to establish guidelines and a process for project approvals. It is our intention to have projects begin across the Yukon this summer.

Mr. McDonald:

I notice that in the ministerial statement there did not seem to be any indication as to whether or not the government approved of this agreement, other than the fact that they signed it. Normally, they applaud the government or are pleased to announce something.

In this particular statement, not only is it short, but it also does not seem to reflect a feeling of acceptance by the government. I am not sure if that is merely a function of the fact that this was an announcement that had been made by a Liberal government or because it only amounted to a half of the previous infrastructure agreement, announced last year, which provided for $10 million over five years.

I think somebody should say that he applauds the agreement, before the Liberal stands up and takes credit for this meagre funding. I would point out this is probably a little more than $1 million per year, which I think amounts to a little less than one percent of the capital budget, so I am certain it is going to have an enormous impact in our communities.

It is a little bit short of what some of us had expected might be the contribution toward the Whitehorse water and sewer project. There was a feeling that perhaps there might be some contribution in the neighbourhood of 33 percent toward a project that was obviously worthy, by anybody's standards. There was also a feeling that perhaps under the Conservative government's green plan, or perhaps under this program, we might actually see a fairly sizable commitment to that high profile project. I suspect this funding will not make any difference to that project, if any of it at all is applied. We should be thankful for what little we do get, and applaud the federal government for that.

Perhaps the Minister can clarify this in his reply, but one can guess that the projects the money will be directed toward are projects already in the works - projects that have been in the municipal or the Yukon government's capital plans. Perhaps he can clarify for us that particular point.

We, in this caucus, are somewhat concerned that the amount of money we had been given to believe, through all the posturing around this program, would have a sizable impact on the infrastructure development in this territory. I think it has fallen somewhat short of that, but we do feel that the funding we have received is welcome, and we would thank the federal government for whatever it has given.

Mr. Cable:

I would like to applaud all three levels of government for having moved the infrastructure program forward.

It would be interesting to receive a reply from the Government Leader concerning whether, in his preliminary talks with the communities, he found out whether or not they are committed to raising and spending their $2 million share of what I think is a $6 million infrastructure budget. It would also be interesting to hear from the Government Leader whether he is still insulted by the per capita amount that we receive from the federal government. I think it was roughly what we would expect on a per capita basis, so perhaps he could explain why, back in December, he was insulted.

I think that within that framework it would be helpful to determine, in view of his remarks about helping with the national debt and the fact that this winter works program we just experienced was only about $7 million, if, after looking at it more calmly, he considers this infrastructure budget a fair initiative by the federal government.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

It is not hard to see the different philosophical views in this Legislature in response to the ministerial statement. I will first reply to comments made by the Member for McIntyre-Takhini, who stated that it was a very low-key ministerial statement.

Page Number 2250

The Member asked if I am satisfied by this and I can unequivocally state that I am not satisfied. I do not believe that the north was treated equitably in this situation.

Last fall, the western premiers supported us and agreed that there should be a different formula for the north, because we do not have the same standards of infrastructure that the south has. This should have been taken into consideration in the program. Nevertheless, as the Member for McIntyre-Takhini said, we are grateful for whatever we can get.

I do want to point out that, without a big flare and media hype, we were able, under a very meager $500 million infrastructure program of the previous Ottawa administration, to get $10 million from the federal government over a four-year period - more than double the money we are receiving under this program.

As to where the money will go, one thing that I will make very clear is that the federal government has been quite adamant that this money cannot go to projects that are already under way. Projects such as the Whitehorse sewage project and the Dawson City project are not eligible to receive this money; it must go toward new initiatives, and that is where we will be directing the money.

It does fall somewhat short of what we hoped for and, in relation to the comments from the Leader of the Liberal Party, to try to compare this to our $7 million infrastructure program is like comparing apples and oranges, because this is not $6 million from the federal government - it is just a little over $2 million from the federal government. The $7 million for our infrastructure or our job creation program last winter was all from our own money - none of it was federal money. So, while this program does fall somewhat short of what we expected, we are grateful for it. It will create some jobs in the communities. There will be a committee put together to approve these projects. There will be two representatives from DIAND here, two representatives from among ourselves, and an ex officio member from the AYC. Along with these, I may add that I believe there is an additional $200,000 going to First Nation communities in the Yukon over the next two years, which will be cost shared between the First Nations and the federal government.

Having said that, I was hoping for more, but I am grateful for whatever we can get to put Yukoners to work.

Speaker:

This, then, brings us to the Question Period.

QUESTION PERIOD

Question re: Wolf control program

Mr. Harding:

I have a question for the Minister of Renewable Resources regarding wolf kill expenditures.

The wolf kill has been listed at a cost of some $800,000 by YTG over the last two years, yet I believe the actual kill costs are very understated as the government attempts to hide some runaway costs.

Are the costs for the dozen or so people who ran the kill all listed in the expenditures, and what were the personnel cost totals?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

We really have a disagreement, a problem, here. We keep fooling around just worrying about the cost per wolf. We should start worrying about the caribou and the moose and the sheep and a few other things, and the cost to try to save them. Let us get this into perspective.

As for that information, I would have to get back because I certainly do not have all that in my head right now.

Mr. Harding:

I must be confused. Just the other day, I listened to a 25-page speech about how much this government cares about costs, but when I stand up in the Legislature and point out that we have some runaway costs in the area of the wolf kill, I get a sanctimonious lecture from the Minister of Renewable Resources.

Can I ask this supposedly fiscally responsible Minister why he would not be able to tell me what these huge personnel costs are, added on to the $800,000 that has already been spent on this wolf kill?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

It is quite simple. I do not have a computer mind like the individual across the way. I am a simple-minded man.

Mr. Harding:

I will not touch that; it would be a personal insult.

I would like to ask the Minister this: why did the Minister refuse to table costs for such things as community participation and the cooperative wolf program, which were listed in last year's cost estimate? Is the Minister telling us that there were zero costs in all those areas this year?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

It was all broken out and given to the Member. He has it on paper. I will recheck to see if there is anything that was left out.

I must point out again that included in those charges are the complete radio-collaring of animals and studies in Wolf Lake, Big Salmon and Mayo. There are things that we would have had to do anyway. Those are now included in it. This continual process of going back over the wolf thing is simply a scare tactic. Let us start worrying about the caribou, moose and sheep.

Question re: Wolf control program

Mr. Harding:

I am worried about the caribou, moose and sheep. I am asking these questions because the wolf kill is starting to vacuum up all the resources, time and money of the department. That is why I am asking these questions.

Last year, we went $150,000 overbudget on the kill. On January 27 of this year, in this Legislature, the Minister told me that the wolf kill costs were going to be $289,000 for 1993-94. However, just the other day, he tabled a statement indicating that the costs were $194,000. Can the Minister tell me where the missing $100,000 is?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

I will get back to the Member.

Mr. Harding:

So much for fiscal responsibility.

The Minister has seen cuts to his department, the Department of Renewable Resources. Is the Minister not the least bit concerned that finances and time are being used up by the wolf kill, rather than for pro-active wildlife management?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

I must remind the Member again that it is the caribou enhancement program, not the wolf kill program. A lot of other things have been done up there. Yes, I am concerned, but if they go back in time, when this program first began, I made it very plain in this Legislature that if we are going to protect the game in the Yukon - the caribou, moose, sheep and others - the cost is tremendous. On top of that, what is the value of wildlife if it is not alive?

Mr. Harding:

This government has cut education, health services, social services, to name a few things. At the same time, we see runaway wolf kill costs - in the millions - all to kill a few dozen wolves. The Minister just said he is concerned about these runaway costs. What is he going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

As I have already said in the Legislature, we have tried a couple of different things, but they have not been successful. We will keep right on trying, and I might point out that ours is one of the only budgets that went down, and it went down by eight percent.

Question re: Standing committee appointments

Mr. Cable:

I have some questions for the Government Leader. Back in December of 1992, the government introduced a

Page Number 2251

motion to create a Standing Committee on Appointments. This was part of the Yukon Party's four-year plan. One of its goals was "to establish an all-party legislative committee to conduct in-camera reviews of appointments to major government advisory boards and committees." After a dust-up in the Legislature, the motion was adjourned, and I refer to the Minister of Justice's comments, because of the minority position. Now that the government has a majority, will it re-introduce the motion, either amended, or unamended?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

The Member raises a very valid point and we would like to see this motion proceed in the House, but I do not believe it is a motion that we should use our legislative majority on, by calling on the Speaker to vote with this motion. We have left the door open for Members of the Opposition to meet with us, and to try and come to some resolution on this. We proposed a motion where the nominations we put forward could be vetted by this Legislature and we are still prepared to move in that direction.

Mr. Cable:

That side, of course, is the government and the government could very usefully bring forth a motion that relates to its platform.

The Government Leader in speaking to the motion said, "We felt the appointments process was flawed and was open to patronage and favouritism." As the process does not seem to have changed, is the Government Leader's view of the present process as he indicated when he spoke to the motion?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

Certainly, that perception is there, whether it is real or perceived. We tried to correct that with the motion we put forward, and we got into great debate in the House, where Members of the Opposition wanted to take it right out of the hands of government to make appointments to boards and committees. We did not feel that was appropriate. We felt it was appropriate for this Legislature to vet those appointments, so they would not appear to be patronage appointments, and we are still prepared to move in that direction with the cooperation of the Members opposite.

Mr. Cable:

One of the major points made by the Opposition was that the government should not be the sole authority for bringing forth nominations. Is the Government Leader prepared to indicate to this House whether or not he is prepared to accede to the Opposition's wishes, and that the Opposition have a nominating role under the committee?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

All Yukoners have a nominating role right now. We have sent out advertisements asking for names of people who are prepared to become a board member. I believe that I have contacted the Leader of the Liberals for names on occasion.

There is a process in place where people's names can be submitted.

Question re: Game farming

Mr. Harding:

I should point out that it is unfortunate that many Yukoners do not get that invitation: the Yukon Party's Yukon Update.

I have a question about game farming for the Minister of Renewable Resources. In an April 12, 1994 letter to the Minister from the Council for Yukon Indians, I quote: "Quite frankly, we are amazed that you have the audacity to say that we have been consulted on this issue. The first question that should have been asked is, do we want game farming?"

Now that the CYI, the Dawson First Nation, the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board and the Yukon Fish and Game Association have all expressed some concerns about this particular issue, why has the Minister not asked Yukoners if they want game farming at all?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

In the year 1989, the Opposition, while they were in government, started this issue. The previous government brought in the first regulations and instituted a moratorium on game farms until they completed the remaining regulations. I carried on where the previous government left off. The previous government also brought in buffalo and turned them out into the wild in buffalo ranching. That is something this government would not do.

Mr. Harding:

The Members opposite are the government now and they are going to have to learn that they are going to have to take some responsibility. They are the ones who are making the decisions now and they are also the people who lifted the moratorium that the previous government imposed.

The Council for Yukon Indians and the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board have called for an extension of the moratorium until a complete territorial and federal environmental assessment is completed on the issue. Does the Minister realize that he is compromising the spirit and the intent of the land claims agreement in the area of wildlife resource management by ignoring these concerns?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

We consulted with all those people. It is something like the forestry - we consult and, if we do not say yes, everybody disagrees with us. Twenty-six written questionnaires came in on that and only six were against game farming. The other 20 were for game farming.

Mr. Harding:

It is obvious, by his answer, that the Minister holds precious little interest in the views of the Council for Yukon Indians, the Fish and Wildlife Management Board, and the Yukon Fish and Game Association.

Last week, I asked him if he would at least be interested in referring this issue to the Yukon Council on the Economy and the Environment for review, and he said no. Why did he say that?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

It is not up to me to refer anything to them. It is up to them to ask me if they want it brought there.

Question re: Environment Act

Mr. Harding:

That brings me to the Environment Act. I suggest the Minister take some time to read it, because it would tell him exactly what the powers and duties are of the council.

Last week, when I was questioning the Minister on the Environment Act, in response to a question about changes in the act, he said, "The department is looking at a few things that bother them, and we are now talking with the Justice department."

Could I ask the Minister what bothers them and when will the public be consulted on this mysterious issue?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

What is being worked on internally in the department is their affair and when they come in with the briefings we will let the Member know.

Mr. Harding:

I am very concerned about this closed government that seems to march to the drum of one special interest group.

I do not see why the Minister cannot stand up and tell us what specific problems he has, or is the government running everything for everybody in the whole Yukon now?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

I am not too sure that I said I had any specific problems. There are some problems with the legislation, which the departments are looking at and when they get that settled, we will know.

Mr. Harding:

It is amazing that, in this government, the department gives the direction to the Minister regarding changes to legislation.

Why is it that, whether it is game farming policy, wolf kill details, campground privatization or changes to the Environment Act, the Minister thinks he can arrogantly avoid the input of the public on decisions like this?

Hon. Mr. Brewster:

It is not true at all. I have consulted with the public in a lot of cases. Mr. Speaker, would you like me to read

Page Number 2252

some of them out?

Question re: Energy Corporation, CYI participation in

Mr. Penikett:

I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Yukon Electrical about the small contract that he indicated to the House last week had been signed with Mr. Terry Boylan of Vancouver, and which he promised to table in the House. Could I ask the Minister if there has been more than one contract between the government and Mr. Boylan, and, if so, will the Minister table the terms of all such contracts?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

It is my understanding that there is one contract. It may have been extended. I am not sure if it has or not yet.

Mr. Penikett:

To state the obvious, if you take a small contract and keep extending it, eventually it will become a big contract.

Can I ask the Minister if he can confirm that Mr. Boylan was still functioning as an agent of the government with respect of the possible sale of assets of the Yukon Energy Corporation as late as April 13, just 12 days ago?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

That is an interesting question. I can tell him that the person in question was doing work for the government under that contract during that week and having exploratory talks with CYI to ascertain their position.

Mr. Penikett:

We all know that the president of the Energy Corporation and the Development Corporation is a lawyer, and, indeed, a QC, and that there are many lawyers around who have no conflicts by way of contracts with the utility - private or public.

Since the Minister has apparently agreed to meet with the Association of Yukon Communities on May 6 to discuss the future of the Yukon Energy Corporation as a public utility, can he tell us if he intends to engage the services of his former law partner in any future discussions with either CYI, AYC or Yukon Electrical or any of its parent companies?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I believe that the contract will be tabled in the Legislature tomorrow; I signed it this morning.

To answer the Member's question, the person was hired to explore the possibility of restructuring the Yukon Energy Corporation, in conjunction with the CYI. When that phase is finished, which it will be very shortly, the Minister will bring something to Cabinet to see whether we will proceed from there.

Question re: Energy Corporation, CYI participation in

Mr. Penikett:

Last week, the Government Leader insisted that the Minister and his Vancouver agent had no mandate to negotiate the privatization of the Yukon Energy Corporation. Yet, the Government Leader has described the Minister's former partner's role as discussing a possible purchase by Yukon First Nations of 30 percent of the corporation.

If there is no mandate, could the Government Leader explain to us where the magic figure of 30 percent comes from?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

We have said time and time again in this House - and I have said it in public speeches - that we, as a party, campaigned to reduce energy costs in the Yukon. We said that we would explore new and innovative ways of doing it. That is exactly what we are doing.

We have also said that if these exploratory talks do not give us an indication that there will be a real return to the ratepayers of the Yukon, they will not proceed any further.

Mr. Penikett:

My fear, of course, is that the government is not pursuing something new and innovative, but just the very old and discredited.

I would like to ask the Minister if he could answer this question: in the event that the government fails to make a deal with either the First Nations, the municipalities, or both, can the Government Leader explain what guarantees exist that the government will not immediately turn around and offer 50 percent of Yukon Energy Corporation assets to Yukon Electrical or some other outside company?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I am not about to try to guess what is going to happen in the future here. The direction has been clearly given to the Minister to entertain exploratory talks about a restructuring of the Energy Corporation, in which the Yukon government, on behalf of the Yukon people, would retain 50 percent of the corporation. Those are the only instructions that have been given at this point.

Mr. Penikett:

Having heard that statement, which has only come recently, our concern is what happens to the other 50 percent.

I would remind the Government Leader that his ministerial colleague gave us an assurance a year ago that none of the assets would be privatized, so we are talking about a moving target.

Can the Government Leader give his assurance that no Yukon Energy Corporation assets will be sold to private interests based outside the Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

It is pretty interesting to listen to the Leader of the Official Opposition trying to create a boogeyman and scare the living daylights out of Yukoners. With regard to his statement -

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Speaker:

Order.

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

The Totem Oil loan went outside the territory.

The question was posed to me before any discussions were entertained about possible privatization. I was asked exactly what our position was at the time, more than a year ago. That was regarding privatization and, at that time, we were not interested at all in privatization, and I said so. At that time, we were interested in pursuing the government's position with regard to rationalization of the assets with a private corporation. That is something they did when they were in government. They are the ones who structured the management agreement with the private company from Alberta. They are the ones who put up all this money, so the private corporation from Alberta could manage the assets of Yukon Energy Corporation, not us.

It is rather interesting to witness the flip-flop of the learned leader over there where, on the one hand, it is fine for him to enter into discussions with Alberta Power ...

Speaker:

Order. Would the Member please conclude his answer.

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

... but for us to even discuss a burning issue at the forefront of the minds of most energy ministers across Canada, and to enter into discussions about privatization - something that is happening across the country, particularly in the socialist provinces, where they are broke - is something ...

Speaker:

Order.

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

... that is really unsettling.

Question re: Energy Corporation, CYI participation in

Mr. Penikett:

As Winnie the Pooh would say, "this gets interestinger and interestinger".

We have just had the Government Leader tell us that this commitment to privatization comes out of campaign commitments made a year and a half ago. Then we had the Minister responsible for energy say that privatization suddenly occurred to him after he had given the House his assurance that the assets would not be privatized. Once again, two completely incompatible, contradictory positions.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Page Number 2253

Mr. Penikett:

I know, that is the problem, they did not go to the same convention.

Let me ask the Government Leader again, because he has not answered this question yet, and that makes us deeply suspicious, if he will give the House his assurance that no assets of the Yukon Energy Corporation will be sold to private interests based outside the Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I want to correct the hon. Member when he says our four-year plan spoke of privatization of the Energy Corp. It did no such thing and he very well knows it. I just stood here, moments ago, and said that we were going to look for new and innovative ways to reduce the cost of power to Yukoners. We said nothing about privatization in the four-year plan.

Mr. Penikett:

We have heard this little rant from the Government Leader, but you may have noticed that he did not answer the question. Just a few minutes ago, he did say to us that the initiatives that he is taking now, which may lead to privatization, were inspired by the four-year plan. They were going to eliminate the Yukon Development Corporation - remember that? That meant privatization, by the way.

Could I ask the Government Leader again, a third time, this: can the Minister assure the House that no Yukon Energy assets will be sold to private interests based outside the Yukon, in the life of the term of this Yukon Party government? Will he give the House that assurance?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

While we did not eliminate the Yukon Development Corporation, we certainly restructured it so that it would not be giving loans to American oil companies. We certainly did that, and it did not take us long to do it.

I have said quite clearly that we are looking for ways to reduce the cost of power to the ratepayers in the Yukon. We are exploring these things. There is no decision made beyond exploratory talks with CYI at this time.

Mr. Penikett:

The problem is that there are a great many Yukoners out there who believe that there is a hidden agenda here - a secret plan by that Minister and this government - to sell off the most valuable public property the people of the territory own, Yukon Energy Corporation assets, to outside interests. All these negotiations with CYI and the municipalities are just a sham to lead them to their real objective, which is to sell it off to outside interests.

Why will the Government Leader not put those concerns to rest and give us the assurance here and now that that is not the intention of him or his Cabinet? Why not? He has been asked four times now. Why will he not just say it?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

At a meeting not long ago, somebody asked why this government would want to get rid of this cash cow. I said the cash cow has a very good ability to give sour milk a lot of the time. I have said quite clearly to this House that it is not our intention to do that at this time. I am not going to prejudge what could happen in the future. I am not going to prejudge that.

The Minister responsible for energy has stood in this House -

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

They would get a say. The fact remains that governments all over Canada today are looking at privatization of their energy corporations, especially in NDP jurisdictions.

Question re: Energy Corporation, CYI participation in

Mr. Penikett:

A smart person knows that one can even sell sour milk as cottage cheese.

The leader opposite has just said something that is going to alarm everybody in the territory. At this time - meaning on April 25, 1994, at 12 minutes past 2 p.m. - he is not planning to sell the assets of the public utility to private interests in Alberta or elsewhere. But an hour from now or two hours from now, or next week or next month, it may be true. Why will the Government Leader, who campaigned on the basis of Yukon for Yukoners, not be prepared today to give a firm commitment that the assets of the Yukon Energy Corporation will remain under Yukon ownership and control - all of them.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I have just made that commitment here today when we were talking about the rationalization of the assets with CYI. I said that the Yukon government is going to retain at least 50 percent of the assets - control of the company. I cannot prejudge what is going to happen in the future. It is not our intention to do that now.

Mr. Penikett:

We own 100 percent of it right now, but the Minister responsible for energy has already turned over effective control of the management to the private utility. We turned over the management, but we were determined that we would have enough competent staff in the Yukon Energy Corporation to mind the store in the public interest. The Minister opposite has talked about merging those two operations so we would no longer have that oversight.

I want to ask the Government Leader, since he has indicated that the government is bound to keep only 50 percent of the assets and somebody else may have management and control, how he will keep control of the company.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mr. Penikett:

The Government Leader is talking to the Minister of Tourism. I would like to ask the Government Leader this: is he aware of any proposal received by this government prior to the start of the talks with CYI, from anyone proposing the merging of the assets of the Yukon Energy Corporation with the assets owned by some private southern company? Has he received any such proposal? Has he knowledge of any such proposal?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

I am really concerned about the manner in which the Member opposite wants to take liberty with the facts. For example, he stands in this House and states that, somehow or other, we have turned the management over to the private company because we reduced staff. We have not. We have the same people working for the corporation now as were working for the corporation when we took office, so that is absolutely wrong.

The Member opposite keeps raising these false scenarios knowing full well that the real issue is this: he refused to sell any part of the Yukon Development Corporation or the Yukon Energy Corporation to the Yukon Indian people, to the First Nations. He is against it because it is against his socialist agenda. Why does he not just stand up and say that he does not feel that the First Nations should be partners in the Energy Corporation? He has prevented them from achieving that goal in the land claims negotiations, and now he is doing it under the rubric of raising all of these false issues.

Mr. Penikett:

I would challenge the gentleman opposite to table any document where any First Nation or the Council for Yukon Indians ever asked to buy any shares in the Yukon Energy Corporation, which I know he cannot do because there never was any such proposal. I want to ask him this: has he ever discussed, with any Yukon interest, the possibility of involving Yukon Electrical, Alberta Power, or Canadian Utilities in any form of ownership of the Yukon Energy Corporation since coming into the position of Minister responsible for energy for the Yukon government?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

Of course I have. We have talked in terms of the rationalization of the assets and various configurations that might take place, but the clear message to CYI was about their purchasing up to 30 percent and the public being able to purchase up to 50 percent of those assets currently held by the Yukon Energy Corporation, which is owned by Yukon Development Corporation.

Page Number 2254

The possibility was there, but it is neither part of the negotiations nor part of the package that we are discussing at this time. I understand the Member's desire to prevent any privatization, whether it be the First Nations, municipalities or individual Yukoners, because it is against his socialistic philosophy. I wish that the Member opposite would deal with that honestly and straightforwardly, instead of trying to raise all of these imaginary fears in the minds of the public.

Question re: Energy Corporation, CYI participation in

Mrs. Firth:

I have a question for the Government Leader about the appointment by the Government Leader of this low budget, save-on-lawyer who is going to be carrying out the charity work for the Government of Yukon. I am referring to the appointment of Mr. Boylan who is a Vancouver lawyer and who was appointed to negotiate with the Council for Yukon Indians about privatizing the assets of the Yukon Development Corporation.

Mr. Boylan resigned from the Yukon Law Society in 1992, and is not a member in current good standing to practise law in the Yukon.

I would like to ask the Government Leader why he would appoint someone to do legal work who is not licensed to practise law in the Yukon?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

This is pretty heavy research we are talking about here.

Mr. Boylan was engaged as a consultant; he was neither engaged as a lawyer, nor is he being paid as a lawyer. He is being paid as a person who has the background and experience, having been a senior member of this bar and is currently a senior member of the British Columbia bar, because he has the background to understand the issues. Lawyers will be utilized to carry out any legal work that is required.

It is interesting to hear the Member opposite talk about "pay-back time". May I politely suggest that perhaps the pay back is really from the Member opposite in her vicious attack upon Mr. Boylan, because he had the temerity to support me in a leadership campaign that took place about nine years ago. The Member's list of pay backs must number in the thousands, because the Member lost the leadership by thousands and thousands of votes.

I feel rather sorry for the Member opposite, who is carrying out this personal vendetta in this manner, in this House.

Mrs. Firth:

That is really an astonishing answer. Let us keep the issue to what it really is. The issue is that that Member stood up in the House the other day and said that Mr. Boylan had been hired because of his background in corporate and tax law. He even went as far as to say that this was a low-budget, save-on-lawyer, because he was charging less than what legal aid lawyers charge in the Yukon. Every comment has been with respect to this individual being a lawyer.

What I want to know from the Government Leader is this: why would the Government Leader hire someone to do this job who is not even currently in good standing with the Yukon Law Society? Not only did he get an outside lawyer, he did not even hire someone who had at least paid their dues here and is a supporter of the Yukon Law Society.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I believe that the Minister responsible for energy has answered that question. The fact is that he was not hired as a lawyer. We needed someone with a legal background who was familiar with the issues. As the Minister said, we got him at a very good price.

What I find ironic about all this is that this is not the first time that Mr. Boylan has worked for the Government of Yukon. In fact, he worked for the Government of the Yukon when that very Member was part of the Cabinet that approved the contract for the transfer of NCPC assets to the Yukon.

Mrs. Firth:

It has been a long time since I was part of that government - a very long time. I am sure that that answer is not valid.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mrs. Firth:

No, I am certainly not dying to get over there.

The Government Leader just stood up and said that Mr. Boylan was hired for his legal background. If my memory serves me - and I do not want to get into the details - I believe that the Minister of Justice, when he was a land claims negotiator, may have run into a similar situation when he was not currently a member in good standing. My memory might be a bit shaky there, but I believe the Leader of the Official Opposition, at that time, may have raised that issue.

The question I have for the Government Leader is this: since he has already paid out money to this lawyer out of Yukon taxpayers' money - which we have just had a big increase in, a big government windfall - will the Government Leader make it a requirement that this individual pay his fees and become licensed to practice law in the territory?

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

The selective memory of the Member is simply marvelous. She forgets being part of the Cabinet that engaged Mr. Boylan when negotiations were starting with NCPC. She is really concerned about a situation where my membership to the Yukon bar lapsed, although my job with the government was as a negotiator. Mr. Boylan's job, for which he was engaged, was to do some exploratory negotiations and look at the various issues surrounding the potential for privatization. He has a background in law. I can talk to all the lawyers. He has talked to a number of lawyers and consultants in order to bring the package back to Cabinet on some of the issues.

He has not been hired as a member of a bar. He has been hired, not as a member of the Yukon bar or as a lawyer, but as a consultant. That is why his fee is much lower than he would command if he had been hired as a lawyer.

Speaker:

The time for Question Period has now elapsed.

I will proceed to Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Speaker:

Government Bills.

GOVERNMENT BILLS

Bill No. 14: Second Reading

Clerk:

Second reading, Bill No. 14, standing in the name of the Hon. Mr. Ostashek.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I move that Bill No. 14, entitled Interim Supply Appropriation Act, 1994-95, be now read a second time.

Speaker:

It has been moved by the Hon. Government Leader that Bill No. 14, entitled Interim Supply Appropriation Act, 1994-95, be now read a second time.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

This bill will grant the authority to spend operations and maintenance monies for the month of April, while the operations and maintenance main estimates for the 1994-95 fiscal year are being debated in the House. We are asking for $63,730,000 in such appropriations for the current month. Since the total O&M expenditures budgeted for in this year is some $346 million, it is apparent that the request for April is well in excess of one-twelth the total 1994-95 operating budget. This excessive, if you will, April expenditure, results from the fact that many grant payments are made at the beginning of the year. Examples of this are municipal grants and grants to Yukon College. Many of these expenditures have already taken place despite the fact the bill is now only being read for the second time. To

Page Number 2255

allow for this situation, a special warrant for the same sum is now being requested as interim supply and was signed by the Commissioner prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. We will also soon be requesting Members to approve the second interim supply bill for the month of May.

Motion for second reading of Bill No. 14 agreed to

Bill No. 17: Second Reading

Clerk:

Second reading, Bill No. 17, standing in the name of the Hon. Mr. Ostashek.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

I move that Bill No. 17, entitled Interim Supply Appropriation Act, 1994-95, (No. 2), be now read for a second time.

Speaker:

It has been moved by the Hon. Government Leader that Bill No. 17, entitled Interim Supply Appropriation Act, 1994-95, (No. 2), be now read a second time.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek:

This bill will grant legislative approval for the government to spend money during the month of May, until such time as the 1994-95 operation and maintenance estimates are passed. While it is somewhat higher than one-twelfth of our operation and maintenance expenditures, Members will note that the request for May, $39,401,000, is considerably less than was April's interim supply.

Motion for second reading of Bill No. 17 agreed to

Bill No. 15: Second Reading - continued

Clerk:

Second reading, Bill No. 15, adjourned debate, Mr. McDonald.

Mr. McDonald:

One day last month, I had occasion to be speaking to an acquaintance about the reasons why the Yukon Party government did the things they did. The discussion ensued over whether or not the Yukon Party government was engaged in an exercise to control its finances, or whether or not the positions that they were taking were largely ideologically driven.

It was a fascinating discussion. It lasted for a short time, and I remember walking away thinking that, given what I know about the government's finances, I had won the day when it came to my belief that much of what the government has done is driven by its own ideological perspective and has nothing to do at all with the need to balance books or control expenditures.

Then, I went back to my office, and I found in my in-basket a copy of the March issue of The Sluice Box. There were some interesting things in it, but I did not really take notice of all it had to say. I turned to the back page and, after reading the people section, which is always the most interesting - that is what everyone does read - I looked at the top of the page to an article entitled "Some Common Career Myths".

It was adapted from the NWT government's newsletter. I realized instantly what the Yukon government saw in this particular adaptation of the GNWT's newsletter. Essentially, it saw something good when it crossed their path.

When one reads the listing of common career myths, one comes across the first one right away, which is that happiness comes from having done a perfect job.

I realized instantly that, when people called the Yukon government incompetent or criticized their failure to plan or have a sense of direction or to lurch from crisis to crisis, in fact they were simply on a quest to be happy, because happiness comes from having done a perfect job. This is a myth that we are supposed to dismiss. It seemed to get better as we went along.

The second myth was "getting ahead as a result of working hard and doing a good job". I realize they do not have a very lengthy legislative agenda and they have taken a fairly lazy approach to economic recovery, but I thought they were probably taking this myth just a little bit too far. In most of our books, getting ahead did entail working hard, doing a good job, but when one understands what this Yukon government publication is talking about one can understand then consequently the heart of the budgeting philosophy behind Yukon Party government.

The Sluice Box was not the only periodical that has pegged the Yukon government. I had brought to my attention a little snippet from the Globe and Mail - this was brought to my attention just recently. It was published on the same day as this legislative session started - which was April 18 - and probably presented what will be the theme for this sitting, perhaps this session and perhaps this government's entire term. I will just read it - it is the "Morning Smile" and it reads: "It is good to put money aside for a rainy day, or the next time the government decides it is getting cloudy." I thought, good heavens, that is perfectly appropriate for the mood of this sitting and is it not appropriate that it would be actually published on the same day as the sitting started?

After having read that and mused over its true meaning, I thought more about the government's attempt to manufacture a crisis mentality. I was thinking that perhaps this was so that the government could insulate itself from public demands and, at the same time, spend record amounts of money on its own priorities.

I am going to lay out a few points and permit my colleagues to raise a few others, but I should point out from the beginning, in a mood of generosity, that I have given notice to the Yukon Party caucus of the issues I intend to raise this afternoon. Their caucus representative was good enough to attend an NDP lunch on Friday with his tape recorder. I believe I spoke clearly enough, so consequently I am certain they have the essence of my remarks.

We at the lunch were clearly under the impression that the Yukon Party caucus needed somebody other than the Government Leader to explain their financial problems for them, so I welcomed the opportunity to provide something on the record for Mr. Staffen.

One has to begin by asking what the Yukon Party government wants people to remember about its budget. We draw from their budget papers, the budget speech and from the media notes following the budget announcements that the messages that they truly want people to remember and to internalize are, first, that government spending is down and, second, that there is still a deficit. These are the two primary communication goals of this government. These goals show up everywhere, in every publication, every journal, every MLA newsletter and I am certain, while I do not receive the Yukon Update, that these words would appear in that publication as well. They say that government spending is down and that there is still a deficit.

Why does government spending have to be down? If spending is down, it implies that there is less dependency on the federal government. Conservatives and Yukoners of any political stripe do not like being dependent on the federal government. Conservatives who just hate government and do not like government getting any bigger certainly would appreciate the thought that government is getting smaller.

Why does the government want a deficit? Because they do not want people to come asking for money. They want to clear the decks and make room for their own priorities without having the nuisance associated with people coming forward to ask for money.

Aside from that, when you are trying to explain to people why their paycheques should be cut and why services should be reduced, it is always helpful to have a deficit hanging around. Essentially, that deficit tells people that if they want to spend money on anything, the government is going to have to increase the deficit, and deficits are bad. Deficits suggest that we are spending more money than we are taking in and that is simply bad home economics let alone government economics.

Page Number 2256

What reality does the government have to deal with? What are the circumstances of the financial environment in which the government is operating?

Well, revenues are up. The government is going to be taking in more money next year - probably $6 million to $6.5 million - than it took in this last year. This is allowing for the assumption, for which there is some justification, that the transfer payments in the final year of the agreement will be down.

The second thing is that income tax revenues are up. They are up to a whopping $45 million. This is a substantial increase over the $32 million that we took in per year when the Yukon Party assumed office.

What else is there? There is money that was not spent last year that still must be factored into the equation somewhere. By the Government Leader's admission, it is about $8 million to $10 million and has to be added to available funding for this year.

What else has happened? Money received through Ottawa through the transfer payments, established program financing and various recoveries continues to grow. Consequently, this so-called dependency factor on the feds continues to worsen.

What else has been happening? The overall spending of government has risen since the Yukon Party has been in government. The government is always concerned with trying to separate out contingent from net funding or, I should say, recoverable funding from net funding, because they think that the circumstances might be a bit more favourable for them. However, they never fail to take the credit for the economic consequences of that money they are spending, whether it is recoverable or not. They never fail to take credit for the jobs that might be created as a result of that recoverable funding. I am afraid we cannot let them off the hook on that.

The Yukon Party says, however, that government spending must go down. Actually, they say that government spending must go down and up, and down and up. Even today, we heard the Government Leader say that he was disappointed that we did not get more infrastructure funding from the feds in this particular program. We were able to soak them for $10 million last year, but we only got just over $2 million this year. We have always heard the Minister of Finance indicate that it is his heartfelt desire to protect Yukon's interest in formula financing negotiations, necessarily meaning that they are going to seek as much money as they can from Ottawa.

They want spending to go down, but they also want it to go up, but mainly down. Sometimes they want the spending to go down, because they want government to get smaller, but sometimes they want to fight the federal debt. It depends on who is talking, I guess, whether or not a Minister has attended the most recent Yukon Party convention, and whether or not they are simply speaking for the Cabinet; it is never quite clear to us.

The government is proud of the fact, overall and generally speaking, from the statements we have heard, that spending could go down. The Government Leader and Minister of Finance has boasted that, as a result of this budget, spending has, in fact, gone down, largely because of the priorities of the Yukon Party.

He has also said that the Yukon government has a deficit. He has said this to demonstrate that the Yukon is still in a crisis.

It is not difficult circumstances. We are not messing around here - we are in crisis. Never mind that a number of people think that the situation here is not so bad, including some notables in the Yukon government. Never mind that Statistics Canada thinks that we have the best situation in the country. It does not matter how Statistics Canada factors the surplus or deficit, because they factor it the same way that they factor the financial situation for every jurisdiction across the country. The point is that they think we are the best in the country when compared to other jurisdictions. Even the employer representative on the conciliation board last December was not persuaded that the Yukon government was in crisis, but nevertheless, the government needed a crisis - they wanted a crisis. They wanted it so that they could keep battered women at bay while they built a $1.2 million liquor store. You need that crisis so that you can spend $1 million or more on a caribou recovery/wolf kill program, and keep battered women, advocates for the disabled, and others at bay because you do not want them drawing comparisons with the millions of dollars that you might spend in one area with the money you want to cut from their programs.

Now there is a dilemma. That dilemma is that you cannot have spending down, revenue up, and a deficit at the same time, because the numbers just do not work that way. So, what is the answer? Well, the answer is that you show that spending is down - you start off with that because you need that, it is critical. You create some slush funds that you set aside and never say whether or not you are going to spend this money, you just set it aside. You say nothing about lapsed funding from last year - money you did not spend last year - you say nothing about that. Presto - you still have an accumulated deficit. That is how you do it, albeit a small one. I think that this accumulated deficit ranks at 1.3 percent of one year's expenditures. Even though it is pretty small, it is still there. By the way, that also equates to less than $200 per person in the Yukon, if you assume that there are 33,000 people, although that may not be an accurate assumption. It is about $200 per person, and that compares with the $14,200 we will be spending this year on every person in the territory.

If you try to use that equation by creating these slush funds and not telling the whole financial picture, what if you were exposed and told that if you wanted spending to go down you could not spend the slush fund and you would have to show no accumulated debt? What if you were told that? On top of that, if you factored in the money not spent last year, you would have to show an accumulated surplus of at least $4 million or $5 million by the government's own admission? Then you would have an accumulated surplus. What would you say then to the advocacy groups for the disabled, who spend hundreds and hundreds of volunteer hours and get some paltry sum from the Yukon government to help them in their efforts to advocate for people like the disabled?

What does one say to the transition home operators, who are going to have to try to factor in some concept of making appointments for battered women around the time that their spouses are beating the living daylights out of them? They are having to work through some pretty difficult scheduling problems there. How does one respond to them?

How does one talk to the taxpayers, who were told last year that the government needed $8 million to balance the budget? That taxpayer is already feeling just a little threatened, because he and she heard that the $7 million extracted from them last year was more than matched by the winter works program, which had double-counting on the jobs that were associated with it.

What does one tell the public servants, who have had the Finance Minister into their pockets twice in two years, not only as taxpayers, but because the Government Leader feels that they are being paid too much?

What does one say to the building contractor, or the construction worker, who sees little opportunity in the next couple of months to pay his bills, because there is no work?

How does one keep them all from scrutinizing one's priorities, if one has to be reminded that, in fact, there is no deficit? Those priorities, which include spending millions on highways, not all of which is contingent funding, and building liquor stores, would be difficult to justify. So, what one might do is throw up a little smoke and say that we have cashflow problems. We have to pay

Page Number 2257

bank service charges, because we do not have as much money in the bank as we need.

In the old days, when we had lots of cash in the bank, interest charges just came out of the interest we earned. We all knew that that interest was not going to come to the Yukon government, anyway. It was going directly to the feds. So, essentially, we got the feds to pay our bank service charges. However, nowadays, we have cashflow problems. To drive that point home, you might even put it in your newsletter and send it around to 37 Redwood, because you might want the Finance critic to read it.

Here he says, and I will quote, "However, after deficits of $13 million in 1991-92, and $64 million in 1992-93, the government is no longer able to keep the required amount of cash on deposit. As a result, the government pays CIBC all or a portion of the costs of rural banking services in Beaver Creek, Carmacks, Faro, Haines Junction, Mayo, Old Crow and Ross River."

He did not tell the people at 35 and 39 Redwood that, in 1991-92, the deficit was also balanced by a $50 million consolidated surplus. So, of course there were no cashflow problems in that year whatsoever.

The Member did not tell the people across the street from 37 Redwood that he does not really have as much concern for cashflow as he makes out, because he is prepared to put $30 million into land development. He is prepared to tie up $30 million in cash in land, yet, incidentally, the serviced lots in Whitehorse are not selling like hot cakes right now.

If one is prepared to tie up so much cash in land development, why complain about $300,000 worth of bank service charges? If one managed to tie up only $17 million or $18 million, or even $20 million, in land development, the remaining $10 million would more than adequately compensate for the $300,000 in bank service charges.

Somebody might just blow that smoke away from people's eyes, and people might consequently feel that the government was not being entirely straightforward. One might try writing off more money but, of course, that will only make the dilemma worse. As a result of more write-offs, there would be more cash available. If we talk about the cash reserves, such as the leave accrual account - the account we have in case everybody quits all on the same day - people might get just a little bit hotter yet.

So, there is a problem, and that problem is only made worse by the fact that some people have come along and criticized the Member for rolling over for the federal government when the tax increases were applied last year. Does he remember that? It was a time when the Yukon Party government let slip that federal Finance officials thought our tax rates were too low and needed to be raised.

Rather than fighting the good fight, people got the distinct impression that the Member just rolled over, laid down, accepted the view of the federal Finance officials and raised those tax rates, even though the Member knew, from his own Finance officials, that the tax burden on Yukoners was at the national, or above the national, average. He knew that, but he still raised the taxes.

The government at the time said it was to balance the books but, only four months into the fiscal year, we all discovered that was not the case at all: they found the same $7 million to do winter works.

Now, we know that there will be lapses in the Yukon government's budget that will more than adequately match the increased revenue they expected to get from the tax increases last year and still leave a surplus. The government was criticized for rolling over before and, now, someone might come along and criticize the government for rolling over again.

We are told the Government of Canada has a serious problem. It has a big debt. The Minister for the Public Service Commission has, on a number of occasions, reminded us that in the context of the collective bargaining discussions we must do our part to pay down the federal debt.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mr. McDonald:

That is a good point. With one breath, one Minister, who failed to go to the convention, says we need to pay down the federal debt, and another Minister is suggesting we do not have enough money from the federal government's infrastructure program and that we should have received more.

Whether it is a contradiction or not, it is nothing new.

The point is that the government is now under the impression that the federal government is going to be reducing the federal debt, at least in part, at the Yukon government's expense.

So, what does one do? One pre-implements the cut. We still have a year of formula financing to go. We are not going to get cut yet, because we still have a signed agreement, but one takes what one understands to be the federal Finance position and pre-implements it in the year prior to the cut being applied, not in the year the cut is applied.

Secondly, one acknowledges the federal government's position, before negotiations on things like the transfer agreement are concluded, and one demonstrates that one has accepted their position. One might say this is not a great negotiating tactic, because it suggests that perhaps, when it comes time to make some noises about the Yukon's interests, the federal government will come along and say, was it not you guys who already accepted those cuts and implemented them already? Is it not you guys who have a surplus and no deficit? Is it not you guys who have been listed by Statistics Canada as being financially in the best circumstances in the country?

The Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission is kibitzing, saying that we need more, more and more, unless, of course, he is suggesting that he believes that we should not be asking for more. I am not sure if he is criticizing the Government Leader or me. The Government Leader is probably used to having a few arrows in the back. He can expect a few more from the Minister of the Public Service Commission, but it would help if the Minister went to the convention, so that he could keep up with the policy work that is going on there.

I just made a faux pas. I just suggested that there might be policy work going on at the Yukon Party convention. That was a mistake; I apologize for that.

Things appear to be getting worse for the Yukon government. One might suggest that they have already caused a panic with their claim of financial crisis. I would point out that this is only the end of a long string of claims about there being a crisis. Sirens sounded in the communities and then, last spring, there was the all-clear signal. Now that the government wants to cut back on employees wages and services to the public, the crisis alarm has sounded again here and in the communities. All the while, the financial situation was good and has remained good.

We are debt-free. We are so debt-free that the debts we are recovering are still getting paid back as we speak. We have written them off, but they are still coming in. I have told the media and my colleagues that we will have to keep an eye out for the mortgages for the social housing that are still out there. There are probably a few millions in those that can be written off. I am sure we will see the SEAL loan being written off. We will still expect the money to be repaid, I am certain of that; however, we might just write off all the SEAL loans because it is a common tactic of the government opposite to ensure that we have an accumulated debt that we can point out to people.

We certainly do not want to talk about those large reserves we have. That would not conform to the image of ourselves we want to present to the Yukon public. To the federal government, we

Page Number 2258

present a different image. We certainly do not want to say that there is a surplus, even though there is a surplus.

The problem is that all this fiscal policy has caused the economy to enter into quite a chaotic period.

The government may not have resolved the conflicting messages when it came to finances, so I think they have tried to send a few conflicting messages about the economy, and try their hand at doing that.

The government has taken a rather laid-back approach to economic leadership, and their actions regarding Curragh and Taga Ku were certainly counter-productive. The best thing that you can do in the face of pretty startling circumstances on the street - which government Ministers have admitted to from time to time, but not consistently - is to announce that there is now a recovery. You do not necessarily have to do much about it, but you certainly announce the recovery. After all, maybe the recovery can be covered in the announcement. You do not have to work very hard. You can hold a few public meetings where the economy is on the agenda. You can sponsor a cocktail party in a Vancouver hotel room, but why should people believe that hard work and doing a good job will get you ahead? I return to the myth that The Sluice Box has identified.

You start by talking about road upgrading, the need for a better infrastructure, and the need for a better road network in the territory, which will lead to businesses wanting to come up to the Yukon. You do not tell anyone that you are upgrading the existing road network - for the Member for Kluane, the vehicles operated by the American tourists will be passing through the Yukon more quickly as a result of this road upgrading effort.

You talk about the industrial support policy, which does not begin to demonstrate how a balance will be struck between rate- payers, industrial consumers and taxpayers. Taxpayers are already beleaguered enough, in my opinion.

You talk about mines in the permitting stage, which is something that you would probably prefer to talk about, because there are no mines in the operating stage. Mines in the operating stage are the ones that actually mean jobs.

You might talk a little bit about service cuts, because those cuts always appeal to Conservatives right around the country, and probably around the world.

When I was reading and listening to the budget speech, I did not detect much being said about the document entitled Toward Self-Sufficiency by the 21st Century, and I was wondering where that document had gone. I did not hear anything about the four-year plan, either, but perhaps the Ministers will let us know whether or not they still have faith in those documents, or whether they are too red-faced, or embarrassed, to actually support them nowadays.

So what one does, essentially, is announce, really, a hilarious concept - this "decade of prosperity". They suggest that not only are we going to enter a decade of prosperity, but we are already in it - that we are actually better off now than we were when Faro and Sa Dena Hes were operating. Somebody might suggest there might be a touch of double-speak in that claim, that maybe the reality does not justify the claim, but when in doubt, one trots out statistics. We got our share of statistics in the Finance Minister's speech. He talked about retail trade, population, the number of jobs available. He went down a list of statistics I am sure he felt comfortable with, did not quite mention a few other statistics that he may not have been quite as comfortable with: that the population from December 1992 to December 1993 has dropped, or that there are more people who are classed as unemployment beneficiaries, or that social assistance costs are rising, or that retail trade was down over January 1993 to January 1994, or that the vacancy rate has better than doubled, or that the value of real estate transactions were down, both in number and in value. Even when the bank rate had dropped dramatically, the number of building permits were down, both in number and in value. The electricity generated was down by one-third. Petroleum product sales were down by 21.5 percent. Even aircraft movements in the territory were down. Despite all that, the inflation rate in the Yukon was higher than it was in Canada. Right now, it is 10 times higher than the Canadian rate. There was one statistic the government failed to mention that I would consider to be a popular one, and that was that restaurant receipts have actually gone up. I thought to myself, maybe people are just getting together to find out what is going on out there, and they are doing it over lunch. One of the things we have not heard about, and there has been no recognition of, are the number of notable business closures that have taken place in the Yukon over the last year and one-half.

Certainly, there are many I know of that are in trouble, but they have not been identified in the newspapers so I will not mention their names. We have heard about Mr. Mike's and the Heritage Gallery, Value Village, Motorways, Kelly Douglas, Woolco, Shades and Mates, the Curragh and Sa Dena Hes mines, Yukon-Alaska Transport, and we have heard about layoffs at the Klondike Inn and Finning. There is a long list of long-time companies that have suffered a little bit in this period of prosperity that the government has identified. There are people out there, constituents of mine, who have had to take on new jobs. Maybe that accounts for some of the new jobs the government has identified as having been assumed as the statistical underpinning of the claim that we are in good economic times.

I talked to some constituents last week, who have five jobs between two family members and they grossed $35,000 a year between the two of them. Those people do not know the language the government is speaking. Those people do not feel secure about their future or about this territory's future. Those people have been laid off on a couple of occasions in the last year - they picked up other jobs, small ones, low-paid ones but jobs. They are hard working people and are trying their best to stay here and to live here.

One fellow works 12 hours a day between two jobs and works on the weekends, too. He does not know what the government is talking about when they are talking about prosperity. All he knows is a cycle of unemployment, job hunting and, among many of his friends, outright depression. That is what he knows.

When one compares those statistics with the statistics that were published by the same Executive Council Office, the Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarter of 1992, one sees a much different picture. The employment is rising, the unemployment rate is falling. The average weekly earnings in the Yukon are growing - dramatically, not just a little bit, dramatically. The inflation rate is dropping. Rent and real estate values are increasing - not just a little bit, but a lot. The population is growing, and the inflation rate - that little bugaboo - is actually less than the Canadian average - produced by the same Bureau of Statistics.

Let me, then, return to all these claims about the economic recovery and the government's action plan. We were told that the government was going to go out and consult with people. They were going to work hard and get the Council on the Economy and the Environment to do a review of the general economic climate - that was over a year ago, though. We were told that the Yukon Council on the Economy and the Environment was going to lead discussions about economic recovery and perhaps it would even be asked to assume new responsibilities, when, in the end, they were only delivered the responsibility to investigate video gambling. They have been working on that quite a while. They have not reported yet - at least, not to my knowledge and certainly not publicly.

Page Number 2259

They have been working on this for some time, probably at considerable expense. We were told that the government was going to review the issue of access to capital. We were told that the government was going to review the issue of the regulated environment in which small business operates. We were told that the government was going to engage in discussions about their master plan - this document called Toward Self-Sufficiency by the 21st Century. None of that has happened.

What has happened is that the Government Leader, on his regular rural visits, has put the economy on the agenda. After filling the people at those meetings full of a lot of bafflegab about the fiscal crisis we are in, he has been able to take a few questions about whether or not there are going to be any jobs here. He answers, oh, yes, there will be jobs; we have a winter works program. It has increased the jobs in this territory by thousands of person weeks. We have record-size budgets that will put everyone back to work, even though we do not believe in record-size budgets. He goes on, presumably, to outline all the actions the government is taking in all those important areas, like the Northern Accord negotiations and the kind of answer he gave us the other day in Question Period.

We have not heard much from the government about their document Toward Self-Sufficiency in the 21st Century in recent months. We have not heard any of the consultation that we were promised on all the items I have mentioned. All we have heard from the Government Leader now is that, not only is it not necessary to consult further, but we are all living an illusion. It is good out there on the street, businesses are not in trouble, and it is better than it was two years ago. We should not mind our own balance sheets; things are getting better.

Nobody I talked to - literally, not a rhetorical excess - believes that story, apart from the Yukon government, Cabinet and the people they pay to help them. I do not hear anyone else anywhere say that. The business community and the workers in my riding do not believe that we are in the middle of a decade of prosperity, or that they are starting one. They do not understand why the government is taking such a passive approach to the economy. They do not understand how the government can claim that its own capital budget is sufficient to weather the storm, and why it might be necessary to engage a little public discussion, consciousness-raising or spirit-lifting, among the business community and workers of this territory about what the economy might do.

The only light you can see at the end of that tunnel - and it is a dim one - is in the area of tourism, where there have been some discussions about how we can do better, even though the tourism stats might naturally be dropping off from the 1992 year. Nevertheless, there are efforts being made to try to maximize what we are doing in that particular area, and engaging the people in the industry to actually think and apply their creative energies to maximizing not only the public dollar, but the private sector dollar.

While I will not give the Minister of Education a lot of credit, I will give the Minister of Tourism some credit for that. I will tell you this: when people not only see this lackadaisical effort coming from first one, then another Minister of Economic Development, and seeing that same Minister of Economic Development claim that things are good, and at the same time defend service cuts to people, and at the same time have an accumulated surplus is, in reality, very difficult to take.

There are other problems with this budget that I will simply identify, and then will pursue in more detail when we get into committee work. Firstly, the government indicates that there are some budgets for which the government has gone through a lot of effort, through good management, to cut the budget of a particular department. As an aside, I think it is interesting to note that the only good news that this budget really identifies as they survey the plans in each department - in virtually every department - is how they are cutting the budget. They have no plan or vision for where they want to go. They have no end in sight for the amount of cuts they are seeking in services or anything else. The only good news in the operating budget is that it has been cut. The only good news that they have identified in spending terms in this budget was a reiteration of capital spending priorities that were announced four or five months ago.

In some budgets they have done the right thing. They have slimmed and trimmed the budget to make sure that the delivery of services is more efficient. We have noticed that a number of services seem to have gone by the wayside in that exercise - services that the government is going to have to defend, particularly when they are building liquor stores and spending millions of dollars in caribou recovery, and at the same time sitting on enormous lapses, and at the same time generating surpluses.

We have identified in our review of the budget some cases where in the last year they actually jacked up the budgets in a department, or a section of a department, calling it "realistic budgeting", and then, in shaving those budgets back to what in reality was a realistic budget, they have called that good management.

Then, we hear in the budget there are going to be no tax increases. Well, the taxpayer will be pleased to hear that, but what the taxpayer does not know is that what the Government Leader meant was that there was going to be no tax increase announcements, because the announcement last year is applying a tax increase this year.

Then we hear in various areas there are going to be some increases, for example, in the education field and in the industrial support policy - that government was going to put a lot of its effort, and lot of its energy, behind training. One program did go up in funding in the full array of training programs that are funded by the advanced education branch, but some went down and a lot stayed the same. When they face the inflation increase, they are going to be assuming a cut. No less than Yukon College itself is going to be faced with that situation. So when we hear those hollow words about a government that believes in training, we have to look beyond the one program that they have increased to justify that claim, because, otherwise, the message might be perceived as being just a little dishonest.

I have said what I wanted to say about the essential elements of this budget and about the method by which the government has tried to deliver a number of different messages and a number of conflicting messages, and has tried to tailor those messages to the numbers. It has been a difficult exercise for them, because they could not tell the whole truth when they were presenting their case for a fiscal crisis, or trim budgets, or more spending, or less spending, or whatever message they wanted to deliver at a particular time.

It was difficult, because the numbers simply will not support a consistent theme in their budget message. We have a government that has taken a passive, couch-potato approach to economic recovery. This government continues to embrace this approach as the best approach for a government that feels that the only virtue of operation and maintenance spending is that it be somehow cut. We have a government that believes that some elements of operational spending, in particular when it comes to education, are referred to as debt creation. That is somewhat contrary to the view held by many teachers in this territory, who feel that what they are doing is educating, and will ultimately be training, people in this territory to take the highly skilled jobs that pay the better wages and will mean an economic recovery for this territory in the long term - or, at least, provide this territory with an economic future.

Page Number 2260

Claims about education spending being debt creation fall on hollow ears, at least on this side of the House and this caucus.

When it comes to education spending, I would ask the Ministers to look at the amount of money that is being dedicated to education generally. I would ask them to look at the net spending for education and for the government as a whole. I would ask them to look at the Department of Education's budget as an example, and as a percentage of total net spending in government over the last three years, and tell me what they see. They will find that, as a percentage of the total net spending, not gross spending, that education spending has decreased.

That is this government's true commitment to that particular field of endeavour.

That is where our money talks, and the message for many people is not a pleasant one to accept. We have seen a government that, when they signed the land claims agreement last year, failed to provide any further inspiration to see any further final agreements being even furthered significantly at all - to the point that First Nations and the Council for Yukon Indians are frustrated beyond belief.

We have seen a government that is not high on consultation and their priority setting for consultation has left a lot to be desired, particularly in the economic field. We have seen a budget presentation that is deceptive and misleading.

I cannot remember whether I said anything good about this budget but I think there is some sort of tradition about doing that, is there not? One is supposed to identify some good news or some positive things. If somebody could just kibbitz on this side and tell me what I can mention that is positive, I might be able to mention something.

Some Hon. Members:

(Inaudible)

Mr. McDonald:

Firstly, yes, there is some good news I find out from my colleagues. There are racing stripes on the budget book. They are Yukon Party colours, I presume - blue with a yellow stripe. Presumably the yellow stripe is our position with respect to federal fiscal relations.

We know that perhaps there may be some increases to chamber funding. I have not actually seen that but I am prepared to believe it and, if it is true, then more power to the Chamber of Commerce.

There are some increases in tourism marketing. I do support that particular endeavour. I do not to leave this on an entirely negative note, so I will refrain from further comment and allow my colleagues to speak, allow the government to explain its rather bizarre budgeting practice and, when we get to Committee, I will have a lot of questions about their positions on a number of things. We will pursue those subjects in greater depth then.

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

I guess the opening comment I would make is that the previous speech is an easy act to follow. It was rather uninspired, to say the least, partly because the O&M mains are easily defended and really not all that controversial. They are based on sound practices and a budget that recognizes the reality that Yukoners face.

I do not know if the Members are not very interested in modern day communications. Perhaps watching TV is a bit too plebeian for them, but anyone who turns on the radio that is focused on the national news, turns on the TV to see what is happening in Canada nationally and in other jurisdictions will realize that we are in a pretty bad fix as a country. They realize and understand, because it is made vividly apparent, that we have some tremendous difficulties facing us as a nation.

Provinces, particularly the biggest one, Ontario, is broke, and is run by bankers rather than the NDP. That right was taken away from them when they went broke after Pink Floyd stood up and talked about his wonderful budget, which created the biggest deficit in the history of Ontario. This went on for a couple of years, until the bankers said it was over - that there was no more money and that the government would have to chop a whole bunch of jobs. They said they know that the unions and all the people they profess to care about would be angry, but it would be either that or there would be no more money, because they were broke, bankrupt. Do you understand?

Even they understood - a bit late, but they chose the easy way - spend, spend, spend until the crunch came. And the crunch came. It would come here had they stayed in power, because they were going deeper and deeper in debt. Programs were out of control. There was all kinds of waste in the system, and the taxpayers knew this. The people of the Yukon knew this. The people in the Yukon looked at the buildings that made no sense, that cost too much, that cost so much to run once they were built that the people in the territory knew that the finances were out of kilter. That is why they voted the way they did. They voted against the NDP. They voted against mismanagement of the public purse. They voted against a government that could not get its house in order, that could not get control of the programs they were delivering. The people of the Yukon, by and large, are fairly prudent people and they could recognize what was happening. They can turn on their TVs and see what has happened in the south, and they know what the problem is that we face as Yukoners because, after eight years of socialist rule up here, the people with a vision across the way did absolutely nothing to diversify the economy. That is fact.

The vision of the side opposite involved pouring millions and millions and millions of dollars by way of grants, in a pro-active way. There was money from the ratepayers for the Watson Lake sawmill and chippers, money from the economic development agreements in the private business that went broke; a pig farm for a couple of hundred thousand on the Takhini Hot Springs, broke; an egg farm down on the Little Atlin Road, a couple of hundred grand, broke. There is case after case after case of situations where these proactive people went out, talked some poor business people into going ahead with their uneconomic business plan, and they went broke. That is what happened. That was the vision of this group opposite. That is the group that stands here and talks about things being tough now because we are couch potatoes. We are not throwing money around and wasting it. We are not going around telling people we will give them millions of dollars if they will just start the business, because we know business. It was known in the Economic Development department, under the speaker who just spoke and the Government Leader of the day, that if money was lent or given to any business that was trying to start up, it was the kiss of death - the kiss of death if this pro-active government got behind business and supported it.

These are the people who stand up here and talk about being pro-active and having vision, the same people who a year ago were standing in this House telling us to put $34 million into Curragh. They were saying, "put the money into Curragh, you have got to do it. The economy is being flushed down the toilet." That is what they said. I went back and read Hansard. If we had put another $34 million into Curragh, we would be $34 million further into debt. That is the socialist way of handling the crisis that was facing the Yukon.

The Members opposite overstated, in drastic terms, what was going to happen if the two mines shut down. The two mines did shut down and the economy has not been flushed down the toilet. Things are not great, but things are a heck of a lot better than the Members on the side opposite were predicting - gloom and doom. They were the ones saying this over and over last April, and what has happened?

We have gone through a pretty tough year, but we see many

Page Number 2261

developments happening, we see more money being spent in mining and exploration than we have for quite a few years, we see more money going into tourism, we see mines - four small mines that are looking at the feasibility of operating, that will probably be going ahead and opening - we have more actual jobs in the territory month after month than the corresponding months when the NDP was in power - despite the fact that there were two mines in operation.

We have statistics that show that retail sales are up, but we are not saying that the economy is great and that it cannot get better. We want the economy to get better, but the Members on the side opposite are the ones who were predicting gloom and doom and a terrible crisis. They said that the whole territory was going to sink if those mines went down, and if we did not load another $34 million into Curragh and Clifford Frame's pocket.

They are the group who speak about being on the side of the worker, against big business and oh, horrors of horrors, are we actually talking to companies from outside of the territory, companies that are owned by people in Alberta, Saskatchewan or somewhere. They are the people who wanted us to give another gift to Curragh. Perhaps we should have invested in a few race horses to be run on that farm just outside of Toronto. Their buddies. The buddies of the side opposite. The president, the chairman of the board, and the board of directors of Curragh. They are great people, yes, great people. They did a lot for this economy.

Ask anybody in the Yukon how he or she feels about Curragh now. Ask anybody in the Yukon, except perhaps, a few members of the NDP, because we are talking about their buddies here, whether or not we should have put another $30-odd million into Curragh's pocket. Do you know what they will tell you, Mr. Speaker? No way. No way. That is what they will tell you. It is absolutely outrageous to listen to people on the side opposite come along and try to find ways of picking at this budget. Walk on one side of the fence, and then the other side of the fence, and then feet at both sides of the fence, walking boldly ahead. It gets kind of painful, when one is trying to straddle a picket fence and one is walking fast. It is unbelievable - unbelievable - what we are hearing here today.

We have a situation where we inherited a government that was out of control. They said it was not out of control, that this is just nonsense, wait until we hear from the Auditor General. Go back in Hansard, a year ago today. Read what they had to say. I will tell you what they said, "Wait for the Auditor General". What do I hear from the Member for Faro? What? All of a sudden we bought the Auditor General? We paid him off? All of a sudden the Auditor General's word has nothing to do with the case before us? They are the ones who said, "Boy, when the Auditor General's report comes down, it will be showing that there was not a deficit. It has all been vastly overstated." Then, guess what happened. Well, well, well. The Auditor General's report came out and guess what? Right on. Right on. Sixty-four million dollars was down the tubes because of the out-of-control spending of the previous government, and then it was, "Well, we are not really sure about the Auditor General; let us try to find some other stats, because we cannot admit, we cannot bring ourselves to admit, that things were totally out of control under our administration."

They were bloated programs, wasted money. Now, when we are taking steps to clean up the mess, when we suggest for a second that there was abuse, for example, under the social assistance program under the NDP, they say that it was an awful thing to say - a terrible thing to say. The fact that $600,000 per year was lent to people as bridge financing, until they got their unemployment insurance checks, and then it was never paid back, well they say there was no problem with that. What is $600,000 here or there? We could go through case after case of abuse.

They did not have a clue about why their programs were wildly escalating. That is what was happening. Things were out of control. One thing about the democratic process is that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The people were not fooled. They understood what was happening and they tossed the NDP out. What the people did was toss them out of office. Against all predictions of the politically astute here in town - the Yukon News and others like them - they tossed them out of office.

Let us look at facts. We are talking here about a budget that reduces the O&M of this government slightly. We are talking here about a government that is simply trying to bring some prudent financial reality to the task of governing. We are talking about a government that does pay attention to what is happening outside - that occasionally does watch television, although I am sure that the side opposite would never admit that they do. It is public knowledge - public statements have been made by the Minister of Finance in Ottawa, and the Prime Minister - that the Liberal government has to, and will, cut back on expenditures and cut back on transfer payments. Everyone knows that we are vulnerable to that sort of thing.

It is not a matter of lying down and playing dead. The side opposite fought a great fight; they were real fighters when they were in office. We still have the perversity factor, which they negotiated for us. It is still there, but they fought. They struck terror into the hearts of the folks in Ottawa. They scared them half to death. We have to be realistic. We have to accept the facts. The fact is that we get most of our money from Ottawa. The facts are that we are extremely vulnerable to cutbacks. We have been told that the transfer payments will be frozen and cut back over the course of the next three years.

I turned on the TV. I watch TV. I love it. I watched a program in which the Prime Minister gave a speech to some Canadians who were paying attention to what he had to say, unlike the side opposite. He made the comment that, in effect, social assistance was being abused and we had to get these people out to work. They could not be sitting around drinking beer and watching TV all day. That is what the Prime Minister said. That, coming from a Liberal, is something new. I bet there is a bunch of people who dropped their beer bottles as soon as he said that. One could hear them smashing to the floor all over Canada. Did Mr. Chretien say that? Tough deal. This promise of work scared them half to death.

We look at his budget -

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

I am sorry, I am being heckled by Ms. Commodore - I believe that is her name - Ms.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

Yes, apparently I said something in my speech to the Yukon Council on Aging about people drinking in the 60 Below. She wants me to take that back. I am sure that nobody drinks at the 60 Below. I am sure that they do not. I am sure that nobody spends any of their welfare money on booze. I am sure of that.

Actually, I am sure of the opposite. I know there are people who abuse the system and use the money for beer. This must be terribly shocking to the Member, but I am sure that, if she asks around, she will find this is quite true.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

Yes, I mentioned the Sixty Below, but I mentioned the KK, as well. What is this, some kind of allegation that I am being mean to the patrons of the Sixty Below? What a convoluted thought process. It is a very interesting one. Perhaps, under the old guidelines of the previous government, we could get an economic development grant to study that thought process. Let us lend money to a business to study this thought process - if one suggests anything at all, however factual, really the message is that

Page Number 2262

one is just picking on someone.

I guess it is time we all started paying attention to reality. As Yukoners, we ought to really understand the federal government's position regarding transfer payments. We had better also understand that a large portion of this budget we are looking at is capital and that a large portion of that budget is non-discretionary capital spending - the hospital, for a total of $47 million; the Shakwak Valley project. A lot of this money is one-time-only funding. When the hospital is built and when some of the highways projects are built, that money disappears.

We on this side believe in the private sector. We believe that one has to be very judicious in balancing the operation and maintenance budget with the capital budget, because we do not think that everything that is done in the territory has to be done by government workers. We just do not believe that. For example, we do not feel that it is prudent to try to kill off the private entrepreneurs and wipe out the road builders, contractors and construction companies. We just do not think that that is the way to go.

I understand that that upsets the NDP. I understand that they hate big business and that they hate private enterprise. However, somebody should try to explain to them - although, undoubtedly, they will be unsuccessful - that a lot of their supporters work for those construction companies. In fact, some of them hire union workers, some hire carpenters, some hire plumbers and electricians. If it ever sinks in, they might understand that the private sector ought to have an important role to play in the future of the Yukon.

We are now seeing, in the second year of our mandate, a government that has had the gumption to stand up to the critics, to take control of the waste and reduce it, and talk to the NGOs - who used to be the tail wagging the dog - as the NDP support group, and tell them how much money they wanted and not to dare tell them how to spend it, either.

We are rationalizing. We are rationalizing the way the non-government organizations are being contracted with, and we are rationalizing and ensuring that there is accountability for money we are spending. A lot of the things we have been doing have not been very popular. We are pretty tough, and we did a lot of it as a minority government. The result is that, after one year, we went from a $64 million deficit to a balanced budget, and we are going to go ahead and pay off the accumulated deficit over the course of the next two or three years and we are going to be in a position to deal with the exigencies of what is going on right now between the provinces and territories and the ministers of finance.

There is no question in the minds of the provincial ministers regarding the intentions of Ottawa to cut back the transfer payments. There is a great deal of concern and fear and apprehension in the minds of ministers about that. I know, because I correspond and communicate with those ministers.

We owe it to the people of the Yukon to ensure that we act responsibly to ensure that we do not put ourselves in the kind of position that NDP governments so often do - that we do not break the government, that we do not end up being in a position where we have to sell off assets, tap into the workers' compensation fund. I think that was one of the things the NDP, at their convention, was insisting upon - "Oh, just take this money on behalf of the workers and invest wisely."

"How are you going to invest it?"

"Just like we have all the other money that we put into the private sector of the Yukon. All those business have gone broke - the pig farm, the egg farm, this thing, that thing. But no problem. It will be a great investment for the working stiff."

Laurel and Hardy would not be better to listen to and watch. That is money that the side opposite is bound and determined is part of our surplus, as a government. We took steps to ensure that that would be protected for the workers, that it would not be invested by the clowns across the way, that this money would be invested prudently in foreign companies, or companies outside of the jurisdiction, at least, in blue-chip companies - those hated companies - the companies the side opposite just despises. Government bonds - not Yukon bonds but Government of Canada or some of the provinces - some of the safe provinces. I guess Ontario would not qualify now, but of course it has been under the NDP reign for a while, so it is not a very good place to live.

My in-laws live there and they have been out of work; they have been having a tough time. Of course, they are tradespeople, not the type of people who are supported by NDP governments or the side opposite.

Their friends are all having tough times in Ontario, and what is the reason? The reason is due to the government going broke by squandering money. That is what happened in Ontario and that is what is happening in Saskatchewan. The rhetoric that floats across the floor, from the side opposite, is amazing to me.

We hear from the side opposite about the terrible liquor store in Watson Lake, and yet during Question Period I suggested, "Hey, it was you guys who put the liquor store into the five-year plan." They said, "Yeah, but we did not cut any money from the non-government organizations."

Well, they cannot have it both ways. It was their idea and their vision to build that building. They put it in the five-year plan, not us. We followed through with the plan. Part of the reason, and perhaps the main reason, that we followed through, unfortunately for them, was to put people to work in Watson Lake. Of course, it was the private sector that put those people to work. The private sector building the building must be anathema to those people opposite - the NDP crowd.

The fact is, that it was an economic stimulant, through the private sector, at a time when an economic stimulant was needed. That is why we did it. We did not think that the NDP would object, because it was their idea in the first place to put this into the five-year plan.

I want to talk a bit about the departments that I am fortunate enough to be the Minister for. I want to say that I am very pleased with the good work that has been done by the people within those departments.

The Health and Social Services people, from top to bottom, have worked extremely hard. They are certainly pleased to have some clear direction for a change. The sense that I have is that we are getting that department firmly under control. We have been able to take money that was wasted and redirect it to where it is needed.

We will be announcing and talking about the SARs agreement, which involves a huge amount of training and work-related experience for people who had nothing. There was nothing before we came into office. We can talk about vast improvements to our family violence facility and the work that is going on there. We can talk about better coordination and consultation than ever before between, for example, the RCMP and other agencies that deal with family violence.

We can talk about improvements to victim services, as opposed to victim giveaways. We can talk about improved counselling and training that is being initiated throughout the Yukon by this department. We have been filling gaps, where gaps have been identified. We intend to enhance social programs by dealing with them and delivering them in a way that makes good sense, that is effective and efficient. We do not believe in simply throwing money at problems, which seemed to be the modus operandi of the previous administration.

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In Justice, we have held the line. We are taking some hard steps to get things under control. At the same time, there has been a refocus in that department and in the social services side of Health and Social Services with regard to looking at crime prevention as a top priority, in both departments. We are looking at dealing with kids at risk and having the police interact with communities. All of our programs are being redirected to try to ensure that we are doing things that will prevent crime and reduce cost, so that we can have money to help those most in need, so we can have money to help build self-esteem among the downtrodden, who remained downtrodden under the previous administration. There are good things happening in these departments. Our social services programs are actually on the increase. The things we are doing to help people are increasing, not decreasing, even though many of the new innovative methods by which we approach some of these problems are being financed out of the waste that was so horrific under the previous administration.

The Yukon Development Corporation - it is interesting to listen and hear all the accusations that are made about the Yukon Development Corporation and the Yukon Energy Corporation. The Leader of the Official Opposition likes to stand up and call it the Yukon Electrical Corporation, but that, once again, not any surprise to us, is a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue in the minds of the public, to try to have some of them think that it is Yukon Electrical Company Ltd., rather than the Yukon Energy Corporation. That does not surprise us here. What does surprise me, is when I listen to the Minister of Finance get up and say things about the Yukon Development Corporation that are absolutely wrong. No facts. Look at Hansard. The Minister...I meant the critic.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

A hollow victory. Hey, we really lost that. Oof. Oof. Geez, hit us again. God, I tell you, Hollyfield never had it this tough. That is a real zinger, boy; that is an NDP zinger. "Hey, ya got the name wrong".

I had a trained seal that did better than that; he was able to balance the ball.

Let me just do a quote here - this is from Hansard, April 19, 1994. Mr McDonald was saying, "What we have here are some write-offs that include some $2.4 million to pay for Curragh's energy charges prior to their unfortunate demise. That $2.4 million is a one-time debt by the company for electrical energy. Now they are saying that the taxpayers of this territory must pay for it. This is an energy charge the taxpayers have to pay for while the Yukon Energy Corporation is sitting on close to $30 million of accumulated profit." That is wrong - Waylon Jennings had a song about that. The facts are that the $2.4 million loan to Curragh has not been written off. In fact, that $2.4 million loan is now the subject matter of a lien that is filed against the property. All of this is in the courts. With regard to the close to $30 million of accumulated profit - wrong. It is like the Gong Show listening to these people - gong.

The actual fact is that the audited financial statements for 1993 show that the Yukon Energy Corporation has an accumulated profit of $6.1 million - that is a far cry from $30 million. There is an allegation that we have not been spending any money in the corporation. Since inception, the Yukon Energy Corporation total profits are $41.5 million and the total capital improvements are $3 million. A lot of the money that was actually earned by the corporation was siphoned off - $11 million from the books to the Watson Lake sawmill - a great investment for the ratepayers. So where is the money? Gone. Or is it gonged? We will have to work up a little routine for this. This is good family fun, except that the poor breadwinners of the family are faced with paying rates for electrical energy that are way higher than they should be because the money was squandered on socialist objectives that made no sense whatsoever. Gong. We have Mr. Gong over there - the MLA for Faro. Good stuff.

I must say that since we, as a government, have taken over the administration and management of the Yukon Development Corporation, the first thing that we did was stop these horrendous grants and loans of money that properly should have been spent on energy infrastructure or paid back to the people by way of rate relief. That is the first thing that we did. We have developed policies that ensure an arm's-length relationship between government and the corporation, for the first time. In the past, the Minister responsible was over there almost every day trying to give money away to such folks as Totem Oil - good old Yukon boys, you know.

It is a loan in American dollars, and the security is in America. Only the NDP in the Yukon, you say? Pity.

Speaker:

Order please. The Member has three minutes to conclude his remarks.

Hon. Mr. Phelps:

We look forward to continuing in our endeavour to bring a little bit of realism to the budget and to the governance of this territory. We recognize that we have had to take measures that were unpopular. We have done it not to get votes, but for the good of the territory. I am sure people in the territory know and appreciate that. I believe in the future of the Yukon. I believe that the way we are going is the right way. I believe that prosperity is around the corner. The difference between the past and the present is that we are taking steps to ensure that prosperity, as it comes, will be spread among people in the Yukon as never before, that those weak and under-privileged, who were not able to take advantage of past booms, will be trained, ready, willing and able to take advantage of this one. For those reasons, I commend this budget to everyone in this House, although I know the NDP would not vote for it, no matter how good it was.

Mr. Harding:

I do not want to interrupt the chest thumping of the Members opposite. Their knuckles drag the ground and romp around the benches over there whenever the Member for Ross River/Southern Lakes gets up to give one of his rhetorical speeches. There was not one statistic or fact in it anywhere. That is okay.

I could not help but think, as I was listening to him, that he has really lost it. He said that he likes to watch TV. However, I think he has gone too far. He has become a TV character from a series. That series has to be the Twilight Zone. He has absolutely nothing to say that has any reflection on reality. He has entered another dimension in his speeches. He keeps repeating those three words every time he gets up: Watson Lake sawmill. Everything else is just socialist rhetoric dogma that he always professes the Members opposite espouse, but he has such a selective memory. He should read the budget every now and then. He should keep control of his Ministers and read the budget.

The budget for the Department of Economic Development, for example, says that in 1994, under the business development fund, loans are increasing. Every year, over two budgets, they have been increasing. This is amazing as he was complaining so much about the NDP giving loans to businesses. What is the reality check?

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mr. Harding:

Oh, the Government Leader says that he collects them back. I saw a Yukon Party resolution about the collection of loans and looked at a statement given to us last year by the Members opposite about loans that were not collected. Pray tell, the numbers were still large. Then I looked at the economic development agreement. My goodness, that has risen, too - over $1 million since the NDP was in power.

What is going on here? The rhetoric does not match the actions

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or the numbers in the budgets. We are getting used to that, because reality does not matter. These guys are living in the most ideological happy land that there ever has been for a Tory government. They have all kinds of money. Their pockets are stuffed with taxpayers' money because they helped themselves to it. They can espouse about the virtues of conservativism, while, at the same time, they spend record budgets. It is amazing.

The Minister talked about the reality of the situation. He talked about what was going on nationally. He talked about provinces. I do not know, but I think perhaps the Minister fancies himself a premier or a leader of a province, because this is not a province; it is a territory. While I recognize what is going on in other jurisdictions, this is the Yukon, and I am paid to question the decisions made in the Yukon Territory by the Yukon government.

I look at what is in the Yukon budget. I also look at the federal budget, but I am not asking questions of Paul Martin right now. I am asking questions of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health and Social Services of the Yukon Territory.

It seems that the Yukon Party, or the independent Member of the Yukon Party, has picked up on a national theme of financial problems for provinces. There is no question that there are some provinces in trouble. Poor old Roy Romanow inherited that Conservative dogma-plagued government that Grant Devine had - billions of dollars in debt - and he had to try and do something with it. Thankfully, all the governments in Ontario, Saskatchewan and B.C. have the gross domestic product and employment on the way up, whereas we, plagued by the socialist dogma of years past, according to the Members opposite, have unemployment on the way up and GDP on the way down - ever since they came to power. Why is that?

Even though, on one side, they say that they have things well in hand, the reality check tells us that, as a direct result of what they are doing and not doing in this economy, even though they are pumping more money out in loans and grants, it is having a detrimental effect. That still does not stop the Minister of Justice from standing up and talking about the NDP giving money away - even though the Yukon Party gives more money away. They gave so much away, and the party was so upset with them, that they passed a resolution at the convention this weekend that they should get some of the money back that they have been giving out in grants. I read the resolution, and it was amazing.

I know the Minister did not have time for speech-writing, because I saw him being fetched when the Finance critic scored point after point. The House Leader said, "Let us make sure we get Willard down here, because he is losing big time." So, he went up and got the Minister to come down and give his standard spin-doctored speech.

One thing he said that really caused me some problem was his discussion about the tail wagging the dog and the NGOs. He characterized them as having nothing constructive to do in society and just being a vacuum for money. In reality - we go back to the reality check, again - that was the Minister who used to stand up in Opposition and argue that government spending on NGOs should rise in relation to the overall size of government spending. The government's budget should reflect in the NGOs' budgets, and there should be increases relative to what the NGOs get.

What has happened? The former Opposition Member is now in government, and his memory has faded. However, we have a beautiful thing here, and it is called Hansard. Every now and then, we pull these little gems out of Hansard. Last year, when the subject of NGOs came up, we proved to the Minister that he, in fact, took a very different approach to the NGOs when he was in Opposition and actually lobbied the Government of the Yukon of the day for increases relative to the size of the increases in spending in the government's budget. Miraculously, that has changed. Now, the NGOs are characterized as nothing more than a New Democratic socialist, dogmatic, doctrinaire principle that we poured money into. What he said was despicable.

I believe that non-governmental organizations have an important function to play in society. As they pour more money into the chambers of commerce, as opposed to the non-governmental organizations, it becomes more and more apparent how empty his words are.

The Minister of Justice also talked about the permitting stage that mines are in. People cannot eat permits. Permits are not jobs and permits do not always lead to jobs. I am pleased that there are some mines in the permitting stage, but I do not think that the government should hang their hats on that, and they have. However, that is not unusual because they take a totally inactive approach to anything in the economy, except spending more money. This government has presented two record budgets in a row.

Where does this government direct its money? Well, we are not sure how much track has been laid on the railroad to Carmacks yet. We do not know how many pipes for the pipeline to Watson Lake have been laid yet. The government sure has not been spending money on the grandiose infrastructure promises they made. No sir, not one element of the document, Toward Self-Sufficiency by the 21st Century, has been completed - nothing. Time is getting short for this bunch.

The Minister of Justice speaks often about getting thrown out of office and I realize that he has some close personal experience with that situation, but I really think that he should start to take a look at what they are doing and be judged on his government's record. The time for growing up has come for that Minister. The time for reflection on his own policies and what he is doing has come.

Unfortunately, I do not think that lesson will come for another couple of years.

The Minister also said that he is not saying the economy is great, that it could be better. I just listened to a 25-page speech on how we are in a decade of prosperity, and how the way is being paved. I do not see that, and I know my constituents do not see that, not in any way, shape or form. There is no decade of prosperity. Let us be realistic.

I would also like to talk about the economy in an optimistic fashion, but I want to see some indicators that point to reality. It is one thing to spin off a phrase, so you can put it in a budget speech and have all your Cabinet colleagues thump their chests and drag their knuckles on the ground as it is being read; however, there are people in this territory who are in no decade of prosperity, nor even close to one. They do not see one coming at all.

The Minister raved on about Curragh, and what an evil thing Curragh was. Curragh was also not my favourite company. For one who claims we are the ones who hate corporations, the Minister speaks of corporations with such evil and anger. It is incredible that he would make the claim that we do not like them, when he gives 10 minutes of a tirade about how much he hates a particular corporation.

I ask that man to look in the mirror, or to tape himself when he speaks, or perhaps to read Hansard, so he can realize what is coming out of his mouth. That company did a lot of good for this territory. Gross Domestic Product and jobs were available, businesses flourished.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mr. Harding:

The Minister of Tourism is now pointing out that Curragh left a lot of people hanging out. I make no bones about the fact that Curragh did leave a lot of people in the lurch. They did not pay off my constituents, and they did not pay off a lot of businesses, but let us look at both sides of the equation. Let us not

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personalize it down to Curragh. Let us look at the economic benefit of what was created. If it was not Curragh, it does not matter to me. It is irrelevant. If it was another corporation, that is fine.

Let us look at what the mine did for this territory. If they do not want to refer to it as Curragh, that is fine. I also had a lot of problems with Curragh. I bargained against them, for God's sake. I know a lot about them.

Some Hon. Member:

(Inaudible)

Mr. Harding:

The Minister of Tourism says I now agree with Mr. Phelps. I do not know. I would agree with the Minister to the extent that I do have some problems with what Curragh did, but I do not think I would consider them to be the all-evil persona the Minister likes to espouse.

Another thing that struck me in the Minister's speech was when he talked about the loan guarantee and how the socialists were pumping for more money for Curragh, their buddies. Cliff Frame and I spent a lot of time driving around in a limousine, and all that stuff. What a ridiculous statement.

I have talked to the man once in my life. It is absolutely, pure and simple, rhetoric. But when there was a protest of my constituents in here, and they were asking the government some questions about its position and what it was going to do, the Minister of Justice made a bunch of statements about "Faroites should not be doing this, and should not be doing that", and I told my constituents that. The Minister of Justice got all insulted and he got on the radio the next day and said, "I support the loan guarantee for the people of Faro and to keep those jobs going. I support the loan guarantee; I have always supported the guarantee." That was the day after the protest, on the 12:30 CBC news. He should read that.

Now he stands up in the Legislature and talks about all the socialists who were promoting the guarantee. Yet, when he got a little bit of what he considered to be public embarrassment, he got on the radio harping to the people of my community about how he really did support the loan guarantee. That is two messages, once again. It proves that if one just puts a little bit of pressure on that particular Member, he will take the politically convenient path in determining his response.

Of course, there is the $64 million phantom deficit. He said that we are calling the Auditor General's figures into question. The Au