Some MLAs doubt N.W.T. gov'ts plan to find savings from within
CBC
Some MLAs are casting doubt on the N.W.T. government's ambitious, and rather amorphous, plan for evaluating programs, and whether it will meaningfully improve the territory's finances.
"I just can't see it resulting in the kinds of significant and fundamental fiscal changes that are needed to put the [Northwest Territories government] on a more sustainable path," said Frame Lake MLA Kevin O'Reilly of the so-called Government Renewal Initiative.
Under the initiative, officials are inventorying departments' programs and services, and evaluating them for a better understanding of their costs and benefits.
In theory, the data collected will inform future budgets by helping the government determine where its money can make the greatest impact.
But in practice, the exercise is taking longer than expected. Plus, with no reported target other than to "measure the success," as a Finance spokesperson put it, of programs and services, the project has some MLAs skeptical it will result in significant savings.
In the legislature last month, Yellowknife North MLA Rylund Johnson said looking for savings that don't involve cuts to programs and services was a "noble," yet unrealistic goal.
"We need to be talking about tens of millions of dollars, and I'm not convinced there are easy, magical efficiencies or pots of money to be found by scrutinizing government budgets," he said.
"If there were, I think we would have found them already."
Meanwhile, Canada's inflation rate is spiking and the N.W.T.'s debt is ballooning.
The territory is projected to exceed its borrowing limit of $1.8 billion in four to five years, and it's not a sure thing that the federal government will increase it.
In October of 2020, while reeling from the initial economic shocks of COVID-19, Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek pitched the Government Renewal Initiative as an effort to help course-correct the territory's finances.
The government would take stock of everything it's doing, and then rethink how it allocates its cash.
Instead of incrementally increasing or decreasing departments' budgets each year, money should be handed out based on "how effectively programs and services give value to residents," she said at the time.
This week, Wawzonek elaborated on this plan.
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