Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 24/99) - GNWT Finance Minister Charles Dent maintains government job cuts are not the answer to the potential deficit.

Asked if there are plans to cut jobs, Dent said there is no concrete plan.

"At this point, to say we are looking at cutting staff is premature," he said.

"I really don't believe there's enough left to cut," Dent said last Thursday.

The number of GNWT workers has declined 36 per cent in the last three years -- to 4,059 in 1999-2000 from 6,332 in 1996-97 (see chart). The number of job losses in the West due to division was not readily available.

Dent said if job numbers go any lower, there will be an issue of service delivery.

Dent said government departments have been asked to bring options for economizing forward in January to the new government.

The GNWT recently updated its fiscal picture and is predicting operating deficits -- when expenditures exceed revenues -- of $34 million, $61 million, and $89 million over the fiscal years to 2001-2002.

If nothing changes through fiscal 2001-2002, the GNWT will have an accumulated deficit of $166 million (yearly deficits minus an accumulated surplus of $18 million on the books for fiscal 1999-2000).

"The only answer is to find more revenues," he said. "We can't cut $60 million (in jobs)."

One main source for more revenues could be the federal government.

The GNWT is attempting to gain control over more of the money generated by NWT resources.

Dent said government will know more in first-quarter 2000 -- after an intergovernmental forum -- on whether or not it will be able to convince Ottawa to make changes.

At the forum, one of the issues to be discussed is more control and ownership over NWT resources. But, cautions Dent, without a consensus, asking for more control is unrealistic.