NDP focuses on funding

Bevington calls for new financing agreement

Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 01/00) - The North needs a new deal with the federal government says NDP candidate Dennis Bevington.

Bevington said one of his first priorities would be to call for a change to the agreement that defines how much money the territorial government gets from the federal government each year.

Dennis Bevington

"With our current formula financing agreement, the Liberals claw back 80 per cent of any new revenue that the GNWT generates," said Bevington Sunday as he unveiled the NDP's Northern economic platform.

"This allows the federal government to exploit the natural resources of the North while keeping our public government in a state of welfare dependency."

The financing agreement is used to calculate the annual grant the federal government provides the GNWT. By far the largest source of GNWT revenue, during the 2000-01 grant is expected to amount to $513.6 million, 68.3 per cent of total revenue.

Bevington used the revenues anticipated from the Diavik mine to illustrate his point about the claw back.

Diavik is expected to generate $28 million per year in royalties to the GNWT. Taking into consideration the reduction in grants that would trigger, the net benefit to the NWT would be $5.1 million annually. The clawback increases the federal government's share from $116 million to $140 million per year.

Representation an issue

Though the focus on Sunday was finances, earlier in the week Bevington said he believes the main issue in any election is representation.

"Traditionally, across the country, when we have a Liberal government in the province we tend to send the opposite to the House of Commons so we can work both sides of the fence.

"If we've got a Liberal government in Yellowknife, and there's every indication that there are many Liberals in the government of the Northwest Territories, then it's maybe in our best interests to have an opposition Member of Parliament."

The former mayor of Fort Smith said an opposition MP could speak more freely about Northern issues than a member of the government bound by party discipline and cabinet solidarity. "Putting all your eggs in one basket a very very dangerous thing to do."