Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Friday, January 26, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - In anticipation of the federal budget, NWT Finance Minister Floyd Roland says what's bad for some provinces could be good for the Territories.

Roland was referring to a tentative equalization scheme in which the formula calculating transfer payments to provinces would include 50 per cent of a province's resource revenues. If the formula was used against NWT own-source revenue, it could mean millions more for the Territories' coffers.

"Right now, our own-source revenue which is tax based, is what's counted (in the territorial formula finance equation)," said Roland. "What we're saying is if we got a 50 per cent exclusion, that would mean they could only claw back on 50 per cent of our revenues."

Last summer, the Expert Panel on Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing released a report which recommended the federal government claw back 70 per cent of the NWT's own-source revenue. Under the current scheme, the NWT keeps scant pennies on each revenue dollar it generates.

But with the proposed Conservative scheme - that backtracks on Stephen Harper's election promise not to include resource revenues in calculating transfer payments - Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and Alberta would be hit hardest.

This week, premiers from these provinces were lobbying hard for Stephen Harper's government to reverse this stance.

Another item the NWT finance minister hopes the federal government will address in its budget is infrastructure. Roland said it would be nice to see some federal dollars earmarked for completing a highway through the Mackenzie Valley or a bridge across the Mackenzie River.

Brendan Bell, Industry Tourism and Investment minister, agreed.

"Whether it's money for a road up the valley or a bridge, it would certainly be welcomed," said Bell.

"It's not an infrastructure gap between Northern territories and southern provinces, it's a chasm," he said.

Hints that a spring election could happen due to a vote against the federal budget are holding little water in the capital, said Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington.

Bevington would like to see commitments on the environment, funding for aboriginals and rectifying the cuts to social programs in Harper's new budget.

"I think the Conservatives need to show some support for aboriginal people across the country (and) they need to return some of the things they so recklessly cut last year," he said.

"Cutting literacy and money to status of women councils were cuts they really didn't have to make and I'd like to see something that would replace those."