Lauren McKeon
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 26, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Two-day-long, closed-door roundtable discussions on Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger's revenue options wrapped up Wednesday afternoon with representatives from over 30 organizations in attendance at the Yk Inn.

"We have a group of people here that don't normally gather around a table to drink coffee, chew the fat as it were," said Miltenberger.

Groups taking part ranged from business associations to aboriginal groups and included the NWT Chamber of Commerce, the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities and the Territorial Farmers Association, to name a small few.

The Union of Northern Workers was also in attendance after originally being left off the invite list and later lobbying to be included.

A range of agreed opinions were posted in marker on a flip-board behind Miltenberger.

The first agreement read: "Value for money. GNWT needs to build trust (with) taxpayers."

And the second: "GNWT should act more open to partnerships with NGOs, industry, aboriginal government, corporations and communities."

"We're going to try and take that and polish it up and present it to the public and the MLAs ... so that people can see what was discussed here," said Miltenberger

"There wasn't a lot of clear discussion on going through the booklet tax by tax. The discussion was somewhat broader than that," he added.

Those broader points included values, marketing, increasing revenues, programs that the government delivers, value for money and "what is it about the North that we are not telling people that would encourage them to stay here," he said.

Some consensus was reached, he said. "There was general consensus on the need to build the economy ... and to increase in a very careful way our population."

One of those ways was to get "fly-in and fly-out" employees that work in the North, but don't live here, to move up. Another was to get territorial sponsorship for an immigration program.

"It's all based on population," said Don Yamkowy of the NWT Chamber of Commerce, who noted his organization doesn't want taxes at all.

"The more population, the more money you could get ... and that would help the revenue shortfall that the government is in right now," he explained.

"There's a lot of Northerners that are leaving. Why are they leaving? They're leaving because there's a cost of living differential that is too wide right now," the past chamber president added.

For another attendee, plugging the $30 to $40 million hole all comes down to looking at spending money wisely.

"For the last few years we had heard that the GNWT was in a surplus then all of the sudden they're looking for revenue options," said Terry Villeneuve, president of the Native Women's Association in the NWT. "I got the impression that maybe they're not in as good shape as they told they public they were in."

Full public disclosure of the meeting's results will not be given until the budget address in February 2009, Miltenberger said.