The committee met at 12:20 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m very excited that we are all here together again. The first order is a presentation of the Budget 2018 consultation paper by the Hon. Carole James, Minister of Finance.

We’re very, very pleased to have you here, and thank you for putting the time into putting this together. We look forward to your questions.

Presentation by Minister of Finance

Hon. C. James: Thank you so much. I’m here with Rob Gillezeau, who is my ministerial assistant. He is going to run the clicker for me as we go through the presentation.

I want to just start by saying it feels very strange to be at this end of the table. I’m used to being a committee member for the last few years on this committee. I am looking forward to the work and the report that you bring forward to our ministry and to me as Minister of Finance. I’m also envious of the involvement on this committee, because it really is a wonderful opportunity to be able to see British Columbia. I know you won’t get the same kind of travel experience that some of us have because of the time that’s needed in the Legislature, but it is a wonderful way to get an overview of the province, and I think it will be enjoyable for everyone on this committee. So enjoy the time.

I just want to take a little bit of time to run through a few slides. I’m going to talk a little bit about B.C.’s economic outlook, a little bit about risks ahead so that we’re all aware of those, some of the budget specifics and investments that have been made just so everyone is aware of those, then the consultation questions that will come that will guide some of the work that you’re about to do and then give an opportunity for you to ask any questions that may come as well.

Starting off with the first slide — if you take a look at this slide. This slide focuses on the estimate for B.C.’s real GDP growth. You can see that the blue that says “budget” would have been the February budget that was put in place, and “Budget 2017 Update” is the September minibudget or budget update that was brought forward.

As you can see, the estimate in 2016 and the outlook for 2017 were certainly higher than what was projected in Budget 2017 that came out in February, as the economy has performed better than was expected. We’ve seen stronger than anticipated consumer spending. We’ve seen stronger export activity in the latter part of 2016. Those indicators really had to do with why you saw the upward revision to the ministry’s GDP estimate for 2016, from 3 percent up to 3.6 percent growth.

People have asked how things are going in 2017 and the indicator number that we have used there. As you would imagine, we’re most of the way through 2017, so that gives you a pretty good indication of where you’re going to end up in 2017.

The key indicators — everything from employment to retail sales, housing starts and exports — have continued to exceed expectations, which is why, as you can see from the number, we’re comfortable with the projection of 2.9 percent in 2017, higher again than was predicted in Budget 2017. But because we’re two-thirds of the way through the year, because we’re in a pretty good place, we are comfortable with the expectation that’s there.

Then the outlook for 2018 and beyond is unchanged from the February budget. These numbers were the same numbers that were there in the February budget that came forward. Again, that’s because the risks really remain unchanged from the predictions that were there in February with the previous government’s budget that came forward. There’s no change there.

Just a note on the slide. I’m sure everybody on this committee is aware, but just to put it on the record again because it often gets asked about. People have asked what happened to the surplus. In 2016, as you know, there was a $2.7 billion surplus.

[12:25 p.m.]

As I said, I’m sure everyone on this committee knows this, but the balanced-budget legislation that is in place requires that the surplus goes towards the operating debt. So that surplus was put towards the operating debt, which will probably, depending on how the economy does over the next number of years, move up the ability to pay off that operating debt a year ahead of what was predicted back in February, in the February budget.

The next slide speaks to economic forecasting. Again, if you take a look at this slide, you can see the blue bar is the estimate from the Economic Forecast Council, and the black bar is the Ministry of Finance. In continuing on with the approach that has been utilized, we have been prudent in our forecast for B.C.’s real GDP growth compared to what the Economic Forecast Council predicts.

You can see our outlook for 2017 is 0.1 percent lower than the forecast council, and in future years, we’ve built in 0.2 percentage points of prudence. Again, this is just that with the unknowns and with the risks coming ahead, we want to make sure that we’re building on the cautious side of the Economic Forecast Council, taking into account, obviously, all of their information, which is there. But we believe, again, in being prudent, making sure that we remain and keep B.C. in a strong economic position, as is needed.

I want to talk a little bit about the risk to the fiscal plan. As I said earlier in the slides, B.C. certainly continues to be in an enviable position. We are expected to be at the top end of growth when it comes to other provinces. Alberta is growing quickly as well, but B.C. has continued to be strong and is expected to continue to be strong. That’s an outlook going forward.

There are some risks to the fiscal plan, and I think it’s important…. And I think, in fact, part of B.C.’s strength is that we don’t shy away from being upfront about the risks that are there to the budget. That’s important. It’s important for people to recognize the risks that are out there, some of them in our control, some of them not in our control.

I think the wildfires…. I don’t need to tell anyone around this table the challenge that that created in this year’s budget that came forward in September — obviously with an additional amount of money that had to be put in the budget. But more importantly, on the wildfires, is the risk long term and the challenges long term. This is not a short-term fix. As you know, this is going to be long-term impacts, whether it’s fibre supply, whether it’s long-term remediation, support for businesses or otherwise. This is something that we wanted to make sure is listed as a risk because of the challenges that could be there in the short and long term.

Financial sustainability of ICBC. I’m sure all of you have heard the Attorney General speak to the real challenges, the crisis that ICBC is facing. You’ll know that there was a report that came out that identified a number of pieces that need to be acted on. The Attorney is moving ahead on those pieces, and there will be actions in place, but it is still a huge risk to the fiscal plan of this province. The debt that is being carried by ICBC, the solvency of that organization, is something that we need to continue to pay attention to.

Softwood lumber and NAFTA. Again, I probably don’t need to go into details. We continue to utilize the U.S. as one of our largest trading partners. It will be a challenge, depending on what occurs. I’m a little more optimistic about softwood, but I think NAFTA will play into all of that. Whether they’ll even want to settle softwood while the NAFTA debate is going on is a question, and how involved the government and the President will get involved in this I think is a risk that certainly is important for us to put up there.

The new compensation mandate. This, again, is something that is important to acknowledge. The existing compensation mandate doesn’t run out till 2019, but you start doing that work in 2018. Again, that’s just a piece that we’ll add that needs to be built into the budget, so I think it’s important to acknowledge it and to recognize that that’s a piece that will need to be looked at.

Increasing interest rates. Again, this is a challenge that we could face. We’ve seen an increase that we didn’t expect. One was expected; we didn’t expect two that would be coming. So that’s entirely possible that we could face that. Just for people’s knowledge, a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates has a fiscal impact of $58 million in debt-servicing costs. That’s, again, significant for us to pay attention to when we’re taking a look at the fiscal plan.

[12:30 p.m.]

Then global economic uncertainty. I mentioned the U.S. and the issues of trade. The U.S. economy is slightly lower than expected. The performance is slightly lower than expected as we’ve moved into this year, and that’s obviously going to have an impact.

China, as well, is transitioning to slower growth. Now, I say that with a bit of tongue in cheek, because slower growth for China is still well above anybody else’s growth numbers. So when you’re talking about moving from double digits down to about 6.5 percent, which is what is predicted for this year for China, that is slowing down for China — much larger, obviously, than anywhere else.

Japan, again, has seen just modest growth, and labour issues are a huge issue because of demographics in Japan. That continues to be a real challenge and a real drag on their economy, so that’s going to have an impact.

Then, of course, the eurozone — the unknowns, Brexit. The exit of the U.K. is still something that…. What will happen with the European Union and what impact that has on our trade and, therefore, on our economy is another risk as well.

That just gives you a bit of an overview of the kinds of areas that we’re watching over the next while.

I know this is hard to read on a slide. Hopefully you can read it from your deck, and you’ve probably all gone through this anyway, since it’s part of the budget.

As you can see, these are the specifics of the three-year fiscal plan. The numbers here on surplus…. Just so people recognize that the surpluses are maintained over the fiscal period, as you can see, and they’re very comparable to the February budget that came in this year as well.

The February budget, just for your comparators, had surplus amounts of $295 million in year 1, $244 million in year 2 and $223 million in year 3. So you can see they’re very comparable here: $246 million, $228 million and $257 million. Very comparable to what we saw in February.

There are a number of pressures that have been built into this budget. I mentioned the fires, $660 million in fire management and emergency programming. That’s over and above the spending that was in the February budget. This had to be added in.

Again, we’ve maintained prudence. I talked about prudence in the growth projections, but we have also maintained prudence in this three-year fiscal plan. As you can see, there are contingencies built in here — $600 million for this year, $300 million next year and $350 million.

Now I just want to speak for a moment about the contingency for this year and why it appears larger than the other two upcoming years. That’s really to do with transition in government. This happened previously, with the previous transition back in 2001. When a new government comes in and when new programs and services are put in place, there are some unknowns. There are some unknowns around demand on programs and services.

New programs, when they come into place, don’t have a record of the kinds of demands that are there on the program. The example I’ll give you is adult basic education. We announced that in August. The enrolment starts in September, so it’s hard to know what the pressures will be on that enrolment.

We built in a larger contingency in this first budget update in order to be able to manage those kinds of unknowns that are there. That obviously would then roll into your second-year budget and your third-year budget. But that’s been built in just to make sure that we’re able to manage anything that might come up that is an unknown currently, because of new programs coming in.

Taxpayer-supported capital spending is comparable, again, to Budget 2017. The only addition in the taxpayer-supported capital spending, when it comes to spending capital, is the $500 million in new housing initiatives over three years. That’s additional dollars that are coming in.

Then self-supported capital spending no longer includes, as all of you know, the George Massey Tunnel replacement project, since procurement has been cancelled on that project. So that’s the change that you see around commercial Crown capital spending, by $2.4 billion, over this time period. That’s related to the procurement for the George Massey.

Then, just to speak, for a moment, to debt. The government’s debt track, as you can see, has a one-time shift — again, we’ve all talked about this — of $3.5 billion from self-supported to taxpayer supported. That’s due to the reclassification of the Port Mann Bridge after the tolls came off. When the tolls were there, it was seen as self-supporting rather than taxpayer supported, so that adds to the debt. But we continue to have a very low debt-to-GDP ratio, low and affordable, and the addition of the Port Mann added a 1.2 percentage point impact to this current year and the out year.

[12:35 p.m.]

Again, a very small impact but a very large impact when it comes to getting rid of tolls on the people in that region, obviously, and on affordability — but continues to maintain a very affordable debt.

If we just take a look now at the total new investments…. I know there’s been a lot of discussion — and I’ve heard this during the budget debate — about whether there was new spending or whether it was spending coming from the February budget. I think there is no question that when you’re preparing a budget update, as I said all along, you’re going to base it on the existing budgets that are there. But we did add additional spending to show our priorities and, as I said in the budget when I announced it, to take the first steps towards the kind of British Columbia that we believe will work for everyone.

This slide speaks to the $1.8 billion in new spending over three years, and it speaks to the three particular areas that we have set as priorities: improving affordability for families, enhancing services and supports that people rely on and building a strong and sustainable economy. You will see again in the budget that we have ensured that our key investments are under those three priority areas as areas that we believe were a priority for the public in British Columbia and therefore were reflected in the throne speech and in our budget.

Just to mention a few of those pieces, starting off with improving affordability. As you know, we’ve increased social assistance rates, both for income assistance as well as for people with disabilities, by $100 a month. That is on this cheque that comes this week for individuals — the first meaningful increase that’s happened in the last ten years.

It brings income assistance to $710 a month and disability assistance to $1,133 a month. Just so people who are interested in numbers…. That will directly benefit 190,000 British Columbians who receive social assistance — income assistance and disability assistance. So that’s a big piece. That was $472 million. As well, just to mention it — it will come up later — we’ve also increased the earnings exemption. I’ll talk a little bit about that when we talk about opportunity.

Housing. On our housing initiatives, there’s $208 million in capital spending over four years for specific-built rental housing that will remain as rental housing. The operating costs are only $3 million over the three years, because these will be run by not-for-profit societies. The operating costs will be covered through the rental income that comes in, and that will be part of the process as these units go out to build.

There was also $291 million in capital spending over two years to build the modular housing units. You will, again, have remembered this in the budget — $172 million to support the operating costs, which will include 24-7 staffing and support. Again, the challenge for many people, when we’re moving people off the street, is, of course, making sure the supports are in place so they can maintain their housing and we can maintain the support.

On the rental housing units, you’ll see those specifics come out over the next few months, but they’re going to be built in communities around the province. That will cover the Interior, the north, the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. So those are broad.

The next piece is commuting costs. That, again, speaks to the issue of tolls. I’ve mentioned the issue of tolls already. This is $497 million. That includes the cost for the Ministry of Transportation to fund the Port Mann Bridge. Just to mention it, the Golden Ears is owned by TransLink, so that’s a negotiation process. The money is in there for the first year that we’ve negotiated. We’ll then have to negotiate, and those dollars will come in the next couple of years of the budget.

Then MSP premiums by 50 percent…. Again, I’ve heard some of the members make mention of the 50 percent, that it was in the budget already. This proposal, in fact, cuts MSP premiums for everyone in our province by 50 percent. The previous government had set a target, a range, where the 50 percent would go, and in our examination of the proposal, it really, truly was unworkable because it would have required employers to take on managing the application process. It would have required individuals giving their personal tax information and their families’ personal tax information to their employers because the determination for income is based on family when it comes to MSP.

Also, whenever you put an application process in place, many people don’t apply, as we all know. As MLAs in our individual offices, you’ll get people in your office who didn’t know about this program or service. That tends to be low-income people and people who should be able to access the program and need it the most.

[12:40 p.m.]

Because our intent is to get rid of MSP in four years, we felt the cleanest way of doing it was to eliminate the premiums by 50 percent across the board. That will be something that happens January 1, and then, as I said, the budget will be putting in place an MSP expert panel to do work over the next few months to determine how to eliminate the rest of the MSP.

Enhancing services. Sorry, I’ll speed up a little bit. I know we’re going to run out of time here. To just give you a couple of pieces, increasing classroom resources…. Again, I’ve heard a number of people ask about the dollars that have gone into education. There’s $681 million on top of the money that was in the February budget. So this is new money. Again, these slides refer to new money that has gone into the budget, not money that was there in February.

So $681 million is a very large investment in education and really shows our government’s priority in this particular area. It will provide support not only for students in classrooms that they haven’t seen, but also will provide support for our economy over the short and long term.

Addressing the fentanyl emergency. Again, this money you will see in the Ministry of Health. We have a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions who provides the focus, the leadership, the direction. But the on-the-ground services continue to be provided by the Ministry of Health. That way you don’t end up with duplication. You don’t end up with overlap, which is really part of the problem you see now. You get the leadership. You get the direction from the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and the on-the-ground services will continue to be provided through the Ministry of Health and through the health authorities, as they’re provided now. But the direction will come from the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

We put money in, as you know, to new components and new funding for a number of specific areas to address the fentanyl crisis, to save lives, to focus on the people who need the support the most, to be able to provide help when people need it, with very targeted responses to those specific groups. We also added some additional money to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, which again is aimed at disrupting the drugs on the ground — providing the support to policing on the ground to disrupt and address the drug supply.

The issue of renters and landlords. As you know, we put money into the budget related to the residential tenancy branch. Again, probably most of you know that in your MLA offices, you receive many complaints about both landlords and tenants. They are waiting a long time to resolve disputes, which isn’t good for either of them. I think you saw this in some of the public comments that were made by both the landlords association and the tenants association. They felt this was a good move, because actually addressing these kinds of disputes needs to be done.

Then funding child care investments. I’m referring to the broad child care, so it includes the money that was there for child care spaces. That is being utilized. It also includes everything from wait-lists at the Ministry of Children and Families to dealing with the Grand Chief Ed John report.

New child care investments — as I mentioned, the child care spaces and the healthy kids program. We’re moving ahead on the healthy kids program. Those are resources that were put in the February budget that, again, are coming forward to be able to be addressed.

Then the last piece I just want to mention on this slide is the poverty reduction plan. There’s initial money put in to be able to address the poverty reduction plan and get that going.

Building on a strong and sustainable economy — again, this is really focused on providing opportunities for people. The government doesn’t see a difference between investing in people and investing in a strong economy. In fact, they need to go hand in hand. They are not either-or. When you see an investment in things like adult basic education and English language learning, that is an investment in the economy. That is an investment in opportunity, and it is a wise investment — to provide opportunities for people to be able to increase their skills, support their families and get back into the workplace or, perhaps, expand their opportunities in the workplace for all of us. So that’s a real strength.

Supporting communities impacted by the wildfires. I won’t run through all the specifics, but you know that there’s new money for capital that we put in — $15 million, which will provide support for buildings, for trailers, for air tanker bases and to expand the opportunity to improve wildfire bases around the province. And additional money for businesses who’ve been impacted — that was money that has been announced by our government.

[12:45 p.m.]

Supporting economic initiatives. I’ll give credit to our Green colleagues on this piece. There are a number of task forces and commissions that are coming into place that look at how we support the economy, short and long term.

An innovation commissioner, an emerging economy task force, a fair wages commission. Those three bodies will provide opportunities to look at our economy, short and long term, and help us be ahead of the curve, be able to look at the opportunities that are there, to look at how we as government put the conditions in place to be a leader when it comes to the emerging new economy, to make sure that we’re utilizing those investments in our province. It’s a very exciting perspective to have a government looking proactively at both the current economy and the future economy and the opportunities that will be there.

Improving tax fairness and competitiveness. We followed through on our commitments that we made in the election to increase the personal income tax rate for top income earners in our province. If you make more than $150,000, the tax bracket will go up on the amount that’s over $150,000, not on the first $150,000. That doesn’t change, but on the income over $150,000, the tax bracket will be increased.

We’re increasing the general corporate tax rate by 1 percentage point, which makes us competitive with Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We believe that remaining competitive is important, but we also believe that everyone should contribute because everyone benefits from the services and supports. Again, there’s a link between business and the economy and the programs and services.

I’m sure you’ve had the same conversations with many businesses. They have talked to me about the challenges of being able to recruit individuals because of the lack of affordable housing or the lack of trained employees or the lack of education that may be there or the lack of doctors in their community. Those are big issues that need to be addressed as an economic issue as well as a healthy communities issue.

As well, in that piece, as you know, we also took a look at small businesses. We’re decreasing the tax rate for small businesses — again, the engine of our economy — as well as reinstating the tax benefit for credit unions, which, again, is a piece for all of British Columbia but, more importantly, a piece for rural and small communities. Credit unions are often the only financial institution in small communities, and they’re often the lenders who small businesses are able to come to, to be able to access capital. Providing an opportunity for credit unions to be able to utilize more of their money to go out to communities is a good economic investment in both rural and urban B.C.

Climate action. Again, we are moving ahead on our commitment in the pan-Canadian framework to meet our target of $50 a tonne, which is a target for all of Canada, as you know. We will be there by 2021, which is a year ahead of the requirement in the agreement that was signed by all of the provinces.

We’re ending the revenue neutrality. We’re doing that for two reasons. One, to provide a larger benefit for low- and middle-income families. When it comes to the climate action credit, that will be increased by about 17 percent, which is the amount the carbon tax will go up. So there will be a link between providing support for low- and middle-income families and the carbon tax going up.

The second reason we’re ending the revenue neutrality is to ensure that we’re able to utilize those dollars for green initiatives. There will be a reporting out of how that happens and where those dollars are spent. But carrot and stick works, as people know. The tax is there to encourage people to change their behaviour. We need to give them the ability to be able to change their behaviour, with increases in transit, in retrofitting and those kinds of possibilities.

To summarize, this budget update certainly is a balanced path that puts people first, as you’ve heard me say. We believe that investing in people is investing in a better British Columbia and in a strong economy, and we believe these are the first steps.

Just to speak, for a moment, around the select standing committee. I probably don’t need to remind all of you, but you are, as part of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, recognized to go out and do this public consultation and to compile a report not later than November 15 on that consultation, which then gives an opportunity for myself, my staff and others to be able to take a look at what the public says are their priorities for the upcoming budget.

We’ve included in this budget consultation three open-ended questions for the public to take a look at. What are their top priorities? We focused these on the three areas that are priorities. “What are your top priorities to help make life more affordable in British Columbia? What service improvements should be given priority? What are your ideas, approaches and/or priorities for creating good jobs to build a sustainable economy in every corner of our province?”

[12:50 p.m.]

Thank you for your time. Thank you for the work you’re going to do on the committee. I look forward to the document and to hearing about the discussion.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Minister. We appreciate all the background and the questions.

We don’t have quite as much time for questions. We’ll do five minutes. Then if we have a little bit more time…. We were going to do ten minutes.

Hon. C. James: Sorry.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s fine.

I’ll open the floor to questions from members, if there are any questions for the minister.

T. Redies: Minister, thanks for your presentation.

As a former banker, I pay a lot of attention to the risk side of the equation. I’m just curious. You made a comment…. Well, first off, a general question. Is it your plan to maintain balanced budgets, regardless of changes that might happen in terms of interest rates, ICBC issues, etc.? Are you committed to addressing spending? How is that going to be managed?

Hon. C. James: Do you want to ask your next question? Then I’ll just do the two together.

T. Redies: My next question is more specific. You mentioned that a 1 percent increase in government debt and the interest rates would be $58 million. I’m trying to understand that. I think we’ve got about $48.8 billion. Do you mean one point?

Hon. C. James: Yes.

T. Redies: One basis point, not 1 percent.

Hon. C. James: Correct. Thank you for that correction.

On the issue of balanced budgets. Yes, we’re committed to balanced budgets. We put out a three-year plan, as you saw, which we believe is important. I don’t think anyone could ever say never. I think all of us saw what happened in the crash in 2008, when the previous government had to make a change to their balanced-budget legislation. They were required to do that because of the kind of economic situation. I think things are looking positive for the upcoming years, and that is the intention. It’s why you see a three-year plan built in here.

On the spending side, I think it’s important to recognize that there are a number of programs and services that are phased in over time, are not a total upfront cost in one year and in fact will move ahead. I’ll give you the example of a child care plan. A $10-a-day child care plan is a ten-year plan. That’s the plan that came forward from the experts. That’s a plan that could be implemented over a number of years. It could be implemented over a shorter period of time, depending on the economy and the ability of the budget.

I think, like everything, it’ll be about choices, it’ll be about setting priorities, and it’ll be about what we’re able to afford in the economy.

A. Olsen: Thank you for the report, Minister.

I just wanted to ask a question about the small business tax coming down to 2 percent. Would the government consider staging…? I think that’s below $500,000 or $400,000 or something. Once you get over that threshold, of course, it jumps pretty dramatically to 10 or 11 percent. One of the concerns that I have heard from small business is that, to a certain extent, this keeps business small.

Any entrepreneur that I know loves the growth of a business. How can we, perhaps, maybe stage that small business tax to encourage that business growth? So an entrepreneur can say…. Rather than maybe divest themselves or sell the business to somebody who wants to keep it small and start over again, grow it so we have small businesses turning into medium-sized businesses which have the opportunity to turn into big businesses.

Hon. C. James: Thank you for the question. I think you’ve identified a challenge that has been raised by businesses themselves around British Columbia and the investments we have in British Columbia. We don’t tend to jump to the next stage as often as other provinces do. We don’t see that same kind of investment. They get to a certain stage, and they leave for other jurisdictions.

It’s a piece that certainly needs to be looked at, and I appreciate the feedback. I’m sure we’ll hear, as well, through the task force on the emerging economy, that issue. I also expect we’ll hear some of that while we’re doing the public consultation as well.

This is exactly the time to raise those kinds of issues. We’re going through the process of preparing for the February budget, and it is the opportunity to be able to put those kinds of things on the table. So we’ll take it into account.

[12:55 p.m.]

P. Milobar: Thanks for the presentation.

Really, I just had a question around your intentions or how you’re planning on proceeding once we’re done with the consultations, what the people that will be showing up can expect your intentions are in terms of those recommendations that this group will be making and in terms of follow-through and deliverables.

I know, obviously, you can’t commit to the unknown right now. But what is your intention as the new Finance Minister to try to enact or act upon many of the recommendations?

Hon. C. James: Good question, and having sat around this committee, it’s exactly the kind of question I’ve asked, around the table: what happens to the recommendations once the report comes in?

I think some of that will depend on the report and the work of this committee. But I have to say, over the last number of years, I think there’s been a great effort made for the committee to bring forward recommendations that they were able to reach unanimously, as well as other things that they heard that they may not have reached unanimous consent on but wanted to recognize and report out in the report.

It’s something that I take very seriously. It is a report that is being done, timelines-wise, in order to build into the budget, in order to give an opportunity to be able to review all the issues that come forward.

I expect some of them may be things that we have thought about that are already there, as part of the commitments. There may be some new creative ideas, and I hope there are, because I think that’s exactly the opportunity we have through this budget consultation — to be able to take those ideas and bring new approaches forward.

They’ll be taken seriously. They’re there in time to be able to be built into the budget, if there are good ideas that we want to take forward, and we’ll be reviewing them all.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Minister. I have to cut the questions off there.

Thank you very much for your presentation, and for the questions.

Budget Consultation Process

B. D’Eith (Chair): Before everyone leaves, could we have a motion to deal with the schedule? The schedule has been put in front of everyone. It has been circulated, and it would be great if we could approve that right now. Ronna-Rae moves; Adam seconds.

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, everyone. Any other business at all?

Do we have to move to adjourn? Okay, good.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12:57 p.m.