How should the N.W.T. gov't spend its money? The territory wants your feedback

Raise taxes or cut services it's one of the areas the N.W.T. government wants your feedback on.

The territory is launching an online budget dialogue initiative this week. It's billing it as an opportunity for people to interact with the finance minister to learn how the budget works, while providing a chance for residents to offer their opinions about what they think the spending priorities should be.

The first of four presentations starts Thursday at 7 p.m. The ministry says it will share the results with the public by the end of August.

Residents also have theopportunity to fill out a survey on the same topic until the end of the month.

"We have to build this relationship and we have to be engaging people," said Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek during a media briefing Tuesday.

"The trade-offs and the balances always happen, and they're going to continue to happen. And the more dialed in we are to what's happening on the ground and how people feel about those trade-offs and those balances, I think the better job we're going to do serving everybody."

Wawzonek provided a sneak peak ofthe presentation to media. The slide show provides an overview of the territory's economic and fiscal situation.

It shows how the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a large chunk out of projected operating surpluses over the next few years.

We have to build this relationship and we have to be engaging people.- Caroline Wawzonek, finance minister

The 2020 budget initially projected a surplus of $203 million for the current fiscal year. The revised figure now sits at $121 million. The projected operating surplus for the 2021-22 fiscal year has also plummeted from an initial projection of $147 million down to $99 million.

"In other words, we simply do not have enough money to invest in the capital to meet the needs that have been identified in the 20-year capital needs plan," Wawzonek said.

"If we are looking at the long-term, we are going to have to consider how we can increase our surpluses to maintain that plan."

Borrow, cut or tax

The options, she explained, are to borrow more money, reduce spending, increase taxes or a combination of those two.

Borrowing can seem tempting, butit's not sustainable or fiscally responsible, she says.

Wawzonek says tax increases would have a limited impact, because 80 per cent of the territory's budget comes from federal transfers.

A harmonized sales tax of two per cent, for instance, would raise about $20 million in revenues, but it would also raise prices.

"At this point in time, we certainly have no set plans to do anything one way or the other. That's actually exactly why we wanted to start the conversation now in the summer and really get a feel back from the public at large and from sectors around their interest in these things," Wawzonek said.

"This is step one," she said."And I think it's a good step to be taking."

Yellowknife North MLA Rylund Johnson agrees.

"There's a huge education component that helps everyone in the territory understand the very difficult decisions and the very tight fiscal situation we're in, which in turn leads to [a] limited number of options," he said.

In the end, Johnson says that will mean certain programs will get funded, while others won't.

"I think that needs to be understood by the public."

He points to the N.W.T.'s aging energy infrastructure in "massive need of repair."

"The reality is the territory doesn't have the capital to maintain them, let alone build them."